A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

1244 VERRES. VERRES.
win, and was firm. Upon this, Hortensius changed the impeachment'be put off to the next year,
his tactics. The impeachment could not be stopped Verres was safe. Hortensius himself would then
entirely; but it might be parried. Q. Caecilius be consul, with Q. Metellus for his colleague,
Niger had been quaestor to the defendant, had M. Metellus would be city-praetor, and L. Mequarrelled with him, and had the means of exposing tellus was already praetor in Sicily. For every
officially his abuse of the public money. To this firm and honest judex whom the upright M. Acilius
prosecutor, said Hortensius, we do not object; he Glabrio [No. 5], then city praetor, had named,
is seeking redress; but Cicero, notoriety. But the a partial or venal substitute would be found.
Sicilians rejected Caecilius altogether, not merely Glabrio himself would give place as quaesitor or
as no match for Hortensius, but as foisted into president of the court to M. Metellus, a partisan,
the cause by the defendant or his advocate. By if not a kinsman of the defendant; public curiosity
a technical process of the Roman law, called Divi- would cool; the witnesses be frightened or connatio, the judices, without hearing evidence, de- ciliated; and time be allowed for forging and orgatermined from the arguments of counsel alone, who nising a chain of counter-depositions. It was alshould be appointed prosecutor. They decided in ready the month of July. The games to be exCicero's favour. Of all the Verrine orations, the hibited by Cn. Pompey were fixed for the middle
Divinatio in Q. Caeciliumn is the most argument- of August, and would occupy a fortnight; the
ative, and the most in accordance with modern Roman games would immediately succeed them,
practice. The orator demonstrates that the Si- and thus forty days intervene between Cicero's
cilians rejected Caecilius, and demanded himself: charge and the reply of Hortensius, who again,
that a volunteer accuser is as objectionable as a by dexterous adjournments, would delay the provolunteer witness: that Caecilius cannot come into ceedings until the games of Victory, and the conmcourt with clean hands, since, as quaestor, he must mencement of the new year. Cicero therefore
officially have been cognizant of the peculations of abandoned all thought of eloquence or display, and
his principal: and that his quarrel with Verres — merely introducing his case in the first of the
the ground of his alleged fitness for prosecutor - Verrine orations, rested all his hopes of success on
was all a pretence. [NIGER, Q. CAECILIUS.] the weight of testimony alone. The "king of the
The pretensions of Caecilius were thus set aside. Forum," - so IHortensius was called - was disYet hope did not yet forsake Verres and his armed. His histrionic arts of dress, intonation,
friends. Evidence for the prosecution was to be pathos, and invective, found no place in dry crosscollected in Sicily itself. Cicero was allowed 110 examinations. He was quite unprepared with
days for the purpose. Verres once again attempted counter-evidence, and after the first day, when he
to set up a sham prosecutor, who undertook to im- put a few petulant questions, and offered some
peach him for his former extortions in Achaia, trivial objections to the course pursued, he abanand to gather the evidence in 108 days. Had doned the cause of Verres. Before the nine days
this been really done, the effect would have been, occupied in hearing evidence were over, the dethat the false impeachment would have taken pre- fendant was on his road to Marseilles. The imcedence, and the Sicilian cause either been referred peachment of Verres presented a scene for the
to a packed bench, or indefinitely adjourned. But historian and the artist. The judices met in the
the new prosecutor-one Piso or Damianus-never temple of Castor - already signalised by one of
went even so far as Brundisium in quest of evidence, the defendant's most fraudulent acts ( Verstin. ii. i,
and the design was abandoned. (Verrin. i. 2; 49, if.). They were surrounded by the senate,
Schol. Gronov. p. 388, Orelli; ii. 1, 11; Pseud. whose retention of the judicia depended on their
Ascon. p. 165, ib.) Instead of the 110 days verdict. They were watched by the equites, whose
allowed, Cicero, assisted by his cousin Lucius, recovery of the judicia rested on the same issue.
completed his researches in 50, and returned But neither the senate nor the equites were prowith a mass of evidence and a crowd of witnesses bably the most anxiobs spectators of the proceedgathered from all parts of the island, from the rich ings. The range of the defendant's extortions had
and the poor, the agriculturist and the artisan, in- been so wide, that the witnesses alone formed no
differently. At Syracuse and Messana alone did inconsiderable portion of the audience. From the
Cicero meet with reluctance or opposition. At the foot of Mount Taurus, from the shores of the Black
former city he completely overcame Verres's par- Sea, from many cities of the Grecian mainland,
tisans, carried away with him a huge budget of from many islands of the Aegean, from every city
vouchers and documents, and procured the erasure and market-town of Sicily, deputations thronged
from the public register of an honorary decree, to Rome. In the porticoes and on the steps of
which had been extorted by Verres from the Sy- the temple, in the area of the Forum, in the coracusans. At Messana he was less successful. lonnades that surrounded it, on the house-tops
That city had, comparatively, been favoured by the and on the overlooking declivities, were stationed
ex-praetor. Here also Cicero encountered his old dense and eager crowds of impoverished heirs
enemy Caecilius Niger, and the praetor L. Me- and their guardians, bankrupt publicani and corntellus, an alleged kinsman of Verres. The praetor merchants, fathers bewailing their children carforbade the Messanese to aid or harbour the orator ried off to the praetor's harem, children mourning:or his suite: reproached him for tampering with for their parents dead in the praetor's dungeons,
Greeks, and addressing them in their own tongue; Greek nobles whose descent was traced to Cecrops
and threatened to seize the documents he brought or Eurysthenes or to the great lonian and Minyan
with him. Cicero, however, eluded the praetor houses, and Phoenicians whose ancestors had been
and all attempts of Verres to obstruct his return, priests of the Tyrian Melcarth, or claimed kindred
and reached the capital nearly two months before with the Zidonian Iah. " All these and more
either friends or opponents expected him. came flocking," and the casual multitude was
Hortensius now grasped at his last chance of an swelled by thousands of spectators from Ttaly
acquittal, and it was not an unlikely one. Could partly attracted by the approaching games, and