Rome, 70 B.C.

Charge: (1) Embezzling, (2) Murder

While the trial of Sextus Roscius was going on, Sulla was busy rewarding Gaius Verres with a grant of land and protection from charges of embezzlement. Verres originally supported the Populares party, but then switched to the Optimates when they began to get the advantage. Once a supporter of Marius, now he supported Sulla, and Sulla gave him a gift. It happens all the time. He sent Verres to Asia Minor (Turkey) to work with Dolabella, the governor of the province of Cilicia, the capital of which was Tarsus, the city in which Paul would be born six decades later. Can you trust someone who is against you when you are down, and for you when you are up?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Allegedly, both the governor of Cilicia and Verres embezzled money during the 70s B.C. While the governor was eventually tried and found not guilty, Verres used bribes to become praetor (mayor) of the city. Thing is, he did a decent job. He was such a good administrator in Asia Minor, in fact, that Rome transferred him to Sicily, one of the most important agricultural regions in the Republic. It didn’t work out quite as well. Verres took a stable province and ran monkey wrenches into it. He used bureaucracy to “ruin the wheat growers and revenue collectors by exorbitant imposts and by cancelling contracts.” Basically, he was selfish. And he was into art. He sent teams of inspectors around to Roman temples and well-to-do homes to search for works of art to confiscate. This went against the property right of Roman citizens, of course, established in the XII Tables of Roman law. Which amendment protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Verres became a known fraud. He had no sympathy for the legal standards of the time. He was out for himself, yet was smart about it, so he did well for himself, unless you remember how Socrates told us nothing gained by bad means is really ours. When the Servile War broke out, in which Spartacus, a slave from Greece like Chrysogonus in the previous trial, led an army of people out of servility and against actual Roman Legions. It became the largest slave revolt in all of history. Things were tense as these armies clashed all over Italy. Do you think the Legions or the Servile army will win in the end?

_____________________________________________________________________________

In Sicily, Verres had his bureaucrats go to the plantation farms and find out who the best and most important slaves on the farms were, rather like the German Aktion-AB (AuBerordentliche Befriedungsaktion) in Poland in 1940, when the SS arrived in Polish cities with lists of intelligentsia to be arrested and imprisoned as potential revolt leaders. In an analogue of that action, Verres sought out Sicilian slaves most likely to start trouble. Once identified, he would send the landowner a document stating those particular slaves were guilty of wanting to join Spartacus’ cause. This note automatically made them enemies of the state. He also included a rejoinder, kind of matter-of-factly, that if the owner paid a certain amount, the slave would not be arrested, taken away and executed. Basically, it was a ploy to embezzle money from the landowners. They wanted to keep their best people, and Verres knew they’d be willing to pay for that. Do you think some slaves had good relations with their masters in ancient Rome? Was it smart for Verres to target those slaves specifically?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Verres did not stop there. He went to making up fake slaves to be arrested. Then he charged those fake slaves with conspiring with Spartacus to overthrow the Roman state, and demanded the “owners” hand them over for arrest! The corollary was if the owner could not produce the slave, which didn’t exist; he was arrested and ransomed. If he paid a large fine, he went free. If not, he stayed under arrest till he did. It goes without saying this get rich quick scheme was wildly unpopular. In 70 B.C., Verres traveled to Rome. There he was arrested by surprise. What he didn’t know was that the Sicilian people, angry at his corruption, had sent a messenger to the Capitoline Hill ahead of him, with a letter containing his crimes. They asked for him to be investigated and prosecuted. So he was hauled in, smug that his friends in the Senate would get him off. Then he was dismayed to find out the advocate charged with prosecuting him was none other than Marcus Tullius Cicero. Do you think karma is real, as in, what goes around comes around? How might Verres be an example of that?

