The Prosecution of Verres

Speeches like the Pro Flacco, the Pro Fonteio, and the Pro Scauro make clear that attacks on foreign ethnic groups were a staple of Ciceronian and presumably Latin rhetoric. It is with a certain sense of relief that we turn from the barrage of ethnic bigotry that played such an important part in these speeches to a further consideration of the strategy of persuasion found in the Verrines . Here the results of my earlier analysis of Cicero's indictment of Verres for his theft of statues and precious works of art—an analysis that focused almost exclusively on the fourth part of the Second Action—can be incorporated into a consideration of Cicero's exploitation in the work as a whole of certain commonplaces, especially those that depended on ethical and ethnic stereotypes.

The prosecution of Verres occurred in 70 B.C. , early in Cicero's career but not nearly so early as, for instance, the prosecution of Caelius was in the career of young Atratinus. At the time of the trial Cicero was thirty-six years old, a mature and experienced orator, well prepared to prosecute the case that would establish his preeminence in forensic oratory and launch his political career. The Verrines represents the only extant speech in which Cicero's powers of persuasion were brought to bear on the side of provincials seeking redress for the abuse they had suffered under Roman rule, and the orator himself was justifiably proud of his handling of the case.^[22] Even in the midst of an attack on the

[22] Even in the case of the execrable Verres, there have been modern attempts at rehabilitation. See Martorana, "La Venus di Verre." Dilke, "Divided Loyalties in Eastern Sicily," argues that Cicero's rhetorical exaggeration has hidden the degree of support enjoyed by Verres in certain parts of Sicily. Contra, see Pritchard, "Gaius Verres." For the identities of those who aided Verres' crimes in Sicily, see Classen, "Verres' Gehilfen in Sizilien." For the importance of the case in establishing Cicero's dominance in forensic oratory, see Smallwood, "The Trial of Verres."

Fig. 4.
The Roman World, 63 B.C. At this time the imperium Romanum included the provinces of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, Cisalpine Gaul, Narbonese Gaul, Nearer Spain, Further Spain, Africa, Asia, Macedonia and Achaea, Illyricum, Bithynia, Cyrenaica and Crete, and Cilicia (probably including Pamphylia). At the conclusion of the Third Mithridatic War (62 B.C. ), Pompey organized the new provinces of Bithynia-Pontus (including Paphlagonia) and Syria. Gaul from the Rhine to the Pyrenees became a Roman province as the result of Julius Caesar's campaigns of 58–50 B.C. In 63 B.C. Mauretania, Numidia, Egypt, Cappadocia, and Galatia were nominally independent client kingdoms.

evidence of Sardinian provincials in the Pro Scauro he refers proudly to the events preceding Verres' trial, recalling how he had made his way in harsh winter through the valleys and hills of Agrigentum and how he had "visited the cottages of the Sicilian farmers" and had even spoken with the men in the fields as they stood sweating at the plough (25).

The Verrines is a massive work, comprising, together with the preliminary Divinatio in Caecilium, over 450 pages in the Oxford Classical Text edition. It is divided into two parts: the First Action, at which Verres had actually been present and which had preceded the introduction of evidence at the trial; and the Second Action, a much longer work, whose five parts summarized the charges and evidence against the accused. The Second Action was one of the speeches (like the Pro Milone or the second Philippic ) that Cicero published but never delivered, since prior to its delivery the defendant had gone into exile, forced by the mountain of evidence presented in the first part of the trial to realize his conviction would be inevitable if he were to remain in Rome.^[23] The Second Action maintained the illusion, however, that it was delivered orally and that Verres was present to hear it. This pretense was in no way an attempt on Cicero's part to mislead his readers. In fact, so far from trying to deceive them, he has capitalized on their knowledge that what he states as fact within the speech was patently untrue. For instance, when Cicero declared that many were surprised to see the defendant in court since it was assumed Verres would flee the city after the damning evidence presented in the first part of the trial (II.1.1), he was making use of irony: irony of the same sort as that employed by a playwright whose audience is allowed to know more than the characters in the play. Again, when the orator stated that he was grateful that Verres' presence had necessitated the continuation of the trial, since it would allow him the opportunity to exhibit the fruit of his long labors on the case (II.1.2), Cicero's ancient readers clearly understood the statement as an explanation both for the pretense within the speech that the trial had actually gone forward and for Cicero's publication of the work.

