Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (8 page)

Verres, meanwhile, had assembled powerful advocates for his defence. Chief among these was Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, Rome’s most famous orator and the leading advocate of the day. He had been praetor in charge of the extortion court himself in 72, and now he was standing for the consulship of 69. His politics were aristocratic and conservative; he was a formidable adversary. He and Cicero had actually faced each other in court once before, in a civil action undertaken by Publius Quinctius in 81; this was Cicero’s first case (he was 25), and it is likely that he lost (despite this, he published his
Pro Quinctio
, ‘For Quinctius’, which survives). Hortensius was encouraged to undertake Verres’ defence by the gift of a valuable bronze sphinx (Quint.
Inst
. 6.3.98; cf. Plin.
Nat
. 34.48; Plut.
Cic
. 7.6), and no doubt also a substantial pecuniary payment (
Ver
. 40).

But just as importantly, Verres had the support of the Metelli, the most powerful family in Rome at the end of the second century and still enjoying tremendous prestige and influence. There were three brothers who, though they were not advocates in the case, nevertheless helped in various ways. One, as we have seen, was Verres’ successor in Sicily, Lucius Caecilius Metellus, later consul of 68; the other two were Quintus Caecilius Metellus, who, like Hortensius, was standing for the consulship for 69, and Marcus Caecilius Metellus, who was standing for the praetorship for 69. Hortensius was supported in the defence by two advocates: Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica, a cousin of the three Metelli brothers and the future consul of 52, and Lucius Cornelius Sisenna, who had perhaps been governor of Sicily himself in 77. Sisenna was a friend of Hortensius and was incidentally the most important historian that Rome had so far produced; Cicero thought him better as a historian than as an orator (
Brut
. 228;
De legibus
1.7). The reason that the Metelli were so solidly behind Verres was partly because there was some link between their families, but also, and no doubt more importantly, because Verres (at least according to Cicero) had taken care of the bribery at their various elections.

The defence’s strategy throughout was to try to have the trial put off for as long as possible. Accordingly, they arranged for someone (perhaps Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos, the future consul of 57) to prosecute a former governor of Achaea in the extortion court and to ask for 108 days
to collect evidence. This would mean that their prosecution would start just before Cicero’s, which as a result would be severely delayed. If, on the other hand, Cicero failed to return from Sicily within the 110 days that had been granted to him, all they had to do was to drop their prosecution, and Cicero’s one would be called—and lost by default. So the defence’s tactic was an adroit move which had the effect of delaying Cicero without giving him extra time to collect evidence in Sicily.

Cicero spent fifty days in Sicily. He later claimed, rather colourfully, that he had called on the ploughmen at their homes, and the men had spoken to him from their plough-handles (
Scaur
. 25). Certainly he worked with extraordinary thoroughness and indeed courage. At Syracuse, he became involved in physical violence with a friend of Verres and had to engage in arguments with the governor Lucius Metellus, who would not allow him a copy of the Syracusans’ decree. Metellus obstructed him at every turn, rebuked him for addressing the Syracusans in Greek (their native tongue), and wrote to the consuls in Verres’ support.

But Cicero overcame all these obstacles and returned to Rome within the 110 days around the beginning of May. Since he had returned on time, the other trial did go ahead, and he had to wait three months until the court was free once more (the outcome of the other trial is unknown; it may have been dropped before the verdict). During these three months, May to July, it is natural to assume that he wrote up the six remaining
Verrines
, while at the same time campaigning for his aedileship.

In mid-July, the selection and rejection of the jurors for Verres’ trial finally took place. The result was largely favourable to Cicero, although Sextus Peducaeus, the governor of Sicily under whom Cicero had served, was rejected by Verres. Marcus Metellus, on the other hand, was rather surprisingly retained by Cicero (he could only reject a certain number, and there must have been other jurors whom he considered more hostile). Soon afterwards the elections for 69 were held. Hortensius and Quintus Metellus were both elected consul, and Marcus Metellus was elected praetor and appointed president of the extortion court, in succession to Glabrio (he would therefore cease to be a juror on taking up office). Cicero, on the other hand, was successful in obtaining his aedileship, despite an attempt by Verres to prevent this by bribery. The defence felt greatly encouraged by their electoral successes, and Hortensius and Quintus Metellus lost no time in attempting to use their new authority as consuls-elect to intimidate the Sicilian witnesses.

