Marcus Tullius Cicero

“ Marcus Junius, the uncle of the youth, a most frugal and temperate man, came to her; a man who shows his regard for his high rank by the greatest honour, and modesty, and attention to his duties. Publius Potitius, his guardian, came to her. Oh that praetorship of yours, bitter to many, miserable, scandalous? To say nothing of other points, with what shame, with what indignation, do you think that such men as these went to the house of a prostitute? ”

“ Why do you compel the son of your comrade to utter his first words in the forum with the voice of indignation and complaint? Why do you compel the wife of your comrade, the mother-in-law of your comrade, in short, the whole family of your dead comrade, to hear evidence against you? Why do you compel most modest and admirable women to come against their wont and against their will into so great an assembly of men? ”

“ How great do you think was the weeping of all Asia? How great the groans and lamentations of the citizens of Lampsacus, that innocent men, nobles, allies and friends of the Roman people, should be put to death by public execution, on account of the unprecedented wickedness and impious desires of one most profligate man? 77After this, O Dolabella, no one can pity either you or your children, whom you have left miserable, in beggary and solitude. Was Verres so dear to you, that you should wish the disappointment of his lust to be expiated by the blood of innocent men? ”

“ Who does not see that it would be an excellent thing for us in that case, if the Roman people were content with the punishment of that one criminal alone, and did not decide that he had not committed any greater wickedness against them when he plundered temples, when he murdered so many innocent men, when he destroyed Roman citizens by execution, by torture, by the cross,—when he released leaders of banditti for bribes,—than they, who, when on their oaths, acquitted a man covered with so many, with such enormous, with such unspeakable wickednesses? ”

“ Who would ever believe that Verres would be an adversary of women? or did he do something contrary to the interests of women, in order that the whole edict might not appear to have been drawn up at the will of Chelidon. He wishes, he says, to oppose the covetousness of men. Oh, certainly. Who, not only in the present age, but even in the times of our ancestors, was ever so far removed from covetousness? Recite what comes next, I beg; for the gravity of the man, his knowledge of the law, and his authority delight me. ”

“ Are we keeping back anything, O Hortensius, a trick which we have often seen practiced in pleading? Who ever attends much to the advocate in this sort of action, in which anything is said to have been carried off and stolen by any one? Is not all the expectation of the judges fixed on the documents or on the witnesses? I said in the first pleading that I would make it plain that Caius Verres had carried off four hundred thousand sesterces contrary to the law. ”

“ If the magnitude of the crime, if the opinion of men, had no influence on you, did this, too, never occur to you,—that so illustrious and so noble a city would he a witness against you of this most wicked theft, or rather of this most abominable robbery? ”

“ That noble and most honourable man is buffeted about in his own house; every one fights for his own safety. At last Philodamus has a quantity of boiling water thrown over him by Rubrius himself. When the news of this is brought to the son, half dead with alarm he instantly hastens home to bring aid to save the life of his father and the modesty of his sister. All the citizens of Lampsacus, with the same spirit, the moment they heard of it, because both the worth of Philodamus and the enormity of the injury excited them, assembled by night at his house. ”

“ It is inevitable that, when it has learnt to despair of the whole order, it should look for another class of men and another system of judicial proceedings. If this seems to you at all a trifling matter, because you think the being judges a grave and inconvenient burden, you ought to be aware, in the first place, that it makes a difference whether you throw off that burden yourselves, of your own accord, or whether the power of sitting as judges is taken away from you because you have been unable to convince the Roman people of your good faith and scrupulous honesty. ”

“ Will you take away their will from the dead,—their property from the living,—their rights from all men? Would not the Roman people have avenged itself by force if it had not reserved you for this occasion and for this trial? Since the establishment of the praetorian power, we have always adopted this principle,—that if no will was produced, then possession was given to that person who would have had the best right to be the heir, if the deceased had died intestate. ”

“ Who will believe us? Who shall we believe? What is there, O Verres which can ever be made plain by witnesses, if this is not made so? Or is that which they relate a small thing? It is nothing less than the praetor of the city establishing this law as long as he remains in office,--that the praetor ought to be co-heir with all those to whom an inheritance comes. And can we doubt with what language that fellow was accustomed to address the rest of the citizens of an inferior rank, of inferior authority, and of inferior fortune ”

“ Say rather, men, by nature, by custom, and by education most gentle; moreover, by condition, allies of the Roman people, by fortune our subjects, by inclination our suppliants—so that it is evident to all men, that unless the bitterness of the injury and the enormity of the wickedness had been such that the Lampsacenes thought it better to die than to endure it, they never would have advanced to such a pitch as to be more influenced by hatred of your lust—than by fear of your office as lieutenant. ”

“ Is it not so? 40When you were sent as quaestor to the army, not only as guardian of the money, but also of the consul; when you were the sharer in all his business and of all his counsels, when you were considered by him as one of his own children, according to the tenor of the principles of our ancestors; could you on a sudden leave him? desert him? pass over to the enemy? O wickedness! O monster to be banished to the very end of the world! For that nature which has committed such an atrocity as this cannot be contented with this one crime alone. ”

“ We, while alive, ought to take care and provide that their desolate condition and childhood may be secured by the strongest possible protection. For who is there who can defend the childhood of our children against the dishonesty of magistrates? Their mother, I suppose. No doubt, the mother of Annia, though a most noble woman, was a great protection to her when she was left a minor. No doubt she, by imploring the aid of gods and men, prevented him from robbing her infant ward of her father's fortunes. Can their guardians defend them? ”

