Caecilium is the most
argument
of August, and would occupy a fortnight; the
ative, and the most in accordance with modern Roman games would immediately succeed them,
practice.
ative, and the most in accordance with modern Roman games would immediately succeed them,
practice.
William Smith - 1844 - Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities - c
It was probably Cornelius, although cruelty.
Generically as the representative of that
there seems to have been some connection also with class Verres became an important personage, since
the Caecilii Metelli. (Verrin. ii. 2. 26, 56. ) upon the issue of his trial depended the senate's
Sula, on his return from Greece B. c. 83, created tenure of the judicia, the prevalence of the oligarchy,
a numerous body of Cornelii by emancipating and the very existence of the provincial and colonial
## p. 1242 (#1258) ##########################################
1242
VERRES.
VERRES.
posts; and the
arable land, an
bardens. Bs
gation of theis
gaty both the
Terenue. On
Forse erils th
the worst of
vious praetors
desolated the
recent servil
tween Carth
the island.
spoils and
spared by
the mild se
rival of th
with Sparta
tation ada
of the Sic
tuming to
Fears in
ployed his
amassed et
were con
plunder
quittal.
tained in
we shall
he retirec
ill-gotten
public of
empire of Rome. We shall, therefore, briefly give decessor in the Cilician quaestorship, C. Malleolus,
the dates and periods of Verres's public career, and of his patrimony: he exacted from the heir and
dwell rather on the history of the cause than on executors of P. Junius a heary fine for neglecting
that of the criminal.
to repair the temple of Castor ; and intercepted
That he took an active part in Sulla's proscrip- the fine from the state's coffers ; and, instead of
tion may be inferred from Cicero (Verrin. i. 1. rebuilding, whitewashed the defective columns of
§ 16), who, while exploring the darkest recesses the temple ; his edicts varied with the person or
of the defendant's life, purposely passes orer his rather with the price, and were drawn in defiance
apprenticeship in crime, — "Omni tempore Sullano of precedent, law, and common sense ; and un-
cz accusatione circumscripto "- as common to the less his political preferences were for the moment
times, and not peculiar to the man. For a like suspended by his avarice or his lust, his summary
reason he excepts from exposure whatever vices decisions were invariably favourable to the oligar-
and excesses Verres had displayed or committed chical party. In B. c. 74, occurred the notorious
previous to his holding a public magistracy, Judicium Juniunum (JUNIUS, No. 5). In this
Verres was quaestor to Cn. Papirius Carbo transaction, Verres was not so deeply involved as
(No. 7) in his third consulship B. c. 82. He was others of his party ; but neither was he exempt
therefore at that period of the Marian faction from the ignominy attached to the verdict, since
(Schol. Gronov. in Verrin. p. 387, Orelli), which he declared that the list of the judices had been
he quitted for that of Sulla, betraying Carbo by tampered with, and their signatures forged, him-
desertion, and the republic by embezzling the self having previously subscribed the list, and
monies with which as quaestor he was intrusted sanctioned the verdict officially. The repeal of
for the administration of Cisalpine Gaul. Sulla Sulla's laws had been guarded against by the
sent his new adherent to Beneventum, where he dictator himself, who imposed a mulct on any
was allowed a share of the confiscated estates, person who should attempt to abrogate or modify
but at the same time narrowly watched by the any portion of the Cornelian constitution. But
veterans. He was, however, called to account for in B. c. 75, M. Aurelius Cotta as consul brought
his receipts from the treasury by the quaestores forward a bill for exempting the tribunes of the
aerarii for B. C. 8), with what result is unknown. plebs from that clause of the Lex Cornelia
Verres next appears in the suite of Cn. Cornelius which excluded them from the higher offices of
Dolabella (No. 6), praetor of Cilicia in B. C. 80- the commonwealth, and Q. Opimins, tribune of
79, and one of the most rapacious and oppressive the plebs, introduced it to the comitia. Opinius,
of the provincial governors. On the death of the in the following year, was condemned and fined
regular quaestor C. Malleolus, Verres, who had by Verres for this offence : his property was put up
been Dolabella's legatus, became his pro-quaestor. to anction, and Verres enriched himself equally at
In Verres Dolabella found an active and unscru- the expense of the defendant and the treasury.
pulous agent, and, in return, connived at his ex- On the expiration of his praetorship, Verres ob-
But the proquaestor proved as faithless tained the wealthiest and most important province
to Dolabella as he had been to Carbo ; turned of the empire. Sicily was not merely the granary
evidence against him on his prosecution by M. of Rome, but from its high civilisation, its pro-
Scaurus in B. C. 78, and by shifting his own crimes ductive soil and vicinity to Italy, had long been
to the praetor's account, and stipulating for a par- the favourite resort of Roman capitalists. The yoke
don for himself, mainly contributed to the verdict of conquest pressed more lightly on this island
against Dolabella. During this pro-quaestorship than on any other of the state's dependencies.
