He then proceeds to prove by witnesses the facts of the case and the
falsehood of the charge against Gavius of having been a spy. "However", he
goes on to say, addressing himself now to Verres, "we will grant, if
you please, that your suspicions on this point, if false, were honestly
entertained".

"You did not know who the man was; you suspected him of being a spy. I do
not ask the grounds of your suspicion. I impeach you on your own evidence.
He said he was a Roman citizen. Had you yourself, Verres, been seized and
led out to execution, in Persia, say, or in the farthest Indies, what
other cry or protest could you raise but that you were a Roman citizen?
And if you, a stranger there among strangers, in the hands of barbarians,
amongst men who dwell in the farthest and remotest regions of the earth,
would have found protection in the name of your city, known and renowned
in every nation under heaven, could the victim whom you were dragging to
the cross, be he who he might--and you did not know who he was--when he
declared he was a citizen of Rome, could he obtain from you, a Roman
magistrate, by the mere mention and claim of citizenship, not only no
reprieve, but not even a brief respite from death?

"Men of neither rank nor wealth, of humble birth and station, sail the
seas; they touch at some spot they never saw before, where they are
neither personally known to those whom they visit, nor can always find
any to vouch for their nationality. But in this single fact of their
citizenship they feel they shall be safe, not only with our own governors,
who are held in check by the terror of the laws and of public opinion--not
only among those who share that citizenship of Rome, and who are
united with them by community of language, of laws, and of many things
besides--but go where they may, this, they think, will be their safe
guard. Take away this confidence, destroy this safeguard for our Roman
citizens--once establish the principle that there is no protection in the
words, 'I am a citizen of Rome'--that praetor or other magistrate may with
impunity sentence to what punishment he will a man who says he is a Roman
citizen, merely because somebody does not know it for a fact; and at
once, by admitting such a defence, you are shutting up against our
Roman citizens all our provinces, all foreign states, despotic or
independent--all the whole world, in short, which has ever lain open to
our national enterprise beyond all".