“ Beyond all question, cruelty is the graver and more atrocious crime. Do you think then that these men have forgotten how that fellow was accustomed to beat the common people of Rome with rods? And indeed a tribune of the people touched on that matter in the public assembly, when he produced in the sight of the Roman people the man whom he had beaten with rods. ”

“ Certainly, for otherwise a defendant cannot be condemned, however guilty he may be. Were you, then, indignant that anything should be done by me to make it less easy for him to be condemned? For if the cause be understood, many men may be acquitted; if it be not understood, no one can be condemned. 26I injure him, it seems, for I take away the right of adjournment. The most vexatious thing that the law has in it, the allowing a cause to be twice pleaded, has either been instituted for my sake rather than for yours, or, at all events, not more for your sake than for mine. ”

“ Listen, I entreat you, O judges, and do sometimes pity our allies, and show that they ought to have, and that they have, some protection in your integrity.
29 Because the man appeared to all Asia to have been lawfully slain, being in name indeed his lictor, but in reality the minister of his most profligate desires, Verres feared that Philodamus would be acquitted by the sentence of Nero. He begs and entreats Dolabella to leave his own province, to go to Nero; he shows that he himself cannot be safe if Philodamus be allowed to live and at any time to come to Rome. ”

“ Read on—"According to the decree of the senate." In order to be allowed to give in accounts in such a manner as this, he became one of Sulla's party in an instant, and not for the sake of contributing to the restoration of honour and dignity to the nobility. Even if you had deserted empty-handed, still your desertion would be decided to be wicked, your betrayal of your consul, infamous. Oh, Cnaeus Carbo was a bad citizen, a scandalous consul, a seditious man. He may have been so to others: when did he begin to be so to you? ”

“ You should have imitated Quintus Voconius himself, who did not by his law take away her inheritance from any female whether virgin or matron, but established a law for the future, that no one who after the year of the existing censors should be enrolled in the census, should make either virgin or matron his heir. 108In the Voconian law, there is no "has made or shall have made." Nor in any law is time past ever implicated in blame, except in cases which are of their own nature wicked and nefarious, so that, even if there were no law, they would be strenuously to be avoided. ”

“ The genius of the man is marvellous; his prudence is marvellous. A man of the name of Minucius died while he was praetor. He left no will. By law his inheritance passed to the Minucian family. If Verres had issued the edict which all praetors both before and after him did issue, possession would have been given to the Minucian family. If any thought himself heir by will, though no will was known, he might proceed by law to put forward his claim to the inheritance; or if he had taken security for the claim, and given security, he then proceeded to try an action for his inheritance. ”

“ It is not alone demanded that, by his condemnation, their property may be restored to those from whom it has been taken away; but the insults offered to the religion of the immortal gods must be expiated, and the tortures of Roman citizens, and the blood of many innocent men, must be atoned for by that man's punishment. 9For we have brought before your tribunal not only a thief, but a wholesale robber; not only an adulterer, but a ravisher of chastity; not only a sacrilegious man, but an open enemy to all sacred things and all religion ”

“ He is joking when he orders Rabonius to give himself security. "Ready money is to be paid." Out of what funds? From his funds who cried out that he would do for eighty thousand sesterces what you let out at five hundred and sixty thousand. Out of what funds? out of the funds of a minor, whose tender age and desolate condition, even if he had no guardians, the praetor himself ought to protect. But as his guardians did protect him, you took away not only his paternal fortune, but the property of the guardians also. ”

“ And in these cases we see that many things are established by law in such a way that things done previously cannot be called in question—the Cornelian law the law about testaments, the law about money, and many others, in which no new law is established in the nation, but it is established that what has always been an evil action shall be liable to public prosecution up to a certain time. ”

“ Lucius Suetius, a man endowed with every accomplishment, speaks to them with an honesty and authority and conscientious veracity which they must trust; and he said on his oath before you that many Roman citizens had been most cruelly put to death, with every circumstance of violence, in his stone-quarries. ”

“ I made my conduct appear reasonable both to the judges and also to the Roman people. There is no one who thinks that their injustice and impudence could have been opposed by any other means. Indeed, how great would have been my folly, if, though I might have avoided it, I had allowed matters to come on on the day which they who had undertaken to deliver him from justice provided for in their undertaking, when they gave their undertaking to deliver him in these words—"If the trial took place on or after the first of January?" ”

“ He is the common enemy of all men who has once been the enemy of his own connections. No wise man ever thought that a traitor was to be trusted; Sulla himself, to whom the arrival of the fellow ought to have been most acceptable, removed him from himself and from his army: he ordered him to remain at Beneventum, among those men whom he believed to be exceedingly friendly to his party, where he could do no harm to his cause and could have no influence on the termination of the war. ”

“ Perhaps they are to be considered better accusers than I, who do all these things; but I wish the defender of others to be praised in my person, not the accuser. He does not dare bring in his accounts to the treasury before Dolabella is condemned. He prevails on the senate to grant him an adjournment; because he said that his account-books had been sealed up by the accusers of Dolabella; just as if he had not the power of copying them. This man is the only man who never renders accounts to the treasury. ”

“ As was the fellow's custom, and as his lusts always instigating him to commit some wickedness prompted him, he immediately gives a commission to his companions, the most worthless and infamous of men, to inquire and find out whether there is any virgin woman worthy of his staying longer at Lampsacus for her sake. ”

“ Caius Fannius, a Roman knight, the brother of Quintus Titinius, one of your judges, has said that he gave you money. Recite the evidence of Caius Fannius. [Read.] Pray do not believe Caius Fannius when he says this; do not believe—you I mean, O Quintus Titinius—do not believe Caius Fannius, your own brother. For he is saying what is incredible. He is accusing Caius Verres of avarice and audacity; vices which appear to meet in any one else rather than in him. ”