At Rome, courts (except for the violence court) did not sit on public holidays, and on 16 August a long sequence of games was due to begin. With the exception of odd days, the whole of the period 16 August to 18 September and then 27 October to 17 November would consist of public
holidays. So the defence now felt that they had an excellent chance of prolonging the trial into 69, when they would be in a good position to determine the outcome. Cicero, they calculated, would take until 15 August to present his case. Hortensius therefore would not have to reply until after 18 September, by which time the jury would have forgotten much of what Cicero had said. Hortensius would spin out his reply for as long as possible, and then the evidence would be taken. After that there would be the compulsory adjournment and later the whole of the second hearing; and that, combined with the second set of public holidays in October and November, would in all likelihood result in the trial running out of time at the end of the year. When it resumed in January, Hortensius and Quintus Metellus would be the consuls, Marcus Metellus would be the president of the court, and some of the jurors would have gone to other duties and been replaced by more sympathetic ones (Marcus Metellus as president would be able to see to this). It would then be a relatively simple matter, the defence concluded, to secure Verres’ acquittal.

At 4 p.m. on 5 August the trial began. Cicero calculated that, in order to avert the possibility of its continuing into 69, he must ensure that the whole of the first hearing was completed before the start of the first set of holidays on 16 August. He therefore decided to forgo the full-scale speech to which he was entitled, and gave instead just a short introduction to the case,
In Verrem
I. In contrast to a normal prosecution speech, this did not detail the charges at all; instead, it revealed the defence’s plans for delay, exposed their bribery and intimidation, and discussed the political implications of the trial. In particular, Cicero warned the jurors that if they did not act honestly and convict so obvious a criminal as Verres, then the courts would very likely be taken out of their hands and returned to the
equites
. The defence must have been greatly surprised by the brevity and content of the speech, and by the omission of detailed charges. At the end, Cicero explained that he would proceed directly (after Hortensius’ reply, that is—though he does not say so) to his witnesses and documents, introducing and presenting each one in turn, and offering Hortensius the opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses in the usual way.

This speech did not save time merely by being brief: it also did so by giving Hortensius, whose aim had been to try to spin the trial out, very little to reply to. Hortensius did not yet know the charges, and naturally would not want to spend time speculating as to what they might be and then attempting to explain them away. Cicero had also wrong-footed him in that he had not been expecting to have to say anything until after 18 September; he must have been caught completely unawares. No doubt the speech he gave was brief, and largely devoted to complaint against the unfairness of Cicero’s tactics. (Scholars have disputed whether Hortensius
in fact spoke at all, since the evidence is ambiguous; but it is surely inconceivable that he failed to say something in his client’s defence.)

When Hortensius had said what he could, the evidence was taken. It was utterly damning. After two days, Verres stayed at home, pretending to be ill. Hortensius for the most part declined to cross-examine: cross-examination would merely have given the witnesses an opportunity to repeat and emphasize their allegations. At one point during the process he became confused and said to Cicero, ‘I don’t understand these riddles.’ Immediately Cicero answered with an allusion to the gift that Hortensius had received from Verres: ‘Well, you ought to—after all, you’ve got a sphinx in your house!’ On 13 August the end of the first hearing was reached, as Cicero had planned, and the case was adjourned until after 18 September. There was now no possibility of the trial being prolonged into January.

Verres did not give up immediately. During the games which followed, he went round to the house of his advocate Sisenna, and was observed inspecting Sisenna’s silver (
Ver
. 2.4.33–4; Cicero adds that Sisenna’s slaves would no doubt have kept a close eye on him, having heard of the evidence against him). But in September when the second hearing was due to begin, he failed to appear. He had abandoned his defence and departed for exile at Massilia (Marseilles), taking with him most of his Sicilian plunder, together with the paintings and statues stolen during his time in Asia. He was therefore convicted in absence. At the later session that was held to assess the damages, Cicero agreed to a low assessment, three million sesterces. It was probably all that remained from the forty million that Verres had stolen. Nevertheless, the Sicilians were pleased (Plut.
Cic
. 8.1), and remained Cicero’s clients for the rest of his life (
Att
. 14.12.1).

