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senate had decreed the penalty of death against any one that touched it. Apart from that, it would be an act of
the grossest impiety. "Impiety?" he burst out upon the unlucky magistrates; "penalty of death! senate! what
senate? As for you, Sopater, you shall not escape. Give me up the statue or you shall be flogged to death."
Sopater again referred the matter to his townsmen and implored them with tears to give way. The meeting
separated in great tumult without giving him any answer. Summoned again to the governor's presence, he
repeated that nothing could be done. But Verres had still resources in store. He ordered the lictors to strip the
man, the chief magistrate, be it remembered, of an important town, and to set him, naked as he was, astride on
one of the equestrian statues that adorned the market-place. It was winter; the weather was bitterly cold, with
heavy rain. The pain caused by the naked limbs being thus brought into close contact with the bronze of the
statue was intense. So frightful was his suffering that his fellow-townsmen could not bear to see it. They
turned with loud cries upon the senate and compelled them to vote that the coveted statue should be given up
to the governor. So Verres got his Mercury.
We have a curious picture of the man as he made his progresses from town to town in his search for treasures
of art. "As soon as it was spring--and he knew that it was spring not from the rising of any constellation or
the blowing of any wind, but simply because he saw the roses--then indeed he bestirred himself. So
enduring, so untiring was he that no one ever saw him upon horseback. No--he was carried in a litter with
eight bearers. His cushion was of the finest linen of Malta, and it was stuffed with roses. There was one
wreath of roses upon his head, and another round his neck, made of the finest thread, of the smallest mesh,
and this, too, was full of roses. He was carried in this litter straight to his chamber; and there he gave his
CHAPTER IV. A ROMAN MAGISTRATE. 20
Roman life in the days of Cicero
audiences."
When spring had passed into summer even such exertions were too much for him. He could not even endure
to remain in his official residence, the old palace of the kings of Syracuse. A number of tents were pitched for
him at the entrance of the harbor to catch the cool breezes from the sea. There he spent his days and nights,
surrounded by troops of the vilest companions, and let the province take care of itself.
Such a governor was not likely to keep his province free from the pirates who, issuing from their fastnesses on
the Cilician coast and elsewhere, kept the seaboard cities of the Mediterranean in constant terror. One success,
and one only, he seems to have gained over them. His fleet was lucky enough to come upon a pirate ship,
which was so overladen with spoil that it could neither escape nor defend itself. News was at once carried to
Verres, who roused himself from his feasting to issue strict orders that no one was to meddle with the prize. It
was towed into Syracuse, and he hastened to examine his booty. The general feeling was one of delight that a
crew of merciless villains had been captured and were about to pay the penalty of their crimes. Verres had far
more practical views. Justice might deal as she pleased with the old and useless; the young and able bodied,
and all who happened to be handicraftsmen, were too valuable to be given up. His secretaries, his retinue, his
son had their share of the prize; six, who happened to be singers, were sent as a present to a friend at Rome.
As to the pirate captain himself, no one knew what had become of him. It was a favorite amusement in Sicily
to watch the sufferings of a pirate, if the government had had the luck but to catch one, while he was being
slowly tortured to death. The people of Syracuse, to whom the pirate captain was only too well known,
watched eagerly for the day when he was to be brought out to suffer. They kept an account of those who were
brought out to execution, and reckoned them against the number of the crew, which it had been easy to
conjecture from the size of the ship. Verres had to correct the deficiency as best he could. He had the audacity
to fill the places of the prisoners whom he had sold or given away with Roman citizens, whom on various
false pretenses he had thrown into prison. The pirate captain himself was suffered to escape on the payment, it
was believed, of a very large sum of money.
But Verres had not yet done with the pirates. It was necessary that some show, at least, of coping with them
should be made. There was a fleet, and the fleet must put to sea. A citizen of Syracuse, who had no sort of
qualification for the task, but whom Verres was anxious to get out of the way, was appointed to the command.
The governor paid it the unwonted attention of coming out of his tent to see it pass. His very dress, as he stood
upon the shore, was a scandal to all beholders. His sandals, his purple cloak, his tunic, or under-garment,
reaching to his ankles, were thought wholly unsuitable to the dignity of a Roman magistrate. The fleet, as
might be expected, was scandalously ill equipped. Its men for the most part existed, as the phrase is, only "on
paper." There was the proper complement of names, but of names only. The praetor drew from the treasury
the pay for these imaginary soldiers and marines, and diverted it into his own pocket. And the ships were as ill
provisioned as they were ill manned. After they had been something less than five days at sea they put into the
harbor of Pachynus. The crews were driven to satisfy their hunger on the roots of the dwarf palm, which grew,
and indeed still grows, in abundance on that spot. Cleomenes meanwhile was following the example of his
patron. He had his tent pitched on the shore, and sat in it drinking from morning to night. While he was thus
employed tidings were brought that the pirate fleet was approaching. He was ill prepared for an engagement.
His hope had been to complete the manning of his ships from the garrison of the fort. But Verres had dealt
with the fort as he had dealt with the fleet. The soldiers were as imaginary as the sailors. Still a man of
courage would have fought. His own ship was fairly well manned, and was of a commanding size, quite able
to overpower the light vessels of the pirates; and such a crew as there was was eager to fight. But Cleomenes
was as cowardly as he was incompetent. He ordered the mast of his ship to be hoisted, the sails to be set, and
the cable cut, and made off with all speed. The rest of his fleet could do nothing but follow his example. The
pirates gave chase, and captured two of the ships as they fled. Cleomenes reached the port of Helorus,
stranded his ship, and left it to its fate. His colleagues did the same. The pirate chief found them thus deserted
and burned them. He had then the audacity to sail into the inner harbor of Syracuse, a place into which, we are
told, only one hostile fleet, the ill-fated Athenian expedition, three centuries and a half before, had ever
CHAPTER IV. A ROMAN MAGISTRATE. 21
Roman life in the days of Cicero
penetrated. The rage of the inhabitants at this spectacle exceeded all bounds, and Verres felt that a victim must
be sacrificed. He was, of course, himself the chief culprit. Next in guilt to him was Cleomenes. But
Cleomenes was spared for the same scandalous reason which had caused his appointment to the command.
The other captains, who might indeed have shown more courage, but who were comparatively blameless,
were ordered to execution. It seemed all the more necessary to remove them because they could have given
inconvenient testimony as to the inefficient condition of the ships.
The cruelty of Verres was indeed as conspicuous as his avarice. Of this, as of his other vices, it would not suit [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]