When the time was past, however, the Sicilians determined to bring Verres to justice if it were possible, by demanding restitution of money extorted from them. Verres belonged to that aristocratic party, which had always employed for its defender the famous Hortensius, called the ‘King of the Forum.’ Cicero had made himself beloved by the Sicilians during his quaestorship in the west, and he advised them to bring a collective action. Excepting Messina, which Verres had highly favoured, and Syracuse, all the principal cities sent deputations to Rome to represent them.
It is not my intention to enter into all the elaborate proceedings which made up the trial of the great thief. His friends attempted everything legal and illegal in the hope of preventing the case from coming to a hearing. Cicero was without doubt the advocate chosen by the Sicilian people for the prosecution, but an accomplice of the accused made a formal attempt to be chosen in Cicero’s place, and the first of the Verrine orations was delivered in order to dispose of this adversary. Cicero then asked for an interval of one hundred and ten days before the trial, to admit of his travelling through Sicily in order to collect evidence. This was no sooner granted than the friends of Verres trumped up a suit of a similar nature to recover a claim for alleged extortions in Achaia, for which an interval of only one hundred and eight days was asked, in order that this suit might be called before that of Verres, thus putting off the latter’s case indefinitely. Cicero departed at once upon his journey, although the friends of Verres hindered him at every step, especially in Syracuse, where the new governor exercised a good deal of influence in favour of the accused man, the great lawyer had no difficulty in collecting such a mass of evidence as made the criminal’s acquittal almost impossible. On the other hand the friends of Verres displayed the utmost activity; they made unsuccessful attempts to bribe Cicero himself, and, failing in this, they spread the report that he had received the bribes which he had refused. The judges were also above corruption. Verres, however, by a liberal expenditure of money, succeeded in bringing about the election of his lawyer, Hortensius, and of his friend, Quintus Metellus, to be consuls in the following year. The governor of Sicily was a brother of this Metellus, and another brother was designated as supreme judge of the court before which the case was to be tried. The court itself, however, as is well known, consisted practically of jurymen, which each side possessed the right of challenging. The plan of the defence was to protract the proceedings into the following year, and this was not by any means an impossibility, as the courts did not sit during the long periods set apart for public games at the close of the year, and it was expected that the prosecution would consume many weeks in hearing evidence. Witnesses had been collected from every part of the Roman dominions, from Asia Minor, from Sicily, from the islands of Lipari and Malta, and thousands of persons, not themselves interested in the trial, had travelled to Rome out of curiosity, to be present at the great judicial conflict before the games began. The suit at last opened in the temple of Castor and Pollux in the Forum. It is said that the roofs of the surrounding houses, the porticos and the steps of the temples, were thronged by the vast multitude of those who had been robbed by Verres, who mourned the parents and brethren he had murdered, and whose inheritance had been taken from them to swell his enormous hoard. There were men, women and children even from the shores of the Black Sea, from Mount Taurus and from Greece; there were noble Greeks and Phoenicians of ancient lineage, officials ruined and wrongfully disgraced, and priests from the temples whence the governor had collected his magnificent gallery of statues, pictures and precious vessels. Cicero was pressed for time; the games, which must cause a suspension of the proceedings, were at hand; his case was very strong, and he determined to let it rest upon the evidence alone. Instead of making a long address, he began by the examination of the witnesses, and from the first day the defence was ruined. Hortensius made a feeble attempt to change the course of the proceedings, and then almost immediately threw up the case and advised Verres to leave Rome. He did so without delay, and conveyed himself and the greater part of his ill-gotten wealth to Marseilles, where he was suffered to live unmolested for many years. Had he awaited the verdict, he would at most have been exiled, but he might have suffered the confiscation of his property. Cicero composed the remainder of the Verrine orations from the reports of the trial and from his own notes, and published them as an account of the greatest judicial triumph he had as yet achieved. Verres lived to hear of Cicero’s execution under the proscription proclaimed by Mark Antony, and which was his own death warrant, for his name was on the list. It is recorded that he died with the courage and equanimity of a good and brave man, but he is by no means the only great criminal in history who has behaved with firmness and even dignity when confronted with the executioner.
Thus ended the famous trial, not indeed with any restitution of goods stolen and extorted from the oppressed Sicilians, nor with any adequate punishment of the chief offender, but at least in a public act which was on the side of justice, and for which Rome deserves some credit in the stormy days that preceded the final overthrow of the republic.
