by Cicero
the precedent … with Hadrianus: in c. 83 BC the repressive governor of Africa, Gaius Fabius Hadrianus, was burnt alive in his residence at Utica by the Roman citizens of the province (Ver. 2.1.70).
throughout a great many Punic and Sicilian wars: only two, in fact: the First and Second Punic Wars. There is a great deal of exaggeration for rhetorical effect in this paragraph.
the Syracusans saw the enemy … in the harbour: when the city was taken by Marcus Marcellus, entirely from land, in 211 BC.
the Athenian fleet of 300 ships: during the disastrous Athenian expedition against Sicily during the Peloponnesian War (415–413 BC). The figure 300 is a gross exaggeration. A hundred and thirty-four ships set out on the expedition, they were reinforced after losses by a further 73, and 75 and 110 Athenian ships respectively took part in the two battles in the Great Harbour.
the island of Ceres: Ceres (the Greek Demeter) was the goddess of growth, i.e. of crops. Her daughter Proserpina (Persephone) was believed to have been raped by Dis (Pluto) at Henna, a town in the centre of Sicily.
Gaius Sacerdos: the governor before Verres (see second note on § 55 above).
Sthenius of Thermae: one of Verres’ most prominent victims (and a client of Pompey’s); his story is told at Ver. 2.2.83–118. He did not protest when Verres stole his works of art, but did do so when he proceeded to remove the public statues of Thermae. Verres then had him prosecuted on a false charge of forgery. Sthenius fled to Rome where the consuls of 72 gave him their support by proposing a decree that no one in the provinces should be tried in absence on a capital charge; but the decree was talked out by Verres’ father and friends, and Sthenius was condemned in absence. The tribunes of 71 then carried a resolution in his favour, enabling him to remain in Rome; he did not return to Sicily. He later assisted Cicero in mounting his prosecution of Verres.
(yes, some of these people do have Latin names!): the jury would take crimes committed against Romans much more seriously than crimes committed against Greeks, and so Cicero draws attention to Furius’ nationality.
Titus Vettius: Verres’ brother-in-law and his quaestor at Syracuse in 72 and 71.
Publius Cervius: not elsewhere mentioned. On the rejection of jurors see first note on Ver. 10 above.
this frightened him … to Timarchides: Cicero assumes that the money went into Verres’ pocket; but Verres may have known nothing about the transaction (still less about the transactions related in the next paragraph).
The condemned men were shut up inside the prison: this paragraph was famous in antiquity, and is cited by Quintilian no fewer than nine times.
Publius Africanus: i.e. Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus, the destroyer of Carthage (146); see note on Ver. 14 above. The references to Scipio and Africanus later in the paragraph are also to him.
the seventeen peoples of Sicily: i.e. the seventeen who stayed loyal to Rome during the Second Punic War.
Once upon a time Scipio led your sailors: Cicero is now addressing the people of Tyndaris.
Segesta’s kinship with us: see second note on §83 above.
look at the filth and rags of our allies!: they are dressed in mourning (i.e. with shabby clothing, with the hair untended, and unshaven), to emphasize their wretched condition and their dependence on the favour of the jury. It was normal for the defendant to present himself in this way (the jury would take it amiss if he did not), and it may also have been normal (though evidence is lacking) for those associated with the prosecution to do so.
Sthenius of Thermae: see note on §109 above.
it is not Mars but Venus … determined the outcome: Mars (god of war) was often said to be indiscriminate; but in this case, Cicero says, it was Venus (goddess of sex) who was indiscriminate, because she allowed Nice (Cleomenes’ wife) to be shared between Cleomenes and Verres. This then determined the subsequent course of events (Cleomenes’ appointment as commander of the fleet, and the fleet’s capture by the pirates).
he ordered Servilius … a slave of Venus: Cicero will now relate how Verres abused legal procedures to destroy Servilius. First he summoned him away from his home town of Panhormus, where he would have local support, to reply to a spurious civil action at Lilybaeum. The plaintiff was allegedly a ‘slave of Venus’, i.e. a slave of the temple of Venus Erycina on Mt Eryx, the most important religious centre in Sicily (since Cicero does not make the obvious point that slaves could not bring lawsuits, this ‘slave’ was more probably a temple official of free status, perhaps of relatively high standing). However, the plaintiff, if he ever existed, did not turn up, leaving Servilius with no charge to answer. But Verres had got him where he wanted him, in Lilybaeum, and now attempted to force him to accept a kind of legal wager which would require Servilius to defend his reputation, by demonstrating that he ‘was not making a profit by theft’ (some scholars wrongly take this as referring to Verres). A sum of 2,000 sesterces (a substantial but not enormous amount) would be awarded against the challenger, one of Verres’ lictors, if Servilius successfully convinced a board of arbitrators that the allegation was groundless; but if he failed to convince them, the sum would be awarded against him. The arbitrators would be appointed by Verres from his staff, and in the event would inevitably find against Servilius, who would therefore be declared a criminal and punished. Naturally Servilius wanted to have nothing to do with this absurd wager, so Verres had him beaten until he accepted it. He died afterwards; Cicero leaves us with the impression, though does not explicitly state, that this was as a result of his beating. Then we have the unexpected ending to the story: Verres took a silver statue of Cupid from Servilius’ property (which was presumably all confiscated) and deposited it in the temple of Venus, in fulfilment, Cicero says, of some discreditable erotic vow. This behaviour of Verres appears uncharacteristic: normally we find him removing valuable items from temples, not depositing them there. His deposition of the Cupid is presumably connected in some way with the temple official and the original threatened action against Servilius. Perhaps the accusation was that Servilius had cheated the temple in some transaction, and Verres then provided the Cupid as a way of reimbursing the temple for its loss. The vow must surely be Cicero’s invention. At all events, we receive the impression here, not for the first time, that Cicero is not allowing us to know the full story.
