Читать книгу Against Verres - Marcus Tullius Cicero - Страница 33

Table of Contents

In truth, you must recollect that I conducted the case in this way; I set forth and detailed the whole charge at the time of the examination of witnesses, so that as soon as I had explained the whole affair, I then immediately examined the witnesses. And by that means, not only you, who have to judge, are in possession of our charges, but also the Roman people became acquainted with the whole accusation and the whole cause: although I am speaking of my own conduct as if I had done so of my own will rather than because I was induced to do so by any injustice of yours. ³⁰But you interposed another accuser, who, when I had only demanded a hundred and ten days to prosecute my inquiries in Sicily, demanded a hundred and eight for himself to go for a similar purpose into Achaia. When you had deprived me of the three months most suitable for conducting my cause, you thought that I would give you up the remainder of the year, so that, when he had employed the time allowed to me, you, O Hortensius, after the interruption of two festivals, might make your reply forty days afterwards; and then, that the time might be so spun out, that we might come from Marius Glabrio, the praetor, and from the greater part of these judges, to another praetor, and other judges. ³¹If I had not seen this—if every one, both acquaintances and strangers, had not warned me that the object which they were driving at, which they were contriving, for which they were striving, was to cause the matter to be delayed to that time—I suppose, if I had chosen to spend all the time allowed me in stating the accusation, I should be under apprehensions that I should not have charges enough to bring, that subjects for a speech would be wanting to me, that my voice and strength would fail me, that I should not be able to accuse twice a man whom no one had dared to defend at the first pleading of the cause. I made my conduct appear reasonable both to the judges and also to the Roman people. There is no one who thinks that their injustice and impudence could have been opposed by any other means. Indeed, how great would have been my folly, if, though I might have avoided it, I had allowed matters to come on on the day which they who had undertaken to deliver him from justice provided for in their undertaking, when they gave their undertaking to deliver him in these words—"If the trial took place on or after the first of January?" ³²Now I must provide for the careful management of the time which is allowed me for making a speech, since I am determined to state the whole case most fully.