In the great struggle between Julius Caesar and the party of the Senate, Sicily played no great part. When Julius Caesar determined to occupy the island, Marcus Porcius Cato withdrew at once, advising the Sicilians to make no useless resistance. Later, Pompey the Great burned a number of Caesar’s ships when they were fitting out in the harbour of Messina. In 47 B.C., when Caesar carried war into Africa, Sicily was once more a base of operations, and the conqueror gathered his fleet in Lilybaeum, as both the Scipios had done before him. It was his intention to extend the rights of citizenship to the inhabitants of the island, and he seems to have granted favours of this nature to several cities; but his murder checked the extension of civilization, and when Mark Antony passed a law making all Sicilians Roman citizens it was merely for the sake of obtaining a large sum of money, and was never carried out. In 43 B.C., during Octavian’s wars, Sextus Pompeius, the great Pompey’s son, succeeded in getting possession of the whole island almost without striking a blow, most probably by promising the Sicilians the long-coveted rights of citizenship.
In the division of the Roman possessions among the triumvirs, Augustus, still called Octavian, took Africa, Sardinia, and Sicily. Sicily was of the highest importance to him as being the granary from which Rome derived her corn, and being still in the possession of Sextus it was evidently necessary for Octavian to drive him out before taking any other steps to extend his power. But he did not succeed at once; his fleet came into conflict with that of Sextus in the Straits of Messina, where his officers and seamen were at a disadvantage owing to their ignorance of the currents, and withdrew from the fight as far as the place now called Bagnara. Sextus remained in possession.
After the battle of Philippi, Sicily was the only part of the great Roman territory which was not yet in the power of the triumvirate, and became a refuge for all those who were unwilling to submit to its dictation. The continuation of the civil war and the differences which arose between the triumvirs left Sextus for some time in undisputed possession of the island, and before long he found it advantageous to attempt an alliance with Mark Antony. The wise Octavian, however, used more diplomatic means for preventing such a friendship, and took to wife Scribonia, whose niece was the wife of Sextus. Antony, who at first had not accepted the latter’s overtures, now appealed to him directly for help, in order to attack Southern Italy; but Octavian promptly reconciled himself with Antony, and the latter sent Sextus back to his island. He, however, fully understanding the strength of his position, continued to control the price of bread in Rome by hindering or facilitating the export of corn from Sicily at his pleasure. He at last succeeded in obtaining a sort of acknowledgment of his rights over Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, with the neighbouring islands, and Achaia, for a period as long as that during which Octavian and Antony were to hold the territories allotted to them; and in return for these dominions and other advantages he was to pro
vide Rome with corn and he was to marry his daughter to Octavian’s nephew. But the treaty was unsound and the peace it concluded was of short duration. It was signed at Baiae, close to Misenum, in 39 B.C., and the generals feasted each other with great rejoicing.
In the following year one of the generals of Sextus betrayed Sardinia and Corsica to Octavian, who had not meant to abide by the treaty if he could get any advantage by breaking it. Sextus sent a fleet up the coast to attack Octavian’s ships, and defeated them off Cumae, just north of Misenum; in a duel which was fought between the two admirals, when their ships had grappled each other, Menecrates, who fought for Sextus, was wounded in the thigh with a barbed dart and sprang overboard rather than be taken; but his ships were victorious after his death. More than once after this Octavian made attempts to land in Sicily before he at last succeeded. He lost most of a new fleet in a gale of wind in the Straits of Messina, and set himself to make their preparations. He built and collected three fleets, one at Baiae in the basinlike lagoon now called the Mare Morto or “dead sea,” one at Tarentum, one in an African harbour. The date of sailing was fixed, the same for all three, and two were commanded by the triumvirs Octavian and Lepidus in person. A furious southwester destroyed most of Octavian’s ships in the bay of Velia just north of Cape Palinurus, if not on the awful rocks of the grim promontory; Antony’s fleet ran back to shelter in Tarentum; that of Lepidus, being before the wind, made Lilybaeum, and he marched across Sicily to Messina, claiming Sicily for himself. When at last the others could put to sea again, Octavian landed in Sicily and brought the war to a decisive issue in a battle near Mylae, now Milazzo, in the month of August, 36 B.C. Sextus Pompeius fled to the East, and his domination was at an end. In the following year, when attempting to found an independent power in Asia, he fell into the hands of one of Antony’s generals and was put to death. The battle of Naulochus, near Milazzo, was not the end of Octavian’s wars; he had not yet cleared the world of his adversaries; Lepidus indeed surrendered when his soldiers deserted him, and he begged for his life upon his knees, but Actium had not yet been fought and Antony had not stabbed himself in Egypt.