Verres first acquired or affected a taste for the fine The ancient Greek nobility had rather gained
It is not clear, indeed, whether Cicero be-than lost by their change of rulers: the fiscal re-
lieved him to possess a genuine relish for the gulations of the Hieros and Gelos were retained :
beautiful, or whether he considered the legates the exemptions which the Marcelli had granted
appropriations as a rnere brutal lust of pillage, and and the Scipios confirmed, were respected ; and
a means of purchasing the support of the oligarchy the Sicilians hardly regretted their turbulent de-
at Rome. The criminality of the acts was the mocracies in the enjoyment of personal freedom
But Cicero at one time describes Verres, and social luxury. Verres and his predecessor
ironically, as a fine gentleman and a connoisseur ; Sacerdos came to the government of that province
and, at another, as better fitted for a porter than at a critical period. Two servile wars had re-
an artist (Verrin. ii. 4. 44, 57). The wealth cently swept over the island, and during the two
Verres acquired in Achaia and Asia, he employed years of Verres's administration, Italy itself was
in securing a praetorship in B. c. 74. The lot as- raraged by Spartans, and the Mediterranean
signed to him the urbana jurisdictio, and he re- swarmed with the Cilician pirates. The loss or the
hearsed at Rome the blunders, the venality, and retention of Sicily was, therefore, an object of higher
the licence, which afterwards marked his Sicilian moment than ever to Rome; and even an ordinary
administration. His official duties were mostly praetor might have risked by supineness or ca-
discharged by his clerks and his freedwoman and price this portion of the state-demesneg. But
mistress Chelidon. Without the interest of the in Verres, Sicily received a governor, who, even in
latter, indeed, nothing could he obtained from tranquil times, would have tried its allegiance or
him, and she, accordingly, charged high for exert-provoked disaffection. Accompanied by his son,
The city-praetor was the guardian of his daughter's husband, and a suite of rapacious
orphans; the curator of public buildings, civil and clerks, parasites and pandars, he began his extor.
religious; the chief judge in equity ; and the sit- tions even before he landed in the island. No
ting magistrate within the bounds of the pomae- class of its inhabitants was exempted from his
rium, during his year of office. In each of avarice, his cruelty, or his insults. The wealthy
these departments, according to Cicero, Verres vio- lad money or works of art to yield up; the
lated a trust. He defrauded the son of his pre middle classes might be made to pay heavier im-
Antonio
cesses.
the cons
teat er
trenty-
nessing
republic
abandor
Verres
Chilo
arts.
son, wl
the spa
same.
Pseudo
married
Sicily.
Inst. ij
The
judica
(B. C.
ferred
(B. C.
there
judicia
proved
ported
moure
was a
Sulla's
ness o
accord
ing it.
Verre
rian b
his ac
formar
dence
conder
previo
## p. 1243 (#1259) ##########################################
VERRES.
1243
VERRES.
A C. Valeria
the best and
be for meget
revenue.
BOŠ, Den
ctive coisas
to the persone
iran in de za
sense; ad
e far we recet
able to be con
mred the source
Na 5] I
deap's istoires
er was be exzes
the rerd et sa
e judices had been
atures and
bed the is
-5. The main
ded against the
d a muca
abrogate Dach
constitutio :
3 the tributes of
the La Casas
the bigher dos al
Op Erzs, tritese d
the comia Oroza
condensed and te
his property vaca
Kibed binsel echita
dant and the rest
posts ; and the exports of the vineyards, the afterwards wiblushing corruption, had been bis
arable land, and the loom, be saddled with heavier steps to prefermento He was supported by the
burdens. By capricious changes or violent abro. Metelli, the Scipios, and Hortensius, because their
gation of their compacts, Verres reduced to bego interests were accidentally involved with his. But
gary both the producers and the farmers of the the reasons which detract from the individual im-
On the native Greeks, he accumulated portance of Verres add historical value to the im-
worse evils than the worst of their ancient despots, peachment. Verres was the representative of the
the worst of their mobs, or the worst of their pre- grosser elements of a revolutionary era, as Catiline
vious praetors had inflicted. His three years' rule was of its periodical crimes and turbulence. And
desolated the island more effectually than the two with every allowance for exaggeration on Cicero's
recent servile wars, and than the old struggle be- part, Verres was a type of Roman provincial go-
tween Carthage and Rome for the possession of vernors, and, as such, his career forms no unim-
the island. Messana alone, where he deposited his portant chapter in the annals of the expiring com-
spoils and provided for himself a retreat, was monwealth.
