Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (17 page)

[81] It was here that the governor of the Roman people, the guardian and defender of the province, spent the summer giving parties for his women friends each and every day. No man ever sat down to dinner except for him and his young son—although since they were
the only ones, it would be more accurate to say that only women were present. But sometimes the freedman Timarchides
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was also invited along. The women, on the other hand, were all married and well born, with one exception, the daughter of Isidorus the pantomime actor,
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whom Verres had fallen in love with and taken away from her Rhodian piper. There was one Pipa, the wife of Aeschrio of Syracuse, a woman who is the subject of many poems, relating to Verres’ passion for her, which are currently enjoying great popularity throughout Sicily. [82] Then there was Nice, the wife of Cleomenes of Syracuse, and said to be an exceptionally attractive woman. Her husband did indeed love her, but he had neither the power nor the courage to oppose Verres’ sexual impulses, and at the same time he was inhibited by the numerous gifts and favours which the defendant had bestowed on him.

You are well aware how shameless Verres is. But despite this, he did not feel entirely free and easy in his mind keeping Nice with him on the beach day after day during this period, when her husband was also in Syracuse. He therefore devised an original way out of the problem. He handed over to Cleomenes the ships which his legate had previously been in charge of, and so ordained that a Syracusan, Cleomenes, should be in command of, and issue orders to, the fleet of the Roman people. His motive was not simply to keep him away from Syracuse during the time he would be at sea, but to make him quite happy about being kept away, since he had been given a position which involved considerable rewards and prestige. So with the husband sent away and got rid of, Verres kept the wife at his side not more easily than before—for who was ever able actually to stop him getting his way?—but with a slightly easier mind. It was as if he had disposed of not so much a husband as a rival.

[83] Cleomenes of Syracuse, then, took charge of the ships of our friends and allies. What aspect of this should I criticize or lament first? That the power, prestige, and authority of a legate, a quaestor, even a governor was handed over to a Sicilian? If your business with women and parties prevented you from undertaking this duty yourself, what about the quaestors, what about the legates,
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and—if it comes to that—what about your own officers, what about your military tribunes? And if there was no Roman citizen fit to undertake the command, what of the states which have always been loyal friends of the Roman people? What about Segesta, what about Centuripae,
states which by their long-standing and loyal service to us, and also their kinship with us,
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come near to the status of Roman citizens?

[84] Immortal gods! If a Syracusan, Cleomenes, has been put in command of the sailors, ships, and captains of states like these, has Verres not wiped out every mark of honour, fairness, and duty? Have we ever fought any war in Sicily when Centuripae was not on our side, and Syracuse with the enemy? I make this point simply as a matter of historical record: I do not mean to disparage that city. But that was the reason why that great general, the illustrious Marcus Marcellus,
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by whose bravery Syracuse was captured and by whose clemency it was preserved, would not allow any Syracusan to live on the Island. Even today, let me tell you, no Syracusan is allowed to live in that part of the city, because it is a place that a tiny number of people could hold against attack. Because of this, Marcellus was not prepared to entrust it to any people whose loyalty was not entirely certain, and besides, it is here that ships coming in from the Mediterranean enter the city. That was why he judged that the keys to the place should not be entrusted to people who had on many occasions refused admittance to our armies.

[85] See what a difference there is between your wanton behaviour and the authority of our ancestors, between your lustfulness and madness and their prudence and foresight. They deprived the Syracusans of access to the shore: you gave them command of the sea. They would not allow any Syracusan to live in that part of the city where ships could approach: you placed a Syracusan in command of our fleet and our ships. They deprived the Syracusans of a part of their city: you granted them part of our empire. The Syracusans obey our orders because of the help we have been given by our allies: you made those allies obey the orders of a Syracusan.

[86] Cleomenes sailed out of the harbour in a quadrireme from Centuripae, followed by one ship each from Segesta, Tyndaris, Herbita,
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Heraclea, Apollonia, and Haluntium—to all appearances a magnificent fleet, but weak and ineffective because of the exemptions given to sailors and oarsmen. This hard-working governor saw the fleet that was under his authority only for as long as it took to sail past the scene of his outrageous parties. He himself had not been seen for many days, but on this occasion he did at least show himself to his sailors briefly. He stood on the shore—a governor of the Roman people—dressed in sandals, a purple Greek cloak, and a
tunic down to the ankles, and leaning on a girl. Indeed, a great many Sicilians and Roman citizens had often seen him before in this get-up.