Take the famous prison … the cruel tyrant Dionysius: i.e. by Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse from 405 to 367 BC; the historical detail is supplied because Cicero wishes to compare Verres with a tyrant. Immediately after these words the Latin text has ‘which is called the quarries’ (quae lautumiae vocantur). These words are objectionable on two counts. First, it is not strictly accurate to say that the prison was called the quarries. It was the quarries: the quarries existed first (the Athenian and allied captives were imprisoned in them in 413 BC, prior to Dionysius; cf. note on §68 above), and only later did Dionysius, on the evidence of this passage, make regular use of them as a formal prison. Secondly, the words assume that the reader is ignorant of the quarries, yet Cicero has already given us a highly memorable description of them at §68. I would therefore delete the words as an interpolation (with §68 the source of the information supplied), and have not translated them.
those people we have read about in the poets: most obviously the Laestrygonians in Homer, Odyssey 10.80–132.
Phalaris: of Acragas (Agrigentum), the first major Sicilian tyrant (c. 570–c. 549 BC). He was traditionally famous for his cruelty, and was said to have roasted his enemies alive in a brazen bull.
Charybdis or Scylla: further hazards encountered by Odysseus in the Odyssey (12.73–126, 234–59). Charybdis was a treacherous whirlpool in a narrow strait, Scylla a man-eating monster with six heads and twelve feet, who lived in a cave above Charybdis. In later mythology Scylla acquired a series of dogs’ heads round her waist, and other unusual attributes. The strait was traditionally identified as the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Italy; there is nothing resembling a whirlpool there.
Cyclops: in the Odyssey (9.105–542), the Cyclopes were a race of one-eyed giants living in a distant land; Odysseus was taken prisoner by one of them, Polyphemus (‘the Cyclops’, the son of Poseidon), and succeeded in escaping by blinding him. In Theocritus, Idyll 11, the Cyclops has become an ugly, rustic lover, and is located in Sicily.
soldiers … fled from Dianium: on Sertorius, see note on § 72 above. Dianium was his naval base, halfway down the east coast of Spain.
Lucius Suettius: probably a banker, and perhaps also a merchant.
Even if that were a possible line of defence: it was not, because the Syracusan records stated that some of the prisoners were executed.
‘Edikaiōthēsan,’ it says … ‘punished by execution’: in standard Greek, ‘edikaiōthēsan’ could mean ‘they were sentenced’ or ‘they were punished’. We only have Cicero’s word for it that in Sicily it referred exclusively to execution; but it seems unlikely that he could have got away with a false statement on this important point (which the defence could have quickly disproved were it untrue). It also seems quite plausible that Verres should have been unaware that the word was used in Sicily with a more specialized meaning than elsewhere. (But at Ver. 2.4.127 Cicero is obviously exaggerating when he claims that Verres knew no Greek at all.)
entwined … completely netted: the extensive hunting imagery in this paragraph is especially appropriate in view of the fact that ‘verres’, as well as being the name of Cicero’s adversary, is also the Latin word for ‘boar’.
from a more commanding position: the rostra. Cicero is hinting that if Verres is acquitted he will prosecute him before the plebeian assembly as aedile in 69.
fugitives from Spain: i.e. from Sertorius’ army (defeated by Pompey in 72).
that type of men: i.e. men who fought for Sertorius in Spain and then returned to Rome after their defeat—and, more generally, men who fought for Marius against Sulla a decade earlier (Cicero is starting to shift his ground, to prepare for a false argument: see next note but one).
(a man who … embezzled public money): on Verres’ desertion of Carbo, whose quaestor he had been, see Ver. 2 and 11 (with third note on Ver. 2 and note on Ver. 11, above). (Cicero is not referring to Dolabella here.)
he would have inflicted … in any part of Sicily: i.e. Verres would have executed all the surviving Marians in Rome and throughout the empire if they had chanced to come to Sicily while he was governor. Cicero’s argument in this (very complex) sentence is false: it does not by any means follow that, because Verres’ policy was to execute men who had just come from Sertorius’ army, he would also have been willing to execute men who had fought for Marius ten years earlier and had been peaceful since then.
Perperna: see note on §72 above.
that type of men: i.e. former Sertorian rebels.
a new proscription: a large-scale programme of legalized murder accompanied by confiscation of property, on the model of the original proscription of the dictator Sulla (in 82–81 BC), which was likewise directed against former Marians.