The Verrines as published, then, depended on a fiction, and my analysis, both here and in chapter 3, has acquiesced in this fiction. Cicero would have his readers believe that the Second Action was a continuous oration similar to what he would have given if the trial had actually continued, and my discussion of it accepts this premise and goes on to

[23] On events subsequent to the First Action, see Venturini, "La conclusione del processo di Verre."

consider how Cicero went about persuading his hypothetical audience. My confidence that this is a sensible way of reading the speech grows out of the observation that its rhetorical strategy is closely related to that found in the Pro Scauro, Pro Fonteio, and Pro Flacco, speeches that actually were delivered. This does not mean, of course, that one finds the same arguments in the Verrines as those advanced in the speeches in which Cicero defended provincial governors; rather, it is the opposite side of the coin, the counter arguments to those discussed above, that Cicero exploits in the prosecution of Verres.^[24]

While arguments relating to ethnic stereotypes will be the focus of my discussion, it is instructive to note that a number of other commonplace arguments, which figure prominently in the speeches on behalf of provincial governors, have also been treated from an opposite viewpoint in the Verrines . In his speeches in defense of provincial governors, for instance, Cicero not only attempts to discount the evidence of individual witnesses; he also makes use of commonplaces questioning the importance of witnesses in general by elevating the relative position of argument through probabilities as a means of proof.^[25] In the Pro Fonteio (21–27) Cicero devotes a long passage to the need for jurors to assess critically, rather than simply to credit without question, the testimony of witnesses; in the Pro Scauro he calls argument "the voice of

[24] It is argued that the unusual length and literary elaboration of the Second Action of the Verrines reveals its artificiality. But many of the orations that Cicero actually delivered represented only part of the case for the defense or the prosecution, since several defenders or accusers frequently spoke in sequence during a case. If the Verrines had gone forward, Cicero's would have been the sole prosecuting speech, and perhaps its length and elaboration are, in fact, much closer to what would have been delivered than hitherto imagined. Contra, see, among others, Fuhrmann, "Tecniche narrative," 41–42. Fuhrmann also argues that Cicero's narrative technique, in which he chooses to turn the oration into a series of exemplary and representative stories, reveals the literary, rather than the forensic, nature of the Second Action. It seems to me, however, that what Fuhrmann is describing is the only possible manner in which Cicero could have effectively organized such an extensive mass of evidence. Fuhrmann's objection that Cicero repeats in exposition material that would have been familiar to the jury from the First Action lacks force, unless we assume the jurors (who would have heard the Second Action only after an extended recess) possessed powers of memory and organization as prodigious as Cicero's own.

[25] Quintilian mentions the commonplace concerning the relative value of witnesses and argument in his criticism of orators who simply memorized such topoi and used them unaltered in numerous cases (2.4.27).

reality, the token of nature, the imprint of truth" (16) and demeans the reliability of witnesses, who may easily be "driven, swayed, formed and diverted" (15). In rhetorical theory, evidence from witnesses, documents, legal precedents, tortures, and the like was termed "inartificial proof." While such proofs were simply "found" by the orator, the arguments that constituted "artificial proofs" were "invented" by him. Somewhat surprisingly to the modern, ancient rhetoricians often maintained the superiority of argument over evidence. Aristotle in particular gave short shrift to the subject of inartificial proof, reflecting the belief that such proofs were an adjunct rather than an integral part of rhetoric and that the handling of them was self-evident.^[26] Even in Aristotle's time, however, it was realized that the impact of inartificial proofs could be strengthened or undermined by rhetorical argument, and as early as the fifth century B.C. a number of commonplaces had been evolved to aid the orator in inventing ways to deal with them.

