Against Verres. Marcus Tullius Cicero

      1 ↑ This refers to the following act of Verres:—A single pirate ship had been taken by his lieutenant; the captain bribed Verres to save his life, but the people were impatient for the execution of him and his chief officers. Verres, who had in his dungeons many Roman citizens who had offended him, muffled up their faces, so that they could not speak and could not be recognised, and produced them on the scaffold, and put them to death as the pirates for whose execution the people were clamouring.

      2 ↑ By vote or the money was voted to the tribuni aerarii, and was paid by them to the quaestor, to be paid by him to the army.

      3 ↑ Ariminum had been betrayed by Albinovanus, Marius's lieutenant, to Sulla.

      4 ↑ It was allowed to the aediles, and it was not uncommon for them to borrow of the cities of the allies celebrated and beautiful statues to adorn the shows in the games which they exhibited; and afterwards they were restored to their owners.

      5 ↑ The custom was for the accuser to put a seal on the house and effects of the man whom he was preparing to prosecute, in order that no evidence of the theft to be imputed might be removed by the removal of the stolen goods.

      6 ↑ The quaestores aerarii were sent to take possession in the name of the people of the effects of a man who was convicted; the sectores or brokers attended them to appraise the goods seized.

      7 ↑ In some editions the passage from "Qua de re Charidemum," to "Non ad se pertinere," is transferred to the previous chapter, and inserted after "deferri opertere," but there is not the least reason for this transposition, which is contrary to the authority of every manuscript.

      8 ↑ This had happened about twelve years before, in the consulship of the younger Marius and Carbo, A.U.C. 672.

      9 ↑ Dolabella was governor of Cilicia at the time Verres was acting as his lieutenant and proquaestor. On his return from his government he was prosecuted by Scaurus for corruption, and was condemned mainly through the evidence of Verres.

      10 ↑ Cicero here, one may almost say, plays on the meanings of the word legatus, which means not only a lieutenant, but also an ambassador. The persons of ambassadors have always, by the laws of nations, been considered to be sacred but Verres was not an ambassador, but a lieutenant.

      11 ↑ It was in the month of February that the senate was used to give audience to the deputies from the provinces: and the consuls elect, as has been said before, were notoriously in the interest of Verres.

      12 ↑ "As slaves often acted as factors or agents for their masters in matters of business, and, as such, were often entrusted with property to a large amount, there arose a practice of allowing the slave to consider part of the gains as his own; this was his peculium... According to strict law the peculium was the property of the master, but according to usage it was the property of the slave... Sometimes a slave would have another slave under him, who had a peculium with respect to the first slave, just as the first slave had a peculium with respect to his master. On this practice was founded the distinction between Servi Ordinarii and Vicarii.—Smith, Dict. Ant. pp. 869, 870. v. Servus.

      13 ↑ Hottomann makes sure that there is some corruption of the MS. here, and Graevius agrees with him. "The whole passage is very obscure and the more difficult because we are not acquainted with the forms of proceeding which were followed against magistrates convicted of extortion. It is not clear, as far as appears from Cicero's speech, that, though there was a discrepancy between the accounts of Verres and that of Dolabella, the fault was necessarily in the accounts of Verres; especially as Dolabella had been justly convicted of extortion and malversation already. Undoubtedly Cicero produced witnesses who assisted to put the case in the point of view in which he wished it to be looked at."—Desmenorius.

      14 ↑ "After the praetors were appointed, before they entered on the discharge of their duties as judges, they were in the habit of issuing an edict, setting forth the principles which they intended should govern their decisions; and they used to do this in the public assembly after they had taken the oath to observe the law."&mdash'Hottoman.

      15 ↑ "By the lex Voconia it was enacted, that no person who should be included in the census, after the census of that year, BC 169, should make any female his heir. Cicero does not state that the Lex fixed the census at any sum; but it appears from other writers that a woman could not be made haeres by any person who was rated in the census at a hundred thousand sesterces. The Lex only applied to girls, and therefore a daughter or other female could inherit ab intestato to any amount. The Vestal virgins could make women their haeredes in all cases, which was the only exception to the provisions of the law. If the terms of the law are correctly reported by Cicero, a person who was not census might make a woman his haeres whatever was the amount of his property. Still there is a difficulty about the meaning of census. If it is taken to mean that a person whose property was above a hundred thousand sesterces, and who was not included in the census, could dispose of his property as he pleased by will, the purpose of the law would be frustrated and further, the "not being included in the census" (neque census esset) seems rather vague. Another provision of the law, mentioned by Cicero, forbade a person who was census to give more in amount in the form of a legacy or a donatio mortis causu to any person than the haeres or haeredes should take."—Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 1059, v. Voconia Lex, with especial reference to this passage.

      16 ↑ There is a pun here on the name of Verres, which means a pig, boar: and on the name of Sacerdos, which means also a sacrificing priest.

      17 ↑ The praetexta was a token of the tender age of the youth, as it was only worn by boys under the age of seventeen, and then was exchanged by the toga virilis.

      18 ↑ Dressed, that is, in the mourning robe in which defendants in criminal prosecutions usually appeared in court.

      19 ↑ "The bulla was an ornament of gold worn by children, suspended from their necks, especially by the children of the noble and wealthy; it was worn by children of both sexes, as a token of paternal affection and of high birth. Instead of the bulla of gold, boys of inferior rank, including the children of freedmen, wore only a piece of leather."—Smith, Dict. Ant. v. Bulla.

      20 ↑ This temple of Castor had been vowed by Postumius, the dictator at the battle of Lake Regillus. It was decorated with statues and other embellishments by Lucius Metellus surnamed Dalmaticus, out of the wealth he acquired by, and the spoils he brought back from, the war in Illyricum.

      21 ↑ The praetors appointed the judges, but had not themselves the right of sitting as judges in all criminal cases, only in a few special ones.

      22 ↑