spared by Verres ; but even Messana righed for Cicero had been Lilybaean quacstor in Sicily
the mild government of Sacerdos, and for the ar- in B. c. 75, and on his departure from that island
rival of the new practor Arrius, whom the war had promised his good offices to the Sicilians, when-
with Spartacus detained in Italy, and whose de- ever they might demand them. They committed
tention added eighteen months to the sufferings to him the prosecution of Verres. For a rising
of the Sicilians. Verres, therefore, instead of re- advocate at the bar, depending on his own exer-
tuming to Italy in B. C. 72, remained nearly three tions alone for preferment, the opportunity was
years in his government, and so diligently em- critical, whether for advancement or defeat. On
ployed his opportunities, that he boasted of having the one hand, Cicero's attack on the aristocracy
amassed enough for a life of opulence, even if he would win for him the equites' and the people";
were compelled to disgorge two-thirds of bis on the other, it closed upon him an effective
plunder in stifling inquiry or purchasing an ac- source of patronage, and involved him with a party
quittal. The remainder of Verres's life is con- which he deserted on the first occasion. He
tained in the history of the Verrine orations, which seems, however, without scruple to have redeemed
we shall presently examine. On his condemnation, his promise to the Sicilians, and to have heartily
he retired to Marseilles, retaining so much of his entered into their cause. The Verrine trial is one
ill-gotten wealth, as to render him careless of of the three eras of Cicero's life, and perhaps that
public opinion, and so many of his treasures of art, in which his cause was best, and his motives were
as to cause, eventually, his proscription by M. most pure. He may have amplified the vices of
Antonius in B. c. 43. Before his death, Verres had Verres ; he could scarcely exaggerate the faults of
the consolation of hearing of the murder of his the provincial government of Rome. In the con-
great enemy Cicero, and during his long exile of duct of the prosecution, be infringed upon no law:
twenty-seven years, had the satisfaction of wit- on obtaining his verdict, he displayed no offen-
nessing from his retreat the convulsions of the sive vanity. In Catiline and Antonius, he was op-
republic, and the calamities of the friends who posed to political rivals : in Verres, he encountered
abandoned, and of the judges who convicted him. the enemy of the law, of social and domestic sanc-
Verres married a sister of a Ronan eques, Vettiustities, of the faith of compacts, and the security
Chilo (Verrin. ii. 3. 71, 72), by whom he had a of life and property. Neither during his admini-
son, whom, at fifteen years of age, he admitted as stration, nor after his return to Rome, had Verres
the spectator and partner of his vices (16. 9. 68 ; neglected to enlist for himself staunch and nume-
Pseudo Ascon, in loc. ), and a daughter, who was rous supporters. With some, a bribe in its crudest
married at the time of her accompanying Verres to form sufficed ; but in many cases it was accom.
Sicily. (Sen. Suas. p. 43, Bip. ed. ; Lactant. Div. panied with some choice production of the chisel,
;
Inst. ii. 4. )
the easel, or the loom. But his services were
The trial of Verres was a political as well as a most in demand when his partisans in their official
judicial cause. From the tribunate of the Gracchi characters exhibited games in the forum. Horten-
(B. C. 133—123), when the judicia were trans- sius and the Metelli were thus enabled to exhibit,
ferred to the equites, to the dictatorship of Sulla for the first time, to a Roman mob many of the
(B. C. 81–79), who restored them to the senate, most exquisite specimens of Mentor, Myron, and
there had been an eager contest at Rome for the Polycleitus, collected from nearly every province
judicial power. The equites and the senators had from the foot of Mount Taurus to the Lily baean
proved equally corrupt, and the Marian party, sup- promontory. The practice of borrowing works of
ported by the Italians and the provincials, cla art from the provincials with which to adorn the
moured loudly for a reform of the courts. Verres capital on festivals, was not indeed peculiar to
was a criminal whose condemnation might justify Verres or his age. But neither the refined Cor-
Sulla's law, whose acquittal would prove the unfit- nelii nor the rude Mummii had, wlien the occasion
ness of the senate for the judicial office. Cicero, ended, adorned their own villas with these trea-
accordingly, in his introductory speech (Verrin. i. ), sures, or distributed them among the galleries of
puts “ this alternative prominently forward. " In their friends and adherents.