From the date of Octavian’s conquest the position of Sicily began to change, and it was long before it again assumed a similar importance in history. With the empire began a period of peace and of agricultural development which raised the island to the height of prosperity; it had been demonstrated that no one could hold Rome who did not hold the granary whence Rome obtained her daily bread, and the emperors held it fast for centuries and bestowed exceptional care upon its good management. It had suffered severely during the wars of Sextus Pompeius, and Augustus sent a colony of Romans to Syracuse. The city, once •seventeen miles in circumference, comprising five cities in one, had shrunk till it consisted of Ortygia and a small part of Achradina, much as it is to‑day. Colonies were established in like manner in many other cities of the island and even in Panormus, and the Latin influence began to be felt throughout the country, though not in such a manner as at first threatened the generally Greek spirit and the almost universal use of the Greek language. Brigandage had become a permanent evil, and was never again stamped out. The world-famous temple of Aphrodite on the war-worn heights of Eryx lost its importance, and but a few priests and priestesses remained there. In the interior many of the smaller towns were become shepherds’ hamlets. Holm criticises many of these statements, which are taken from Strabo, as being much exaggerated, and the judgment of the master historian of Sicily cannot be treated lightly. But we must not forget the simile of the factory, and for the time being, during the wars of Sextus, the fires were extinguished, and the country must have assumed that desolate air which is characteristic of any agricultural region when agriculture is temporarily checked. The flocks and herds live on, though they may not multiply, from year to year, and the shepherd and herdsman drive their charge to pasture in lonely valleys, preserving a sort of wealth that does not easily perish all at once. But where no corn is planted, no corn will grow, and where the stubble of last year stands in the unploughed field, there it will rot, while the plough rusts beside the desolate hut, and the starving people wander among the woods and mountains, living on roots and wild fruit, or snaring the small game when they have the skill. If the island had not suffered very much, Augustus would not have thought it necessary to recolonize so much of it. The Roman farmers were far less skilful than the Greeks and the colonists were probably not the best of agriculturists; it was not to teach the islanders that thousands of Italians were sent among them, but rather to replenish the exhausted population, and to revive the country, that its matchless soil might bear corn enough to feed Rome, instead of only grazing cattle which could be raised as well elsewhere. It is stated that the colonists were given land that belonged to the state, and that the original landholders were not deprived of any property. To make this possible, as it was, great tracts of ownerless country must have been lying fallow.
Yet the cities were not ruined, and the old vitality was not dead in them. With the increased safety of the open country, the life spread out again in all directions, less Greek than before, and more Roman, but classic still and full of a certain free beauty that could not be stamped out by anything short of universal destruction. The Greek blood was mixed and tainted, but it was Greek still. Even to‑day, there are towns, such as Piana dei Greci, near Palermo, where the language is spoken altogether, after nearly two thousand and five hundred years. It is easy to guess how thoroughly Hellenic Sicily must still have been in the days of Augustus, when Greek was the fashionable language of Roman society, and Greek art was the delight of every man who was rich enough to own a statue or a picture. It is hard to understand why Romans thought it such bitter hardship to be exiled to Sicily that they sometimes preferred death to such a fate. They must have loved their city with almost childish attachment of the true Parisian for Paris.
Until the completion of the Roman conquest Sicily had preserved a sort of independence of character, with peculiarities of manners and customs which were not only Greek, but individual and different from all that characterized the southern mainland. It was the intention of Augustus to make the south altogether homogeneous with the rest of Italy, and though this was never completely accomplished either by him or his successors, it was chiefly by his efforts that the great change was brought about. Before the Roman conquest, it would not have occurred to any one to think of Sicily otherwise than as an extension of Greece; since then, it has been impossible to consider it except as a part of Italy. It never was at any time the residence of a Roman emperor, but some of the more important emperors visited it from time to time. Augustus spent some months in the island in 22 and 21 B.C. at the time when he created the Roman colonies. Caligula is recorded to have fled from Messina by night, frightened by an eruption of Etna, and to have celebrated games in Syracuse. Hadrian was in Sicily 126 A.D. and it is an undoubted fact that he made the ascent of the volcano at this time. Septimius Severus, before becoming emperor, was proconsul in Sicily.