Meanwhile, towards the end of the year a new law, the
lex Aurelia
, was carried, abolishing senatorial juries. The
equites
were not given exclusive control of the courts, however. Instead, juries would henceforward consist of one-third senators, one-third
equites
, and one-third
tribuni aerarii
(‘treasury tribunes’). In effect, this made the juries two-thirds equestrian, since the difference between the
equites
and the
tribuni aerarii
was probably purely technical (in his speeches Cicero treats the
tribuni aerarii
as
equites
). The compromise imposed by the
lex Aurelia
proved to be a successful one, and ended the bitter controversy over whether juries ought to be composed of senators or of
equites
. Although the bill had not yet been published when Verres’ trial took place (
Ver
. 2.5.178), most scholars think it must have been at an advanced stage of drafting, in which case it would be unlikely that the trial had any effect on its provisions. Had Verres been acquitted, however, it is not impossible that the scandal would have
resulted in the
equites
being given exclusive control of the courts after all. Cicero’s remarks about the trial’s political significance should not, therefore, be dismissed as unjustified and absurd. But the trial might well have been of greater significance if it had taken place in May, as was originally envisaged.

After the trial Cicero published his seven
Verrines
, the two that he had delivered and the five that he would have gone on to deliver at the second hearing. These last five provide the discussion of the charges that Hortensius and Verres were prevented from hearing by Cicero’s decision to forgo a full-scale speech in the first hearing.
In Verrem
II.1 covers Verres’ career before becoming governor; II.2 his corruption of justice in Sicily; II.3 his abuse of the Sicilian tax system; II.4 his theft of works of art; and II.5 his ruination of the Sicilian navy and his illegal executions of Roman citizens (a matter not strictly relevant to the charge of extortion, but nevertheless constituting an effective and damning finale). For Cicero the result of the trial, capped by his triumphant publication of the complete Verrine corpus, was that he completely eclipsed Hortensius and was henceforward regarded as Rome’s foremost advocate. The trial also marked him out as a politician destined for higher things. Having defeated Verres, he presumably rose to praetorian status in the senate. Then when he actually became praetor in 66, he was made president of the extortion court. His published
Verrines
were regarded as a model prosecution and would have been carefully studied by every prosecutor, and by every speaker in an extortion trial. Having achieved this great success, however, he was careful to avoid prosecuting thereafter: we know of only one other prosecution which he undertook, that of a personal enemy, Titus Munatius Plancus Bursa, for violence, in 51 (Plancus was also driven into exile).

Verres spent the rest of his life at Massilia. In 43, he was proscribed by Mark Antony, allegedly because he had refused to part with his bronze statues, which Antony coveted. His one consolation was that Cicero had recently died in the same proscription, and that he had been murdered as a consequence of his devastating oratory.

[1] The very thing that was most to be desired, members of the jury, the one thing that will have most effect in reducing the hatred felt towards your order
*
and restoring the tarnished reputation of the courts, this it is which, in the current political crisis, has been granted and presented to you; and this opportunity has come about not, it would appear, by human planning, but virtually by the gift of the gods. For a belief, disastrous for the state and dangerous for you, has become widespread, and has been increasingly talked about not only among ourselves but among foreign peoples as well—the belief that, in these courts as they are currently constituted, it is impossible for a man with money, no matter how guilty he may be, to be convicted. [2] Now, at this moment of reckoning for your order and your courts, when people are ready to use public meetings and legislation to stoke up this hatred of the senate, a defendant has been put on trial—Gaius Verres,
*
a man already convicted, according to universal public opinion, by his character and actions, but already acquitted, according to his own hopes and assertions, by his immense wealth.