Against Verres. Marcus Tullius Cicero

Against Verres - Marcus Tullius Cicero


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of time to pass free from crime, I have not been able to ascertain fully every iniquity which has been committed by him. Therefore I beg you to listen to me with respect to the crimes of his praetorship, expecting only to hear those mentioned, both in the matters of deciding law-suits and of insisting on the repair of public buildings, which are thoroughly worthy of a criminal whom it is not worth while to accuse of any small or ordinary offences. 104For when he was made praetor, leaving the house of Chelidon after having taken the auspices, he drew the lot of the city province, more in accordance with his own inclination and that of Chelidon, than with the wish of the Roman people. And observe how he behaved at the very outset,—what his intentions were as shown[14] in his first edict.

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      Publius Annius had made his will in accordance with law, with the statutes, with the authority of all who were consulted; a will neither improper, nor made in disregard of any duty, nor contrary to human nature. But even if he had made such a will as that, still, after his death no new law ought to have been enacted which should have any effect on his will. I suppose the Voconian law pleased you greatly? 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. 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. 109But if any one establishes any new regulation on any points of civil law, does he allow everything which has been previously done to remain unaltered? Look at the Atinian law, at the Furian law, at the Voconian law itself, as I said before; in short, at every law on the subject of civil rights; you will find in all of them that regulations are established which are only to come into operation after the passing of the law. Those who attribute the greatest importance to the edict, say that the edict of the praetor is an annual law. You embrace more in an edict than you can in a law. If the first of January puts an end to the edict of the praetor, why does not the edict have its birth also on the first of January? Or, is it the case that no one can advance forward by his edict into the year when another man is to be praetor, but that he may retire back into the year when another man has been praetor? And if you had published this edict for the sake of right, and not for the sake of one man, you would have composed it more carefully.

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      110You write, "If any one has made, or shall have made his heir..." What are we to think? Suppose a man has bequeathed in legacies more than comes to his heir or heirs, as by the Voconian law a man may do who is not included in the census? Why do you not guard against this, as it comes under the same class? Because in your expressions you are not thinking of the interests of a class, but of an individual; so that it is perfectly evident that you were influenced by a desire for money. And if you had issued this edict with only a prospective operation, it would have been less iniquitous; still it would have been scandalous: but in that case, though it might have been blamed, it could not have been doubted about, for no one would have broken it. Now it is an edict of such a sort, that any one can see that it was written, not for the people, but for the second heir of Publius Annius. 111Therefore, though that heading had been embellished by you with so many words, and with that mercenary preamble, was any praetor found afterwards to draw up an edict in similar style? Not only no one ever did publish such an edict, but no one was ever apprehensive even of any one publishing such an edict. For after your praetorship many people made wills in the same manner, and among them Annia did so lately. She, by the advice of many of her relations, being a wealthy woman, because she was not included in the census, by her will made her daughter her heiress. This, now, is great proof of men's opinion of the singular wickedness of that fellow, that, though Verres had established this of his own accord, yet no one was apprehensive that any one could be found to adopt the rule which he had laid down. For you alone were found to be a man who could not be satisfied with correcting the wills of the living, unless you also rescinded those of the dead. 112You yourself removed this clause from your Sicilian edict. You wished, if any matters arose unexpectedly, to decide them according to your edict as praetor of the city. The defence which you left yourself afterwards you yourself greatly injured, when you yourself, in your provincial edict, repudiated your own authority.

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      And I do not doubt that as this action appears bitter and unworthy to me, to whom my daughter is very dear, it appears so also to each one of you who is influenced by a similar feeling and love for his daughters. For what has nature ordained to be more agreeable and more dear to us? What is more worthy to have all our affections and all our indulgence expended upon it? 113O most infamous of


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