But it is not open to me … it is not open to me: in this paragraph Cicero continues to assume (absurdly) that it would help his case if Verres’ victims really were former Sertorian rebels rather than innocent merchants.
Puteoli: the most important port on the west coast of Italy south of Rome; it was 7 miles west of Naples. Ships bound for Puteoli would often come via Sicily.
Publius Granius: otherwise unknown; presumably not an eques, otherwise Cicero would have said so (as he does in the case of Flavius below).
Lucius Flavius: mentioned earlier at §15.
Lepcis: i.e. Lepcis Magna, on the north African coast, due south of Cape Pachynum.
Marcus Annius: mentioned earlier at §§73–4.
Consa: better known as Compsa, a town in central southern Italy, in Samnium but close to the border with Lucania, 57 miles due east of Naples. (It was where Milo was killed in 48 BC.)
Lucius Raecius: otherwise unknown.
the Porcian law and the Sempronian laws: there appear to have been three leges Porciae (Porcian laws) in the second century BC, designed to protect Roman citizens from summary justice by magistrates. One abolished the flogging of citizens; another extended beyond the city of Rome a citizen’s right of appeal (provocatio) to the people. The lex Sempronia (Sempronian law), on the other hand, was a law of Gaius Sempronius Gracchus (123 or 122 BC) prohibiting the execution of citizens except after trial before the people or in a court sanctioned by the people. So Roman citizens in the provinces who were considered by the governor to be potentially guilty of a criminal offence had a right to be sent under guard to Rome to have their case heard there (like St Paul), whether before the people directly at an assembly or in one of the permanent courts (which had been sanctioned by the people). Verres’ treatment of Gavius would have been legal only if Gavius’ claim to be a Roman citizen was (as Verres maintained) false.
the tribunician power … restored to them: see first note on Ver. 44 above.
Gaius Numitorius: otherwise unknown.
since Messana was founded: in c. 725 BC.
since they have given me … before them: by electing him aedile for 69 BC.
breaking the law themselves: the jurors, by accepting his bribes.
jurors that I myself have chosen and approved: Cicero did not in fact choose any jurors, though he did approve them in the sense that he did not reject them (on the rejection of jurors see first note on Ver. 10 above).
smeared not so much with wax as with mud: the voting-tablets were coated with wax; cf. Ver. 17 and 40 above, with notes.
your and your friends’ tyrannical domination of the courts: i.e. the exclusively senatorial juries imposed by Sulla in 81 BC.
on the day … tribunes of the plebs back: see first note on Ver. 44 above.
Quintus: for Cicero to address Hortensius by his first name in this way is presumptuous, very unusual, and very striking.
the text of a bill on new courts and juries has been published: i.e. the lex Aurelia, put forward by the praetor Lucius Aurelius Cotta, which Cicero speaks of as if it were going to prescribe exclusively equestrian juries (cf. ‘a different order’), but which in the event enacted a compromise, making juries effectively two-thirds equestrian and one-third senatorial.
the Roman people will put that juror on trial: i.e. at an assembly. Both of the alternatives proposed by Cicero in this sentence assume that the lex Aurelia will have been passed (and that it will have prescribed exclusively equestrian juries). A juror who has taken bribes will either be tried before the people, who will have voted for the lex Aurelia and whose hostility to senatorial jurors can therefore be assumed, or in the new court staffed by jurors from ‘a different order’ (§177): in either case, his conviction will be a foregone conclusion.
without them even having to get out of bed: elections began at the crack of dawn. Cicero was an early riser, doing much of his correspondence and his literary work in the early hours. In the passage which begins here, Cicero expresses the resentment felt by ‘new men’ such as himself towards the ‘nobles’ (for these terms, see Glossary); his aim is of course to convince the jury that he is serious in his threat to prosecute any jurors who accept bribes.
Marcus Cato: Marcus Porcius Cato the elder (234–149 BC), the new man from Tusculum who became consul in 195 and censor in 184. He was forever prosecuting his enemies, such as the Scipios and their friends, and was unusually severe in his revision of the senate. He may have been the author of the Porcian laws mentioned at §163.
Quintus Pompeius: another new man, the consul of 141 and, in 131, the first plebeian censor.
Gaius Fimbria, Gaius Marius, and Gaius Coelius: a further three new men who reached the consulship, Gaius Flavius Fimbria in 104, Gaius Marius (the enemy of Metellus Numidicus and Sulla) in 107, 104–100, and 86, and Gaius Coelius Caldus in 94.
It is impossible … we might perform: though Cicero did not know it, his subsequent career w
as to demonstrate the falsity of this statement.
whose royal offering: the reference is to a jewelled candelabrum which the two sons of Antiochus, king of Syria, had had specially made and were keeping ready to dedicate in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol once its rebuilding (see note on §48 above) was complete; Verres made the elder prince lend it to him, and then kept it. The sentence which begins here continues until the close of the speech (I was wrong in Defence Speeches to say in my second note on Mil. 72 that Mil. 72–5 is the longest sentence in Cicero: this is longer). In this translation I have stopped the sentence (not before time, some might feel) in the middle of §188.