Cicero was well prepared to adopt the Aristotelian point of view—that argument from probabilities was superior to direct evidence—when it suited him. He subscribed to the view that "witnesses could bend the truth, documents could be altered, slaves might lie under torture, but the rational force of argument from probability was irrefutable" in speeches such as the Pro Fonteio and Pro Scauro, in which the bulk of the inartificial proof told against his client.^[27] In the prosecution of Verres, however, we see Cicero arguing the opposite side of the question. The orator had proved his case in the First Action by forgoing the customary extended opening speech and instead proceeding quickly to the presentation of direct evidence. In spite of the fact that the Second Action is the script for a highly elaborated performance, making use of the entire panoply of rhetorical weapons to rouse the passions of the audience, the orator wished to make it appear that he continued to rely primarily on objective, rather than subjective, proof. He therefore bypassed the usual inquiry into the private life and habits of the accused, a standard strategy of proof through probability, and restricted himself to

[26] Aristotle's disdain for the subject would have stemmed from the philosopher's desire to found the art of rhetoric on the basis of rational predictability. According to this point of view, the proof through argument that an event should have occurred was superior to proof by direct evidence that it did (Arist. Rhet. 1.2.2 (1355b35–39), 1.15.1–33 (1375a22–1377b12); Kennedy, Aristotle, 108–18). See above, p. 25.

[27] Cf. Flac. 23.

the discussion of specific crimes committed in public office, making frequent references to the witnesses and documents he had introduced to prove his contentions.^[28] Cicero's attitude here, so different from that found in the trials in which he defended provincial governors, is summarized in his remark to Verres' advocate, Hortensius: "In this kind of trial, when someone is said to have stolen or appropriated something, who in the world pays attention to us? Is not the entire attention of the judges focused on either the documents or the witnesses?" (II.1.27).

A similar attempt to anticipate the arguments of the defense also appears when Cicero treats the topic of the interest of the state vis-à-vis that of the accused. As has been shown, a key element in the defense of Roman governors accused under the de repetundis laws was the presentation of the case as one that pitted the interests of the Roman state, represented by the accused, against the supposed interests of an isolated group of provincials who claimed to have suffered abuse at the hands of the accused. This tactic, which represents a variation on commonplaces concerning expediency and justice and which was traditionally assigned by ancient rhetoric to the province of deliberative oratory, is of great importance in forensic speeches of this kind.^[29] While no ancient orator would have claimed outright to favor injustice towards conquered peoples, he may well, as in Cicero's defenses of Fonteius and Flaccus, have argued the patriotic necessity of the actions of the accused, whatever the complaints of the resentful provincials. In the Verrines Cicero employs a variety of tactics to prevent his opponents from exploiting this strategy.^[30] He points out to anyone who might claim that Verres should be acquitted because the Roman citizens of Sicily supported him that the extortion court had been instituted specifically for the purpose of hearing the complaints of Rome's allies, not its citizens (II.2.15). He

[28] Quintilian states that it required the greatest force of eloquence to refute inartificial proofs, and goes on to give general advice to the orator faced with the need to deny or mitigate such material (5.1.1–2).

[29] Quint. 3.8.1–3, 30; cf. Cic. Off. 3.40.

[30] The second speech of the Second Action even includes Cicero's ironic reference to the commonplace of the defendant's counsel, "Save this man for the Republic" (II.2.76: Retinete, retinete hominem in civitate, iudices; parcite et conservate ut sit qui vobiscum res iudicet qui in senatu sine ulla cupiditate de bello et pace sententiam ferat ). For a general analysis of Cicero's exploitation (in the Divinatio in Caecilium and In Verrem I) of the political circumstances that surrounded this trial, see Neumeister, Grundsätze der forensischen Rhetorik, 35–46.

then hastens to add that, in fact, it was not the provincials alone who complained of Verres' conduct but a large number of Roman citizens residing and doing business in Sicily. The orator then declares that if Verres' administration had been satisfactory to any race, whether Sicilian or Roman, or to any order, whether farmer, stockbreeder, or merchant, he would be content to see the defendant freed.

