Imperium

it into Cicero’s hands, “you can see what the monster has done. This is what was written before the verdict of the tribunes. And this,” he said, giving him another, “is what was written afterwards.”
    With a sigh, Cicero held the two documents side by side and squinted at them. “So what is this? This is the official record of your trial for treason, in which I see it is written that you were present during the hearing. Well, we know that is nonsense. And here”—his words began to slow as he realized the implications—“…here it says that you were not present.” He looked up, his bleary eyes starting to clear. “So Verres is falsifying the proceedings of his own court, and then he is falsifying his own falsification?”
    “Exactly!” said Sthenius. “When he realized you had produced me before the tribunes, and that all of Rome knew I could hardly have been in Syracuse on the first day of December, he had to obliterate the record of his lie. But the first document was already on its way to me.”
    “Well, well,” said Cicero, continuing to scrutinize the papers, “perhaps he is more worried than we thought. And I see it also says here that you had a defense attorney representing you that day: ‘Gaius Claudius, son of Gaius Claudius, of the Palatine tribe.’ You are a fortunate man, to have your very own Roman lawyer. Who is he?”
    “He is Verres’s business manager.”
    Cicero studied Sthenius for a moment or two. “What else do you have in that bag of yours?” he said.
    Out it all came then, tipped over the study floor on that hot summer’s morning: letters, names, scraps of official records, scribbled notes of gossip and rumors—seven months’ angry labor by three desperate men, for it transpired that Heraclius and Epicrates had also been swindled by Verres out of their estates, one worth sixty thousand, the other thirty. In both cases, Verres had abused his office to bring false accusations and secure illegal verdicts. Both had been robbed at around the same time as Sthenius. Both had been, until then, the leading men in their communities. Both had been obliged to flee the island penniless and seek refuge in Rome. Hearing of Sthenius’s appearance before the tribunes, they had sought him out and proposed cooperation.
    “As single victims, they were weak,” said Cicero years later, reminiscing about the case, “but when they joined in common cause, they found they had a network of contacts which spread across the entire island: Thermae in the north, Bidis in the south, Syracuse in the east. These were men sagacious by nature, shrewd by experience, accomplished by education, and their fellow-countrymen had opened up the secrets of their suffering to them, as they would never have done to a Roman senator.”
    Outwardly Cicero still seemed the calm advocate. But as the sun grew stronger and I blew out the lamps, and as he picked up one document after another, I could sense his gathering excitement. Here was the sworn affidavit of Dio of Halaesa, from whom Verres had first demanded a bribe of ten thousand to bring in a not-guilty verdict, and then had stolen all his horses, tapestries, and gold and silver plate. Here were the written testimonies of priests whose temples had been robbed—a bronze Apollo, signed in silver by the sculptor Myron, and presented by Scipio a century and a half earlier, stolen from the shrine of Aesculapius at Agrigentum; a statue of Ceres carried away from Catina, and of Victory from Henna; the sacking of the ancient shrine of Juno in Melita. Here was the evidence of farmers in Herbita and Agyrium, threatened with being flogged to death unless they paid protection money to Verres’s agents. Here was the story of the wretched Sopater of Tyndaris, seized in midwinter by Verres’s lictors and bound naked to an equestrian statue in full view of the entire community, until he and his fellow citizens agreed to hand over a valuable municipal bronze of Mercury that stood in the local gymnasium. “It is not a province Verres is running down there,” murmured Cicero in wonder, “it is a fully fledged criminal state.” There were a dozen more of these grim stories.
    With the agreement of the three Sicilians, I bundled the papers together and locked them in the senator’s strongbox. “It is vital, gentlemen, that not a word of this leaks out,” Cicero told them. “By all means continue to collect statements and witnesses, but please do it discreetly.