irtue with every vice; and, lastly, the
contest lies between well-grounded hope and absolute despair. In such
a conflict, were even human aid to fail, would not the immortal gods
empower such conspicuous virtue to triumph over such complicated
vice?--_Second Oration._

THE TYRANT PRAETOR DENOUNCED.

(_By Cicero._)

An opinion has long prevailed, fathers, that, in public prosecutions,
men of wealth, however clearly convicted, are always safe. This
opinion, so injurious to your order, so detrimental to the state, is
now in your power to refute. A man is on trial before you who is rich,
and who hopes his riches will compass his acquittal, but whose life
and actions are sufficient condemnation in the eyes of all candid men.
I speak of Caius Verres, who, if he now receive not the sentence his
crimes deserve, it shall not be through the lack of a criminal or of a
prosecutor, but through the failure of the ministers of justice to do
their duty. Passing over the shameful irregularities of his youth,
what does the quaestorship of Verres exhibit but one continued scene of
villainies? The public treasure squandered, a Consul stripped and
betrayed, an army deserted and reduced to want, a province robbed, the
civil and religious rights of a people trampled on! But his
praaetorship in Sicily has crowned his career of wickedness, and
completed the lasting monument of his infamy. His decisions have
violated all law, all precedent, all right. His extortions from the
industrious poor have been beyond computation. Our most faithful
allies have been treated as enemies. Roman citizens have, like slaves,
been put to death with tortures. Men the most worthy have been
condemned and banished without a hearing, while the most atrocious
criminals have, with money, purchased exemption from the punishment
due to their guilt.

I ask now, Verres, what have you to advance against these charges? Art
thou not the tyrant praetor, who, at no greater distance than Sicily,
within sight of the Italian coast, dared to put to an infamous death,
on the cross, that ill-fated and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius
Cosanus? And what was his offense? He had declared his intention of
appealing to the justice of his country against your brutal
persecutions! For this, when about to embark for home, he was seized,
brought before you, charged with being a spy, scourged and tortured.
In vain did he exclaim: "I am a Roman citizen! I have served under
Lucius Pretius,