Perhaps most important to Cicero's efforts to prevent the case from turning into a matter of "us versus them" was his refusal to base his demand for Verres' conviction simply on the sympathy and pity owed the abused Sicilians; at every point he connects the idea of justice for the Sicilians with the larger issue of the interests of the Roman state. At the very outset of the First Action he warns the jury that a corrupt verdict in the case would bring about the final discredit of senatorial juries and the transfer of the extortion court to the equites (I.3). He introduces numerous witnesses and documents to prove that Verres had committed crimes not only against provincials but also against Roman citizens throughout his career as legate in Asia, praetor in Rome, and propraetor in Sicily.^[31] In the third part of the Second Action, Cicero complains as much about the harm done to Rome by the disruption of the Sicilian grain supply and the collection of taxes as about the sufferings of the Sicilians.^[32] In the fourth part, as has been shown, he constantly attempts to transform the artworks stolen by Verres into symbols of the just, stable, and profitable Roman rule that had existed before Verres' tenure of power. Finally, to prevent the prosecution from implying that Verres' assault on human rights in Sicily was justified by the exigencies of the military situation there, Cicero charges in the fifth part of the Second Action that Verres has been criminally incompetent in his attempts to secure the island from piratical activity and even suggests that the former governor had colluded with the pirates.^[33]

The Character of Verres and of the Sicilians

One sees from the above how adroitly Cicero as prosecutor anticipated and undermined the strategies that his opponent Hortensius might have used to defend Verres and that Cicero himself would later call on in

[31] II.1.9, 14, 90–94, 104–14; 2.17, 30, 166; 3.6, 93–96; 4.26, 37, 42, 46, 58; 5.69, 72–75, 77, 136–37, 139–73.

[32] II.3.11, 43, 48, 82–83, 120, 122, 127, 137, 201, 226.

[33] II.5.60–79, 82. On pirates, cf. II.1.9.

defending clients like Fonteius, Scaurus, and Flaccus. But of all the strategies he could have anticipated from the defense, the most predictable and potentially the most dangerous was a racial attack against the Greeks in Sicily along the same lines as that which he would himself launch against the Asian Greeks in the Pro Flacco . How did Cicero forestall such an attack? One method was to anticipate the thrust of the defense's attack and to turn it back against his opponents. We have seen that in the speeches on behalf of provincial governors Cicero focused on the lack of fides and religio to be expected from foreign witnesses. In the Verrines Cicero counters this anticipated tactic from his opponents by attacking Verres on just these issues: throughout the First and Second Actions Cicero depicts Verres as a tyrant to whom human and divine laws were without force and whose entire public career represented a series of outrages against the obligations he owed to both.

Cicero's indictment of Verres for his violations of fides operates on a number of levels. In the first speech of the Second Action (devoted to Verres' career before his governorship of Sicily) he speaks of the defendant's betrayal of the trust placed in him by his superiors, describing his embezzlement of money when serving as quaestor in Gaul under the consul Cn. Carbo and of his later abandonment of this post (II.1.34–40). He refers as well to Verres' betrayal of the man whom he then served under as legate and proquaestor, Cn. Dolabella (II.1.41–102). Since the assignment of the quaestors to their provinces was made by lot, and since the lot was believed to be divinely guided, the orator presents the betrayal of the relationship between Verres and his superiors as both moral and religious corruption. Verres is, in addition, stigmatized for his violations of fides towards those under his magisterial power. Cicero implies, in fact, that Verres was at his worst in his treatment of those who were most dependent on his good faith. In the course of the account of Verres' career in the East Cicero frequently chooses to expand upon those crimes that show the accused preying upon provincials, especially women and children. The story of the affair at Lampsacus, in which Verres' lust for a young woman leads to the death of the father and brother who try to protect her, and the account of the legacy of the boy Junius fit into this pattern of exploitation of the vulnerable.^[34] Such incidents also form a prelude to the revelation in parts 2 through 5 of the Second Action of Verres' greatest betrayal of fides: his abuse dur-

[34] Lampsacus affair: II.1.63–85; story of Junius: II.1.129–54.

ing his provincial governorship of the Sicilians, whose well-being had been entrusted to him by the state.

