CICERO. 



467 



(Jicero. So Tuily paus'd, amid the wrecks of time, 



_ /- * On the rude stone, to trace the truth sublime ; 



When at his feet, in honour'd dust disclosed, 

 Th' immortal sage of Syracuse reposed Room;. 



After his year of questorship, he returned to the Ro- 

 man bar, and was elected sedile by the universal suffrages 

 of the tribes. The aediles were police magistrates, whose 

 duty was to take care of the public buildings, to inspect 

 the markets, weights and measures, and to regulate the 

 shows and public festivals. At this period, in the strength 

 of his powers, and progress of his honours, he was called 

 upon by the Sicilians to accuse Verres, their base and 

 violent oppressor. Verres, guilty as he was, had the 

 support of the powerful at Rome. The great men, who 

 regarded it as one of the rights of office to fleece the pro- 

 vinces assigned to their charge, made common cause with 

 him, and used every means to disarm the laws. Cicero 

 demanded three months and a half to go to Sicily, and 

 collect proofs against the culprit ; but aware that it was 

 in view to postpone the trial till next year, when the 

 friends of Verres were expected to be the praetor and 

 consuls, he collected his facts in 50 days, brought his evi- 

 dence to Rome like a thunderbolt on the accused, and 

 Ay one speech, in which he produced witnesses of every 

 fact, confounded his adversary Hortensius, and raised 

 such a storm of indignation against Verres, that he was 

 advised not to wait for judgment, but to betake himself 

 to exile. The lenity of Roman law did not seek for far- 

 ther vengeance on a Roman citizen, when he went volun- 

 tarily into banishment. Verres, whose crimes deserved 

 an hundred deaths, fell afterwards a victim to Octavius 

 and Anthony. Having refused to the latter some Co- 

 rinthian vases and Greek statues, of which he had plun- 

 dered the Sicilians, he was proscribed ; and Vtrrcs and 

 Cicero died by the same persecution. 



On this occasion, the only one, as Cicero boasted, in 

 which he had hitherto appeared as an accuser, he pro- 

 nounced only two orations, but left five others as models 

 of the style in which an accusation should be supported 

 in all its parts. The two last of his Verrine orations are 

 regarded as the maoterpieces. The object of one of them 

 is to expose the rapine and injustice of Verres, the other 

 his more wanton barbarities. The first is remarkable for 

 the variety and richness of its detail, the interest and pic- 

 turesqucness of its narrative, and, above all, by the art 

 which he employs to prevent satiety in a serks of rob- 

 beries; the other is still more admirable for its vehemence 

 and pathos. It displays all the resources which the ora- 

 tor can bring, to work upon the hearts of his audience, 

 and to excke their moral indignation. A frightful pic- 

 ture, indeed, those speeches exhibit of the Roman gover- 

 nors in their arbitrary use of " brief authority," and a full 

 display of the desolate corruption which had grown over 

 the stagnated justice of Roman law.* At the time that 

 Verres was entrusted with the prxtorship of Sicily, its 

 sea -coasts were infested by pirates, and though the prz- 

 tor's duty was to support a fleet for the protection of 

 commerce, he employed that trust only as the means of 

 new exactions. Obliging the soldiers and sailors to pur- 

 chase immunity for their services on board the defensive 



fleet, he manned it so imperfectly, or rather so totally Cicero, 

 dismantled it, that it was wholly unlit for service. At ' ' < "" 

 the head of this miserable squadron he put not a Roman, 

 as he was bound to do by law, but a Sicilian, Cleomenes, 

 whose wife was the praetor's mistress. At the first sight 

 of the pirates, the Roman fleet took to flight, Cleomenes 

 setting the example. The pirates burnt their deserted 

 ships, and entered Syracuse in triumph. This disgrace 

 to the Roman arms made considerable uproar at Rome. 

 It was notorious, that the captains of the galleys had act- 

 ed from necessity, as they had only followed their admi- 

 ral in vessels which could not have fought the pirates. 

 Yet Verres brought those innocent men loaded with irons 

 to imprisonment and trial. Cleomenes was alone except- 

 ed from accusation, though he had fled first. On the 

 contrary, he took his seat at the side of the praetor, and 

 was seen as usual familiarly talking with him. The men 

 of the most respectable birth and character in Sicily, 

 when they pleaded their cause, were threatened with 

 death if they uttered the name of Cleomenes, and, when 

 they alluded to the true causes of their retreat, were 

 struck over the eyes, at the command of Verres, by the 

 lictors. When the dreadful sentence was passed, its 

 horrors were even extended to their relatives. Parents, 

 says the orator, were interdicted the sight of their chil- 

 dren ; they durst not bring them clothing or food. 

 Stretched before the thresholds of their prisons, there 

 did miserable mothers pass the night in tears, without 

 being able to obtain a last embrace of their sons. There 

 they sought as a favour to breathe the last sighs of the 

 condemned, but they sought it in vain. It was there, 

 that the barbarous servant of Verres, the lictor Sergius, 

 the terror of the citizens, established a revenue from the 

 agonies and tears of the unfortunate. So much he asked 

 for leave to visit your child ; so much to give him food. 

 Nobody refused it. What will you give me to make 

 your son die by one blow, that he shall not suffer pro- 

 tracted pain ? Horrible trade of tyranny, when life was 

 not sold as a favour, but the promptitude of death itself. 

 But does the outrage on humanity stop here, or can bar- 

 barity itself go farther ? Yes, says the tyrant, when 

 they have been executed, their bodies shall be exposed to 

 beasts of prey ; and the parents of the unfortunate must 

 purchase a privilege to bury them. Such were some of 

 the facts, all substantiated by evidence, which Cicero 

 charged against this culprit with strong and pathetic 

 eloquence. When he comes to the particular case of 

 Gavius, he exhibits a most minute and strong case of op- 

 pression, which makes even at this day the reader's blood 

 boil with indignation ; but must have reused still strong- 

 er sensations in the bosoms of his audience, as he appeal- 

 ed to a principle, which was absolutely religious in the 

 Roman iniud, namely the respect which WHS maintained 

 for the name of a Roman citizen. Is it lawful, said St 

 Paul, to scourge a Roman ? That sacred title the great- 

 est power durst not violate with impunity ; and the re- 

 public was ready to carry warto the utmost corner of the 

 world, to avenge an outrage committed on a single citi- 

 zen, a sublime principle, which imposed respect for the 

 Roman name on the fiercest barbarians, while it taught 

 the people themselves to love its value. In the case of 



There was not a considerable estate in Sicily disposed of by will, where Verres had not his emissaries at work to 6nd some flaw 

 in the title, or some omission in executing the conditions of the testator, as a ground of extorting money from the heir. The tenths 

 of the corn in all the conquered towns of Sicily belonged to the Romans, as it had formerly belonged to their own princes. By an 

 outrageous edict respecting those tithes, Verres threw the property of the whole island into the power of his ofliccrs, to whom be 

 fanned the taxes, who seized the whole crops, and obliged the owners to compound ut mercy for what was left to them. From the 

 registers that were kept in every town, it appeared, that during three years of Verres's government, above two-thirds of all the far- 

 mers had deserted their farms, and left their lands uncultivated. Montesquieu tells us of savages in Louisiana, who cut down the 

 tree in order to get the fruit. Behold, says be, an emblem of despotic policy ! 