[87] The fleet sailed on its journey, and on the fifth day it finally completed the short distance to Pachynum.
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By this time the sailors were driven by hunger to gather the roots of wild palms
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—a plant common in that area, as in most of Sicily—and the poor wretches kept themselves alive on these. But Cleomenes, who considered himself another Verres not just in extravagance and wickedness but also in power, set up a tent on the shore and spent day after day drinking, in imitation of his governor.

So with Cleomenes drunk and everyone else starving, suddenly news arrives that there are pirate ships in the harbour of Odysseae (that is the name of the place—our fleet was in the harbour at Pachynum). Now there was a land garrison there, at least on paper, and so Cleomenes counted on being able to take enough soldiers from it to make up the full complement of sailors and oarsmen. But it transpired that this grasping governor had applied the same methods to the land garrisons as he had to the fleet, for there were hardly any soldiers at all, the vast majority having been exempted.

[88] Cleomenes, who was in front in the quadrireme from Centuripae, ordered the mast of his ship to be raised, the sails spread, and the anchor cables cut, and at the same time that the signal be given to tell the others to follow.
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This ship from Centuripae was in fact an astonishingly fast vessel when under sail. During Verres’ governorship, no one had had the opportunity to find out how fast each ship could go under oar—although in this quadrireme, because of Cleomenes’ rank and influence, there was less of a shortage of oarsmen and sailors than in the other ships. The fleeing quadrireme had now flown almost out of sight, while the rest of the ships were all still struggling in their original position. [89] But their crew were men of courage:
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although they were few in number, and in a desperate situation, they nevertheless shouted that they preferred to fight, and were ready to yield up to the sword whatever life and strength remained in their famished bodies. In fact, if Cleomenes had not raced so far ahead, they would have had at least some hope of resisting. His ship was the only one with a deck, and it was big enough to offer protection to the other ships; in a fight with the pirates, it would have looked like a city among the pirate galleys. But helpless
as they were, and abandoned by their leader, the admiral of the fleet, they had no alternative but to begin to follow in his wake.

[90] So they set off, like Cleomenes himself, in the direction of Helorus, not so much fleeing from the pirates who were about to attack them as following the man who was supposed to be commanding them. As each ship became the last in the line of flight, so it became the first to be attacked, as the pirates fell on the hindmost one in turn. Thus the first to be taken was the ship from Haluntium, commanded by a high-ranking man of that city, Phylarchus; he was later to be ransomed from the pirates at public expense by the people of Locri.
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In the first hearing he told you under oath what happened and why. The second ship to be taken was the one from Apollonia; its captain Anthropinus was killed.

[91] While this was happening, Cleomenes meanwhile had already reached the coast at Helorus, and had thrown himself off the ship and onto dry land, leaving the quinquireme where it was. The captains of the other ships, finding that their admiral had gone ashore, were in no position either to offer resistance or to escape by sea; they therefore put in at Helorus and went off after Cleomenes. At this point the pirate captain, Heracleo, suddenly and unexpectedly found himself victorious—not because of any military ability of his own, but simply as a result of Verres’ avarice and wickedness. He came across the magnificent fleet of the Roman people cast up and abandoned on the shore, and gave orders to his followers to wait until it began to get dark, and then to set the ships on fire and burn them. [92] What a miserable, sickening moment for the province of Sicily!
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What a catastrophic, fatal disaster for so many innocent people! What exceptional disgrace and wickedness on Verres’ part! On one and the same night the governor was burning with the flames of a scandalous passion, and the fleet of the Roman people with pirates’ fire.