Verres's condemnation, he urges upon the senato. Meanwhile, neither threats nor offers were
rian bench of judices, “lies your order's safety ; in spared. Hortensius and Verres at Rome, and M.
his acquittal, your degradation now and hence- Metellus, the successor of Verres in Sicily, alter-
forward. ” This rather than the weight of evi- nately flattered and bullied the deputies of that
dence adduced was the à priori ground for Verres's island, and Cicero more than once insinuates that
condemnation. The defendant himself had neither money was indirectly offered to himself. The
previous reputation nor ancestral honours to re- prosecutors, howerer, bad nothing further to lose,
commend him. At first, guilty compliance, and I and were desperate ; Cicero bad reputation to
on this shared
praetorship Team
most important par
$ Dut mere i3e LT
bigb cirilisation, ON
to Italy, had long beses
man capitalists. There
re ligbey
the states desende
brity had raiber fasad
ze of rulers: the isar
and Gelos were rea':
the Vareli had man
zred, were respected; and
retted their turist de
urment of persona in
l'erres and his pedana?
government of that are
Two seriile sans lendem
je is’and, and duris 179
jministration, Ita'r i 138
ans, and the Mediteran
Lician pirates. The has a chi
as, therefore, an object ai
to Rome; and erez ao ardat
le risked by sup:genesis
of the state-dezente
eceived a gorernor, sku
, ereta
ould have tried its apaizar
tion Accompanied by Cis ex
usband and a suite of 2
and pandar be bayas de este
A
re he landed in the kind to
erempted he is
abitants was
Cueltr, or his insulta 'The was
or works of art to pielt up; **
might be made to pay beaute
## p. 1244 (#1260) ##########################################
1244
VENRES:
VERRES.
:
partly by curi
scourged and
respected neith
boasted that
Durderer, the
the laws of m
The provincia
were aoquitu
rescind at on
so for the tin
plunder, me
to provide i
were never
'The fact
for the Diri
two only, t1
Spoken, w
from the de
first sight
from their
Cicero imp
of deliver
quity pror
bably lose
posed on
Tarious TL
ment, it
Vertes
win, and was firm. Upon this, Hortensius changed the impeachment be put off to the next year,
his tactics. The impeachment could not be stopped Verres was safe. Hortensius himself would then
entirely ; but it might be parried. Q. Caecilius be consul, with Q. Metellus for his colleague,
Niger had been quaestor to the defendant, had M. Metellus would be city-praetor, and L. Me
quarrelled with him, and had the means of exposing tellus was already praetor in Sicily. For every
officially his abuse of the public money. To this firm and honest judex whom the upright M. Acilius
prosecutor, said Hortensius, we do not object ; he Glabrio (No. 5), then city praetor, had named,
is seeking redress ; but Cicero, notoriety. "But the a partial or venal substitute would be found.
Sicilians rejected Caecilius altogether, not merely Glabrio himself would give place as quaesitor or
as no match for Hortensius, but as foisted into president of the court to M. Metellus, a partisan,
the cause by the defendant or his advocate. By if not a kinsman of the defendant ; public curiosity
a technical process of the Roman law, called Divi. would cool ; the witnesses be frightened or con.
natio, the judices, without hearing evidence, de ciliated ; and time be allowed for forging and orga-
termined from the arguments of counsel alone, who nising a chain of counter-depositions. It was al-
should be appointed prosecutor. They decided in ready the month of July. The games to be ex-
Cicero's favour. Of all the Verrine orations, the hibited by Cn. Pompey were fixed for the middle
Divinatio in Q.