In chapter 3 I noted Cicero's attempt to paint Verres in the colors of the rhetorical tyrant. This strategy overlaps with the orator's attacks on Verres as a man without religious scruples, for the tyrant is a despiser not only of human beings but of the gods as well. Throughout the Verrines Cicero accuses Verres of a veritable war against the gods, repeatedly making use of the term religio in doing so.^[35] One crucial part of this attack turns on the defendant's appropriation of statues and works of art in the eastern Mediterranean and in Sicily. Since most of these were objects of veneration taken from temples or from shrines within private homes, their theft could be characterized as a religious offense. This strategy is introduced in the Divinatio in Caecilium, a speech in which Cicero argued his own claims to represent the Sicilians in the prosecution of Verres over the claims of a certain Caecilius. He begins the oration with the statement that the Sicilians could hardly appeal to their gods for help, as they had already been stolen by Verres. According to Cicero, the defendant had removed "the holiest images from the most sacred shrines" (Div. Caec. 3: simulacra sanctissima . . . ex delubris religiosissimis ). The idea is prominent as well in the First Action, a summary of the crimes of the accused, in which Cicero alludes to Verres' plundering of the holy places of Asia and Pamphylia, as well as of Sicily. In the prooemium of the Second Action, Cicero voices the theme that will resound throughout all five parts of the work: that it is the gods themselves who seek justice in the trial of Verres. He declares:

[35] Verr. II.1.6: multa enim et in deos et in homines impie nefarieque commisit; 4.72: ita sese in ea provincia per triennium gessit ut ab isto non solum hominibus verum etiam dis immortalibus bellum indictum putaretur; 5.188: ceteros item deos deasque omnis . . . quorum templis et religionibus iste . . . bellum sacrilegum semper impiumque habuit indictum. Cf. Font. 30. In his indictment of the defendant's offenses against various divinities, Cicero had to deal with the fact that Verres had fostered a close connection between himself and the powerful shrine of Venus Erycina in northwestern Sicily. Cicero solves this problem by focusing on the Sicilian cult of Ceres at Henna and by depicting Verres' devotion to Venus and Cupid as a mask for his greed and an expression of his libidinousness. See della Corte, "Conflitto di culti"; von Albrecht, "Cicero und die Götter Siziliens"; Martorana, "La Venus di Verre." Martorana, unlike della Corte and von Albrecht, sees Verres' support of the cult of Venus Erycina as a patriotic attempt to maintain and strengthen the link between the island and Roman imperium .

The gods of our fathers are taking him away for punishment because he was a man who could tear sons from the embrace of their parents in order to execute them and even demand that the parents pay him a price in order to bury their children. The holy rites and ceremonies of all the violated shrines and temples, the images of the gods, which were not only taken away from their temples but even allowed to lie hidden and neglected in the shadows, do not allow his mind any rest from madness and insanity. . . . We not only seek that this man be condemned so that property might be restored to those from whom it was stolen; the violated sanctity of the immortal gods must also be expiated.

(II.1.7–8)

Cicero then presents within the Second Action a seemingly unending catalogue of outrages against religious sensibilities.

At the same time that he was attempting to create for his audience a vivid picture of Verres as a man devoid of any sense of duty to men or to the gods, Cicero hoped to characterize the Sicilians as a race especially distinguished by such sensibilities, praising in particular their trustworthiness as allies and their pious respect for what they conceived of as their religious obligations. The introduction to the entire excursus on the crimes committed by Verres in Sicily begins with a passage devoted to the island's special bonds to Rome. Sicily is praised as the first province to be acquired by the Republic, the "jewel of the empire" (II.2.2: ornamentum imperi ). Once the island had been reduced, says Cicero, it never wavered in its loyalty (fides ) and goodwill (benevolentia ) towards the Roman people. For this reason Africanus had adorned its cities after the fall of Carthage, and Marcellus had allowed even hostile Syracuse to remain standing. This "storehouse of the Republic" had long fed and equipped the Romans and their armies, even during the dark days of the Social War. Cicero refers also to the fact that Sicily had proved a source of extensive profits both to those who exploited its riches from afar and to the many Roman citizens who had settled there. It is a great advantage to many citizens, he states, that they may repair to this province, which is "close at hand, loyal, and rich in resources" (II.2.6: propinquam fidelem fructuosamque provinciam ). The source of Sicily's outstanding loyalty to Rome is then revealed to be the character of its inhabitants. Cicero claims that the Sicilians are nothing like other Greeks, whose vices include laziness and excess (II.2.7: desidia . . . luxuries ); rather, they possess the virtues of endurance, bravery, and frugality (II.2.7: patientia virtus frugalitasque ), traits that remind the orator not of the Romans of the present but of those of the past. He goes on to