_____________________________________________________________________________

For court, Verres obtained a very good lawyer, Quintus Hortensius, and he did have the sympathy of many Patricians, some of whom were his friends. Some of the Senate would side with him. But city praetor Manius Glabrio was an honest man who could not be bribed, and he presided over the trial. Verres’ lawyer motioned for the case to be postponed a year so that the presiding judge would be switched out, as it was known that his personal friend Marcus Metellus would likely be in office. What said the court? Request denied! His next move was to recommend Cicero go after another case before his; arguing it was more important. That tactic, called sidelining, did not work either. If you were on a jury and a close personal friend of yours was on trial, would you judge them differently than you would an anonymous person?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Cicero's opening statement was blistering. He rocked the audience for a full hour, describing the mountains of evidence pointing to the fact that Verres was the worst provincial governor of the time, constantly using extortion and corruption to enrich himself. He had firsthand knowledge of this, too, because after the Roscius case he moved to Sicily and took up a post as quaestor for a few years. He knew the people there, and it’s easy to find friends if you are an expert in the law, especially when people are in the middle of a disputation. Cicero painted for the court a picture of a man who was honest up until he was given a measure of power. The power changed him, and he noted for the court the attempted delay until his friend would preside in the new year. He outlined the defense’s motions to drag out the trial by all means until the end of year festivals began, during which public functions were put on hold, and after which the new judges would arrive. Cicero also reminded the jury, made up of senators, that Sulla was being pressured to allow non-Senators on juries in the future, because a closed system seemed geared to favoritism and dishonest verdicts. “The surest way to take the juries away from the Senate,” Cicero said, “is to acquit Verres on all charges!” Why was Cicero appealing to the Senators best interests?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Cicero moved to charges of embezzlement and the subversion of Roman security. He pointed to a specific bribe Verres accepted from the praetor of Messana, a Sicilian city on the tip of the island, looking towards Italy. This city he exempted from contributing a ship to the Roman naval fleet. He also let sailors go on extended leave and embezzled their military pay. He also broke the law by keeping pirates alive and extorting them instead of executing them, the Roman way to keep the seas safe. He then resettled the pirates in places no one knew them. Cicero alleged he even at times executed someone else in their place just for the show of it. When a fleet under a Verres crony was sent to stop some piracy, the absence of the fleet allowed the pirates to attack the harbor of Syracuse, Sicily’s largest, and get away with much loot. But did Verres take responsibility? Nope. He had some ship captains arrested, court marshaled and executed to cover up his massive strategic error. Cicero then went on about the fake slaves, and one can imagine Verres and his lawyer cringing with every new count. Do you think the Roman death sentence for pirates was too harsh a punishment? Why or why not?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Finally, Cicero brought up the case of a Roman citizen who protested Verres’ treatment of citizens. Apparently, he also regularly flouted the rights of citizens, which was a big no-no in Rome. The Romans took citizenship seriously, and the rights of a citizen were sacrosanct. Verres had the protestor arrested, whipped and then executed. To inflict either of these punishments on a citizen without trial was against the law, and Verres was a multiple offender in this regard. Cicero revealed how he elected crucifixion as the death sentence, and put the cross with the protestor on it up at the edge of the island, so he could symbolically “see” the border of Verres’ power right across the straits. Another abuse referred to by Cicero was done on an old man, who Verres had beaten after the man complained about him publically. The man died of wounds he received at the beating. If you were Cicero, would you have focused on a few stories, or run down a long list, not pausing for detail?

_____________________________________________________________________________

The defense, stunned like the judges, sat mute. When it was time for Verres’ lawyer to give his statement, he had none to give. They retired for the day, and Hortensius recommended Verres get out of town, lay low awhile, and go into hiding in a far away province, because there was no way were going to convince the court Cicero was wrong on these charges. Verres took that “legal advice” and left Rome for Marseilles. Would you flee your own country if the state promised you a jail sentence?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Verres lived out his days in Marseilles, but was later proscribed by Marc Antony during the time of the Second Triumverate. The reason? Antony wanted a piece of art that Verres previously embezzled from someone else. How bout that karma thing?

_____________________________________________________________________________