At the dead of night, the dreadful news of this disaster reached Syracuse. There was a rush in the direction of the governor’s residence, to which only a short while beforehand women had escorted Verres home with music and song, after a splendid banquet. Although it was night, Cleomenes did not dare show his face in public. He shut himself away in his house; but his wife was not at home to comfort him in his misery. [93] As for our brilliant general, his domestic staff were so well drilled that, even when the situation was so serious and the news so dire, no one was admitted: no one
dared to wake him if he was asleep, or interrupt him if he was awake. But once everyone else had found out what had happened, an enormous crowd gathered throughout the city. This time, it was not, as had always been the case before, a fire from a beacon on some tower or hill that gave notice of the imminent arrival of the pirates: no, it was the flames from the actual burning of the fleet that announced the catastrophe that had occurred and the danger still to come.

People tried to find out where the governor was; it became clear that no one had told him the news. The crowd then made a full onslaught on his residence,
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shouting noisily. [94] That woke him up—and he learned the full story from Timarchides. Then the governor put on his military cloak (it was nearly dawn by this time) and came out into the open, heavy with wine, sleep, and sex. His appearance was greeted by shouting from the crowd, and its tone vividly impressed on him the similarity with the danger he had faced at Lampsacus.
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But this time the danger seemed even greater, because, although he had been equally hated by both mobs, this one was exceptionally large. People started mentioning his beach parties, and his scandalous banquets. The crowd called out the names of his women, and asked him directly where he had been and what he had been doing all that time, day after day, when no one had seen him. They called for Cleomenes, the admiral he had himself appointed, to be handed over to them; and the precedent that had been set at Utica with Hadrianus
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came within a hair’s breadth of also being followed at Syracuse, so as to result in the setting up of two tombs for two wicked governors in two provinces. But then the crowd reflected on the situation they were in, on the state of emergency, and on the high standing and good reputation they shared—since the Roman citizens of Syracuse are considered to be a credit not only to Sicily, but to Rome as well. [95] As Verres stood there stupefied and half-awake, they urged each other to action, took up arms, and occupied the whole forum and the Island, which comprises a large part of the city.

The pirates waited for just that night at Helorus and then, leaving our ships still smouldering, set off for Syracuse. I suppose they had often heard that there was no sight more lovely than the walls and harbour of Syracuse and decided that, if they did not go and see it during Verres’ governorship, they would never see it at all. [96] They arrived first at the governor’s summer quarters, at the very point on the coast where Verres, during those summer days, had pitched his
tents and sited his camp of luxury. They found the place deserted. Realizing that the governor must have moved his camp to a different position, they immediately began, without any anxiety at all, to sail into the harbour itself. When I say the harbour, gentlemen (I must explain this carefully for the benefit of those who do not know the place), I mean that the pirates actually entered into the city, and into its very centre. The city, you see, is not bounded by its harbour, but the harbour is itself surrounded by and enclosed within the city. The sea, that is, does not lap against the outer side of the walls; rather, the harbour waters themselves flow into the heart of the city.

[97] Here it was that, while you were governor, the pirate Heracleo sailed around in his four little galleys, just as he pleased. Immortal gods! At a time when the empire of the Roman people was officially represented at Syracuse, a pirate galley has actually penetrated all the way to the forum of Syracuse and to every quay in the city. The proud fleets of Carthage, at the height of her naval power, never succeeded in approaching so near, despite repeated attempts in numerous wars; nor did the glorious navy of the Roman people, undefeated until you became governor, ever manage to penetrate the city, throughout a great many Punic and Sicilian wars.
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The topography of the place is such that the Syracusans saw the enemy armed and victorious on their city walls, in their city, and in their forum before they saw a single enemy ship in the harbour.
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[98] Here it was that, while you were governor, the pirates’ small boats sailed to and fro where the Athenian fleet of 300 ships
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once, by their strength and numbers, succeeded in forcing an entry—the only fleet in history ever to do so; and in that same harbour it was defeated and destroyed by the natural character of the land and the harbour. Here it was that the power of that great city was first shattered and brought low: in this harbour the nobility, empire, and glory of Athens are considered to have been wrecked. So did a pirate penetrate to a point in the city where he did not merely have the city on one side, but actually had a considerable part of it behind him? Indeed, he sailed past the whole of the Island. This is a city in its own right, and with its own walls, and a place where our ancestors, as I have already said, would not allow any Syracusan to live, because they understood that anyone who held that part of the city would also have control of the harbour.