praise the great industriousness, thrift, and diligence of the Sicilians (II.2.7: summus labor . . . summa parsimonia summa diligentia ). They also are unassuming individuals who bear injustice and oppression without murmur (II.2.8–10). Only the outrages perpetrated by Verres have forced them to seek legal redress, and if this desperate plea for justice fails, they will simply abandon their homes. The diction and thought of such passages are clear enough: as with the Apollonians of the Pro Flacco, the virtues of the Sicilians are the stereotypical virtues of farmers, a class that Cicero says constitutes the heart both of the Republic as a whole and of the island of Sicily in particular (II.2.149). Although it is true that within the corpus of the Verrines Cicero characterizes the inhabitants of Sicily in various ways, depending on shifts in emphasis and changes in rhetorical goals, this attribution of stereotypical rustic virtues to the Sicilians recurs throughout. In one passage we even discover the scene, familiar from the Pro Roscio, of the innocent and confused countryman in the city. When Cicero is challenging the intent of a clause in a tax law allowing farmers to sue in disputes with tithe collectors he accuses Verres of "dragging men from the field to the forum, from cultivating the earth to the benches of the law courts, from the familiarity of rustic affairs to the unknown milieu of litigations and legal judgments" (II.3.26: Ex agro homines traducis in forum, ab aratro ad subsellia, ab usu rerum rusticarum ad insolitam litem atque iudicium ).

Cicero's strategy in the Second Action, then, was to forestall the defense's anticipated attack on the witnesses as untrustworthy foreigners by characterizing the Sicilians as typical farmers rather than typical Greeks. This strategy was surely an obvious one, since Sicily was blessed with an abundance of rich farmland and was renowned in antiquity for its rich agricultural produce. As Cicero remarks, "The entire utility and advantage of the province of Sicily insofar as it relates to the interests of the Roman people consists chiefly in the matter of grain" (II.3.11). The strategy was also one that could be easily exploited in the third part of the Second Action, an extensive part of the speech dealing with the crimes committed by Verres against Sicilian farmers (divided by the orator into sections dealing with the tithe on grain, the purchase of grain, and grain commutation).

When Cicero came to the fourth part of the Second Action he faced a more difficult task, since he was compelled to speak at length about the various statues and works of art stolen or extorted by Verres from Sicil-

ian city-states and individuals. As previously noted, the accusations of Verres' appropriation of cult statues from the very temples of the gods added great force to Cicero's depiction of the defendant as an impious tyrant. The difficulty such material raised, however, was that the complainants here could not be portrayed as simple farmers but were clearly men of means and sophistication. The Sicilian witnesses who accused Verres of removing precious works of art belonging to them or their cities might therefore have served to reinforce the negative stereotype of all Greeks as a race characterized by luxuria and vanitas . Cicero solves this problem by depicting the desire of the Sicilians for the return of their property as an expression not of luxuria but of a special sort of religio . As has been demonstrated, the passages dealing with particular objects removed by Verres emphasize their value as religious or patriotic symbols rather than as precious works of art. The strategy is best articulated in a passage in which Cicero speaks in general of the attachment of the Greeks to statues, paintings, and works of this sort, objects that he and his audience deemed of little worth (II.4.124, 132–34). He states:

All [the Greeks] are affected by religious scruples (religione ) and believe that the [statues of] their ancestral gods, handed down from their ancestors, should be carefully kept and worshipped by them. And further, these ornaments, these works and artistic objects, statues, and pictures, afford the Greeks an unusual degree of pleasure. Therefore, when we hear their complaints we can understand why these events seem so bitter to them while we, perhaps, view them as insignificant trifles.

(II.4.132)

The tone throughout the passage is unmistakably condescending. Yet it should be seen that Cicero has effectively stolen the defense attorney's thunder. He has agreed to the proposition that the Sicilians, like all Greeks, placed an inordinate value on ornamental objects, statues, paintings, and the like. But he converts this attachment to such "trifles" into the non-Roman expression of one of the most Roman of virtues, religio .