Cicero | Page 8

and regarded by a philosophic jury with less than the
cold compassion with which we regard the sufferings of the lower
animals; but "to scourge a man that was a Roman and uncondemned",
even in the far-off province of Judea, was a thought which, a century

later, made the officers of the great Empire, at its pitch of power,
tremble before a wandering teacher who bore the despised name of
Christian. No one can possibly tell the tale so well as Cicero himself;
and the passage from his speech for the prosecution is an admirable
specimen both of his power of pathetic narrative and scathing
denunciation, "How shall I speak of Publius Gavius, a citizen of Consa?
With what powers of voice, with what force of language, with what
sufficient indignation of soul, can I tell the tale? Indignation, at least,
will not fail me: the more must I strive that in this my pleading the
other requisites may be made to meet the gravity of the subject, the
intensity of my feeling. For the accusation is such that, when it was
first laid before me, I did not think to make use of it; though I knew it
to be perfectly true, I did not think it would be credible.--How shall I
now proceed?--when I have already been speaking for so many hours
on one subject--his atrocious cruelty; when I have exhausted upon other
points well-nigh all the powers of language such as alone is suited to
that man's crimes;--when I have taken no precaution to secure your
attention by any variety in my charges against him,--in what fashion
can I now speak on a charge of this importance? I think there is one
way--one course, and only one, left for me to take. I will place the facts
before you; and they have in themselves such weight, that no
eloquence--I will not say of mine, for I have none--but of any man's, is
needed to excite your feelings.
"This Gavius of Consa, of whom I speak, had been among the crowds
of Roman citizens who had been thrown into prison under that man.
Somehow he had made his escape out of the Quarries,[1] and had got to
Messana; and when he saw Italy and the towers of Rhegium now so
close to him, and out of the horror and shadow of death felt himself
breathe with a new life as he scented once more the fresh air of liberty
and the laws, he began to talk at Messana, and to complain that he, a
Roman citizen, had been put in irons--that he was going straight to
Rome--that he would be ready there for Verres on his arrival.
[Footnote 1: This was one of the state prisons at Syracuse, so called,
said to have been constructed by the tyrant Dionysius. They were the
quarries from which the stone was dug for building the city, and had

been converted to their present purpose. Cicero, who no doubt had seen
the one in question, describes it as sunk to an immense depth in the
solid rock. There was no roof; and the unhappy prisoners were exposed
there "to the sun by day and to the rain and frosts by night". In these
places the survivors of the unfortunate Athenian expedition against
Syracuse were confined, and died in great numbers.]
"The wretched man little knew that he might as well have talked in this
fashion in the governor's palace before his very face, as at Messana. For,
as I told you before, this city he had selected for himself as the
accomplice in his crimes, the receiver of his stolen goods, the confidant
of all his wickedness. So Gavius is brought at once before the city
magistrates; and, as it so chanced, on that very day Verres himself
came to Messana. The case is reported to him; that there is a certain
Roman citizen who complained of having been put into the Quarries at
Syracuse; that as he was just going on board ship, and was uttering
threats--really too atrocious--against Verres, they had detained him, and
kept him in custody, that the governor himself might decide about him
as should seem to him good. Verres thanks the gentlemen, and extols
their goodwill and zeal for his interests. He himself, burning with rage
and malice, comes down to the court. His eyes flashed fire; cruelty was
written on every line of his face. All present watched anxiously to see
to what lengths he meant to go, or what steps he would take; when
suddenly he ordered the prisoner to be dragged forth, and to be stripped
and bound in the open forum, and the rods to be got ready at once. The
unhappy man cried out that he was a Roman citizen--that he had the