Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

SECTION

III.

ELOQUENCE OF THE BAR.

I. Cicero against Verrès

THE time is come, Fathers, when that which has long been wished for, towards allaying the envy your order has been fubject to, and removing the im putations against trials, is effectually put in our power. An opinion has long prevailed, not only here at home, but likewife in foreign countries, both dangerous to you and pernicious to the ftate, that, in profecutions, men of wealth are always fafe, however clearly convicted. There is now to be brought upon his trial before you, to the confufion, I hope, of the propagators of this slan, derous imputation, one whofe life and actions condemn him in the opinion of all impartial perfons; but who, according to his own reckoning and declared dependence upon his riches, is already acquitted; I mean Caius Verres. I demand justice of you, Fathers, upon the robber of the public treafury, the oppreffor of Afia Minor and Pamphylia, the invader of the rights and privileges of Romans, the fcourge and curfe of Sicily. If that fen tence is paffed upon him which his crimes deserve, your authority, Fathers, will be venerable and facred in the eyes of the public; but if his great riches fhould bias you in his favour, Ifhall still gain one point, to make it ap parent to all the world, that what was wanting in this cafe, was not a criminal nor a profecutor, but justice and adequate punishment.

To país over the fhameful irregularities of his youth, what does his quæftorfhip, the firft- ublic employment he held, what does it exhibit, but one continued fcene of villanies? Cneius Carbo plundered of the public mo⚫ ney by his own treasurer, a consul stripped and betrayed, an army deferted and reduced to want, a province robbed, the civil and religious rights of a people violated. The employment he held in Afia Minor and Pamphylia, what did it produce but the ruin of those countries? in

Z. 2

which

which houses, cities, and temples were robbed by him. What was his conduct in his prætorfhip here at home? Let the plundered temples, and public works neglected that he might embezzle the money intended for carrying them on, bear witnefs. How did he discharge the office of a judge? Let those who suffered by his injuftice anfwer. But his prætorfhip in Sicily crowns all his works of wickedness, and finishes a lasting monument to his infamy. The mischiefs done by him in that unhap py country, during the three years of his iniquitous adminiftration are fuch, that many years, under the wisest and best of prætors, will not be futficient to restore things to the condition in which he found them: for it is notorious, that, during the time of his tyranny, the Sicilians neither enjoyed the protection of their own original Jaws, of the regulations made for their benefit by the Roman fenate upon their coming under the protection of the commonwealth, nor of the natural and unalienable rights of men. His nod has decided-all caufes in Sicily for these three years. And his decifions have broke all law, ali precedent, all right. The fums he has, by arbitrary taxes and unheard-of impofitions, extorted from the induftrious poor, are not to be compu ted. The most faithful allies of the commonwealth have been treated as enemies. Roman citizens have, like flaves, been put to death with tortures. The most attrocious criminals, for money, have been exempted from the deserved punishments; and men of the most anexceptionable characters condemned and banished unheard. The harbours, though fufficiently fortified, and the gates of trong towns, opened to pirates and ravagers. The foldiery and failors, belonging to a province under the protection of the commonwealth, starved to death. Whole fleets, to the great detriment of the province, fuffered to perish. The ancient monuments of either Sicilian or Roman greatnefs, the ftatues of heroes and princes, carried off; and the temples ftripped of the images. Having, by his iniquitous fentences, filled the prifons with the most induftrious and deferving of the people, he then proceeded to order numbers of Romen. citizens to be ftrangled in the gaols; fo that the exclamation," I am a citizen of Rome !" which has often,

in the most distant regions, and among the most barbarous people, been a protection, was of no fervice to them; but, on the contrary, brought a speedier and more fevere punishment upon them.

I ask now, Verres, what you have to advance against this charge? Will you pretend to deny it? Will you pretend, that any thing falfe, that even any thing aggrava ted, is alleged against you? Had any prince, or any ftate, committed the fame outrage against the privilege of Roman citizens, fhould we not think we had fufficient ground for declaring immediate war against them? What punishment ought, then, to be inflicted upon a tyrannical and wicked prætor, who dared, at no greater distance than Sicily, within fight of the Italian coaft, to put to the infamous death of crucifixion that unfortunate and innocent citizen Publius Gavius Cofanus, only for his having afferted his privilege of citizenship, and declared his intention of appealing to the juftice of his country against a cruel oppreffor, who had unjustly confined him in prifon at Syracufe, whence he had juft made his efcape? The unhappy man, arrested as he was going to embark for his native country, is brought before the wicked prætor. With eyes darting fury, and a coun tenance diftorted with cruelty, he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be stripped, and rods to be brought; accusing him, but without the least shadow of evidence, or even of fufpicion, of having come to Sicily as a spy. It was in vain that the unhappy man cried out, “I am a Roman citizen: I have served under Lucius Pretius, who is now at Panormus, and will atteft my innocence." The blood-thirsty prætor, deaf to all he could urge in his own defence, ordered the infamous punishment to be inflicted. Thus, Fathers, was an innocent Roman citizen publicly mangled with fcourging; whilst the only words he uttered amidst his cruel fufferings were, "I am a Roman citizen !” With these he hoped to defend himself from violence and infamy. But of fo little fervice was this privilege to him, that while he was thus afferting his citizenship, the order was given for his execution for his execution upon the cross !—

