wo matters to interest the
reader--indeed, to instruct the reader--if the story were sufficiently
well told. The iniquity of Verres is the first--which is of so
extravagant a nature as to become farcical by the absurdity of the
extent to which he was not afraid to go in the furtherance of his
avarice and lust. As the victims suffered two thousand years ago, we can
allow ourselves to be amused by the inexhaustible fertility of the man's
resources and the singular iniquity of his schemes. Then we are brought
face to face with the barefaced corruption of the Roman judges--a
corruption which, however, became a regular trade, if not ennobled,
made, at any rate, aristocratic by the birth, wealth high names, and
senatorial rank of the robbers. Sulla, for certain State purposes--which
consisted in the maintenance of the oligarchy--had transferred the
privileges of sitting on the judgment-seat from the Equites, or Knights,
to the Senators. From among the latter a considerable number--thirty,
perhaps, or forty, or even fifty--were appointed to sit with the Praetor
to hear criminal cases of importance, and by their votes, which were
recorded on tablets, the accused person was acquitted or condemned. To
be acquitted by the most profuse corruption entailed no disgrace on him
who was tried, and often but little on the judges who tried him. In
Cicero's time the practice, with all its chances, had come to be well
understood. The Provincial Governors, with their Quaestors and
lieutenants, were chosen from the high aristocracy, which also supplied
the judges. The judges themselves had been employed, or hoped to be
employed, in similar lucrative service. The leading advocates belonged
to the same class. If the proconsular thief, when he had made his bag,
would divide the spoil with some semblance of equity among his brethren,
nothing could be more convenient. The provinces were so large, and the
Greek spirit of commercial enterprise which prevailed in them so lively,
that there was room for plunder ample, at any rate, for a generation or
two. The Republic boasted that, in its love of pure justice, it had
provided by certain laws for the protection of its allied subjects
against any possible faults of administration on the part of its own
officers. If any injury were done to a province, or a city, or even to
an individual, the province, or city, or individual could bring its
grievance to the ivory chair of the Praetor in Rome and demand redr