The Roman influence to which the island was now subjected was strong enough to check the development of Greek culture, though not to destroy the Greek character of the people; and though an occasional rhetorician such as Caecilius of Calacte or Sextus Clodius acquired some reputation, Sicily produced neither poets nor historians of importance, and the art of that period shows rapid degeneration.
Although it may be said on the whole that what remains of ancient monuments in the island is by nature Greek, yet with the exception of the great temples, and not even excepting all of these, there is not much that has not suffered from what the Romans doubtless called improvement. In Syracuse, for instance, it seems certain that the Greek theatre was ‘improved’ by the Romans, and that the original simplicity of the noble stage was marred by the introduction of more or less degenerate ornaments. The same and more may be said of the amphitheatre, which must have been repeatedly enlarged and adorned.
The theatre of Taormina is
one of the most completely Roman buildings in Sicily, though it undoubtedly occupies the site of the Greek theatre which preceded it. If it is one of the most beautiful spots in the whole known world, this is not due to the skill of the Roman builders, but rather to the astounding contrasts of nature which fall within the view, the vast height of the snow-capped volcano, the smooth enamel of the southern sea, the bold but strangely graceful curves of the hills on the right, the sheer fall of the land on the left, the incredible wealth of colour in nature, and the depth of the airy perspective in which every separate distance has a separate value, from the furthest line of the horizon to the soft outlines of the Calabrian hills, from the misty crown of Etna to the near fortress of Mola high on the right; and then, nearer still, to the rich brown ruin of the Roman stage at the spectator’s feet. Standing on the highest tier of the theatre, a single column rears its graceful shape against the distance, insignificant before the whole, as a moment in the midst of eternity, but lovely with all the beauty that a single moment may contain. No Greek would have reared a gallery of columns above the theatre, but one may well forgive the bad taste of the Roman architect for the sake of the something romantic which never could have been Greek, and which clings to the ruins of his work. The traveller pauses and asks himself, perhaps in vain, why it is that a stronger human interest lies in the ruins of Roman buildings than in any of the exquisite monuments preserved to us from Grecian times; why the Coliseum, which is really hideous, has a far stronger hold upon our feelings than the Parthenon, which expresses the highest conception of genius; why the single column in the theatre of Taormina touches the heart, whereas the superb theatre of Syracuse, faultless at almost every point, only imposes upon the judgment and pleases the taste; or why the fane of Hera at Girgenti, noble and perfect under a perfect sky, has not the power of stirring deep memories with a thrill of imaginative life which is felt in every shadowy corner and gloomy recess of the catacombs below San Giovanni in Syracuse. The more often such a question presents itself, the harder it is to answer. Romance and beauty are neither the same, nor do they proceed from the same source; the one is often most abundantly present where the other is most completely lacking; beauty of form, of thought, and of execution was almost a prerogative of the early Greeks. This is so certain that the mere word Greek is often used in English and in other languages as synonymous with beautiful. We say ‘Greek features,’ and we mean the most perfect features found in humanity; we say Greek art, and we mean the highest things that art has ever thought or done; Greek philosophy is the source of all our philosophic thought, the Greek epic poem is almost unrivalled and wholly unsurpassed, the Greek play is the inimitable model after which the playwrights of the world have shaped their tragedies and their comedies ever since. Yet, to most men, the Greeks themselves, as we seem to know them, with their refinements, their sensitive taste, their talent for treachery, and their genius for art, are no more sympathetic than the Japanese, who possess many of the same characteristics, much of the same sensibility, and an artistic culture which in its way is quite as unrivalled as anything of which Greece could boast. The parallel might be carried far, and the recent general interest which the world has taken in Japan has collected abundant materials for an extensive comparison, of which the Japanese themselves may be justly proud. But so far as human nature is concerned, so far as their thoughts appeal to our thoughts, their motives to our motives, their ideal of honour to ours, they might as well be inhabitants of another planet; and they doubtless smile at the unceasing efforts of modern Europeans to understand them, precisely as the subtle Greek was secretly amused by the Roman’s clumsy attempts to imitate him.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1426