M. Tullius Cicero, In C. Verrem, 2.1.93

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[93] Yet, though he had entered in his accounts six hundred thousand sesterces as having been received, he has never paid over fifty thousand. Of the slaves, since he has been prosecuted in this manner, some have been restored, some are detained even now. All the gains which they had made, and all their substitutes ¹ are detained. 37 This is that fellow's splendid guardianship. See to whom you are entrusting your children! Behold how great is the recollection of a dead companion! Behold how great is the fear of the opinion of the living! When all Asia had given herself up to you to be harassed and plundered, when all Pamphylia was placed at your mercy to be pillaged, were you not content with this rich booty? Could you not keep your hands off your guardianship, off your ward, off the son of your comrade? It is not now the Sicilians; they are now a set of ploughmen, as you are constantly saying, who are hemming you in. It is not the men who have been excited against you and rendered hostile to you by your own decrees and edicts. Malleolus is brought forward by me and his mother and his grandmother, who, unfortunate, and weeping, say that their boy has been stripped by you of his father's property.

In C. Verrem. M. Tullius Cicero. London. 1903.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by National Endowment For The Humanities (NEH).

Current edition Perseus

Against Verres (English) (Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 1. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Bell, 1903.)

Editions (1)

In C. Verrem Perseus (Cicero. M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes, Volume 3. Peterson, William, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1917.) — 2.1.93 focus

[93] tamen HS sescenta milia cum accepta rettulisset, HS quinquaginta milia soluta non sunt; homines, posteaquam reus factus est, redditi alii alii etiam¹² nunc retinentur; peculia omnium³ vicariique⁴ retinentur. 37 haec est istius praeclara tutela. en cui tuos liberos committas, en memoriam⁵ mortui sodalis, en metum vivorum existimationis! cum tibi se tota Asia spoliandam ac vexandam praebuisset, cum tibi⁶ exposita esset omnis ad praedandum Pamphylia, contentus his tam opimis⁷ rebus non fuisti? manus a tutela, manus a pupillo, manus a sodalis filio abstinere non potuisti? iam te non Siculi, non aratores, ut dictitas, circumveniunt, non hi⁸ qui decretis edictisque tuis in te concitati infestique sunt: malleolus a me productus est et mater eius atque avia, quae miserae⁹ flentes eversum a te puerum patriis¹⁰ bonis esse dixerunt.

Notes on the current edition

Against Verres

1. “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.

Commentary

Commentary on Impeachment of Verres (Select Orations of Cicero (Allen and Greenough's Edition). Greenough, James Bradstreet; Kittredge, George Lyman, editors. Boston, London: Ginn & Company, 1897.) focus

cum (causal)

sint , when men are ready.—

contionibus et legibus, harangues and bills (proposed laws). The proposition of a law which took the exclusive control of the courts from the Senators was even now pending, and the law ( Lex Aurelia) was passed before the case of Verres was decided.

conentur , purpose clause.

magnitudine , abl. of means.

spe , abl. of specification.

actor , complainant, i.e. agent or attorney for conducting the suit in personal processes ( in personam ).

adduxi enim hominem, etc.: cf. Burke, Impeachment of Warren Hastings: We have brought before your Lordships the first man in property and power; we have brought before you the head, the chief, the captain-general in iniquity,—one in whom all the frauds, all the peculations, all the tyranny in India are embodied, disciplined, and arrayed. Then, if we have brought before you such a person, if you strike at him, you will not have need of a great many more examples,— you strike at the whole corps if you strike at the head:

in quo , in whose case

reconciliare, etc., win back the lost repute.

possetis , purpose.

depeculatorem, etc.: for a more complete statement of these charges, see chs. iv , v .

juris urbani, i.e. as praetor urbanus (see sect. 12 ).

M. Tullius Cicero In C. Verrem 2.1.93

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