Читать книгу Against Verres - Marcus Tullius Cicero - Страница 29

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I knew that in selecting the judges, some men, even within my own recollection, had not avoided the suspicion of a good understanding with the opposite party, though their industry and diligence was being proved actually in the prosecution of them. ¹⁸I objected to objectionable judges in such a way that this is plain,—that since the republic has had that constitution which we now enjoy, no tribunal has ever existed of similar renown and dignity. And this credit that fellow says that he shares in common with me; since when he rejected Publius Galba as judge, he retained Marcus Lucretius; and when, upon this, his patron asked him why he had allowed his most intimate friends Sextus Paeduceus, Quintus Considius, and Quintus Junius, to be objected to, he answered, because he knew them to be too much attached to their own ideas and opinions in coming to a decision. ¹⁹And so when the business of objecting to the judges was over, I hoped that you and I had now one common task before us. I thought that my good faith and diligence was approved of, not only by those to whom I was known, but even by strangers. And I was not mistaken: for in the comitia for my election, when that man was employing boundless bribery against me, the Roman people decided that his money, which had no influence with me when put in opposition to my own good faith, ought to have no influence with them to rob me of my honour. On the day when you first, O judges, were summoned to this place, and sat in judgment on this criminal, who was so hostile to your order, who was so desirous of a new constitution, of a new tribunal and new judges, as not to be moved at the sight of you and of your assembled body? ²⁰When on the trial your dignity procured me the fruit of my diligence, I gained thus much,—that in the same hour that I began to speak, I cut off from that audacious, wealthy, extravagant, and abandoned criminal, all hope of corrupting the judges; that on the very first day, when such a number of witnesses had been brought forward, the Roman people determined that If he were acquitted, the republic would no longer exist; that the second day took away from his friends, not only all hope of victory, but even all inclination to make any defence; that the third day prostrated the man so entirely, that, pretending to be sick, he took counsel, not what reply he could make, but how he could avoid making any; and after that, on the subsequent days, he was so oppressed and overwhelmed by these accusations, by these witnesses, both from the city and from the provinces, that when these days of the games intervened, no one thought that he had procured an adjournment, but they thought that he was condemned.