Oliberty found once delightful to every Roman ear!-O facred privilege of Roman citizenship!-once

[ocr errors]

facred!

[ocr errors]

facred!--now trampled upon !-But what then!: Is it come to this? Shall an inferiour magiftrate, a governour, who holds his whole power of the Roman people, in a Roman province, within fight of Italy, bind, fcourge, torture with fire and red hot plates of iron, and at laft put to the infamous death of the crofs, a Roman citizen? Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, nor the tears of pitying fpectators, nor the majesty of the Roman commonwealth, nor the fear of the juftice of his country, reftrain the licentious and wanton cruelty of a monster, who, in confidence of his riches, ftrikes : at the root of liberty, and fets mankind at defiance ?

I conclude with expreffing my hopes, that your wif dom and justice, Fathers, will not, by fuffering the atrocious and unexampled infolence of Caius Verres to escape the due punishment, leave room to apprehend. the danger of a total fubverfion of authority, and intro duction of general anarchy and confufion.

MY LORDS,

II. Cicero for Mila.

THAT you may be able the more eafily to determine

upon this point before you, I fhall beg the favour of an attentive hearing, while, in a few words, I lay open the whole affair. Clodius being determined, when created prætor, to harafs his country with every species of oppreffion, and finding the comitia had been delayed fo long the year before, that he could not hold this office. many months, all on a fudden threw up his own year, and referved himself to the next; not from any religi ous fcruple, but that he might have, as he said himself, a full, entire year for exercifing his prætorfhip; that is, for overturning the commonwealth. Being fenfible he must be controled and cramped in the exercise of his prætorian authority under Milo, who, he plainly faw, would be chofen conful by the unanimous confent of the Roman people; he joined the candidates that oppofed Milo, but in fuch a manner that he overruled them in every thing, had the fole management of the election, and, as he used often to boast, bore all the comitia up on his own shoulders. He affembled the tribes; he thruft limself into their counfels, and formed a new tribe of

the

the most abandoned of the citizens. The more confufion and difturbance he made, the more Milo prevailed. When this wretch, who was bent upon all manner of wickedness, faw that fo brave a man, and his most inveterate enemy, would certainly be conful; when he perceived this, not only by the difcourfes, but by the votes of the Roman people, he began to throw off all difguife, and to declare openly that Milo must be killed. He often intimated this in the fenate, and declared it exprefsly before the people; infomuch that when Favonius, that brave man, aked him what profpect he could have of carrying on his furious defigns, while Milo was alive-he replied, that in three or four days at moft he should be taken out of the way: which reply Favonius immediately communicated to Cato.

In the mean time, as foon as Clodius knew, (nor indeed was there any difficulty to come at the intelligence) that Milo was obliged by the 18th of January to be at Lanuvium, where he was dictator, in order to nominate a priest, a duty which the laws rendered neceffary to be performed every year; he went fuddenly from Rome the day before, in order, as appears by the event, to waylay Milo in his own grounds; and this at a time when he was obliged to leave a tumultuous affembly, which he had fummoned that very day, where his prefence was neceffary to carry on his mad defigns; a thing he never would have done, if he had not been desirous to take the advantage of that particular time and place for perpetrating his villany. But Mile, after having ftaid in the fenate that day till the house was broke up, went home, changed his cloaths, waited a while, as ufual, till his wife had got ready to attend him, and then fet forward about the time that Clodius, if he had proposed to come back to Rome that day, might have returned. He meets. Clodius near his own eftate, a little before fun-fet, and is immediately attacked by a body of men, who throw their darts at him from an eminence, and kill his coachman. Upon which he threw off his cloak, leaped from his chariot, and defended himself with great bravery. In the mean time Clodius's attendants drawing their fwords,, fome of them ran back to the chariot in order to attack Milo in the rear; whilst others, thinking that he was

already

« AnteriorContinua »