Caecilium is the most argument of August, and would occupy a fortnight; the
ative, and the most in accordance with modern Roman games would immediately succeed them,
practice. The orator demonstrates that the Si- and thus forty days intervene between Cicero's
cilians rejected Caecilius, and demanded himself: charge and the reply of Hortensius, who again,
that a volunteer accuser is as objectionable as a by dexterous adjournments, would delay the pro-
volunteer witness: that Caecilius cannot come into ceedings until the games of Victory, and the com-
court with clean hands, since, as quaestor, he must mencement of the new year. Cicero therefore
officially have been cognizant of the peculations of | abandoned all thought of eloquence or display, and
his principal : and that his quarrel with Verres merely introducing his case in the first of the
the ground of his alleged fitness for prosecutor -
Verrine orations, rested all his hopes of success on
was all a pretence. (NIGER, Q. CAECILIUs. ] the weight of testimony alone. The “king of the
The pretensions of Caecilius were thus set aside. Forum," - 80 Hortensius was called — was dis-
Yet hope did not yet forsake Verres and his armed. His histrionic arts of dress, intonation,
friends. Evidence for the prosecution was to be pathos, and invective, found no place in dry cross-
collected in Sicily itself. Cicero was allowed 110 examinations. He was quite unprepared with
day's for the purpose. Verres once again attempted counter-evidence, and after the first day, when he
to set up a sham prosecutor, who undertook to im- put a few petulant questions, and offered some
peach him for his former extortions in Achaia, trivial objections to the course pursued, he aban-
and to gather the evidence in 108 days. Had doned the cause of Verres. Before the nine days
this been really done, the effect would have been, occupied in hearing evidence were over, the de-
that the false impeachment would have taken pre- fendant was on his road to Marseilles. The im-
cedence, and the Sicilian cause either been referred peachment of Verres presented a scene for the
to a packed bench, or indefinitely adjourned. But historian and the artist. The judices met in the
the new prosecutor--one Piso or Damianus-never temple of Castor - already signalised by one of
went even so far as Brundisium in quest of evidence, the defendant's most fraudulent acts (Verrin. ii. 1,
and the design was abandoned. (Verrin. i. 2; 49, ff. ). They were surrounded by the senate,
Schol. Gronov. p. 388, Orelli ; ii. l, ll; Pseud. whose retention of the judicia depended on their
Ascon. p. 165, ib. ) Instead of the 110 days verdict. They were watched by the equites, whose
allowed, Cicero, assisted by his cousin Lucius, recovery of the judicia rested on the same issue.
completed his researches in 50, and returned But neither the senate nor the equites were pro.
with a mass of evidence and a crowd of witnesses bably the most anxious spectators of the proceed-
gathered from all parts of the island, from the rich ings. The range of the defendant's extortions had
and the poor, the agriculturist and the artisan, in: been so wide, that the witnesses alone formed no
differently. At Syracuse and Messana alone did inconsiderable portion of the audience. From the
Cicero meet with reluctance or opposition. At the foot of Mount Taurus, from the shores of the Black
former city he completely overcame Verres's par- Sea, from many cities of the Grecian mainland,
tisans, carried away with him a huge budget of from many islands of the Aegean, from every city
vouchers and documents, and procured the erasure and market-town of Sicily, deputations thronged
from the public register of an honorary decree, to Rome. In the porticoes and on the steps of
which had been extorted by Verres from the Sy, the temple, in the area of the Forum, in the co-
At Messana he was less successful. lonnades that surrounded it, on the house-tops
That city had, comparatively, been favoured by the and on the overlooking declivities, were stationed
ex-praetor. Here also Cicero encountered his old dense and eager crowds of impoverished heirs
enemy Caecilius Niger, and the praetor L. Me- and their guardians, bankrupt publicani and coru-
tellus, an alleged kinsman of Verres. The praetor merchants, fathers bewailing their children car-
forbade the Messanese to aid or harbour the orator ried off to the praetor's harem, children mourning
or his suite: reproached him for tampering with for their parents dead in the praetoris dungeons,
Greeks, and addressing them in their own tongue ; Greek nobles whose descent was traced to Cecrops
and threatened to seize the documents he brought or Eurysthenes or to the great lonian and Minyan
with him. Cicero, however, eluded the praetor houses, and Phoenicians whose ancestors had been
and all attempts of Verres to obstruct his return, priests of the Tyrian Melcarth, or claimed kindred
and reached the capital nearly two months before with the Zidonian lah.
“ All these and more
either friends or opponents expected him.
came flocking," and the casual multitude was
Hortensius now grasped at his last chance of an swelled by thousands of spectators from Italy
acquittal, and it was not an unlikely one. Could partly attracted by the approaching games, and
scourge,
polent di
along by
tures of
was not
plets i
and the
vrath
by Cic
Vectise
of the
lippic
was i
ation
topics
latera
-
ssay
Out
desc
Thes
stuc
20
racusans.
ch
## p. 1245 (#1261) ##########################################
VERRES.
1245
VERUS.
on
partly by curiosity to behold a criminal who had Cicero's own division of the impeachment is the
scourged and crucified Roman citizens, who had following:
respected neither local nor national shrines, and who
1. In Q. Caecilium or Divinatio
boasted that wealth would even yet rescue the 1. Preliminary 3 2. Proemium — Actio Prina
murderer, the violator, and the temple-robber from
Statement of the Case.
the laws of man and from the nemesis of the Gods. These alone were spoken.
The provincials scrupled not to avow that Verres
2. Orations
3. Verres's official life to B. c. 73.
were aoquitted, they would petition the senate to
4. Jurisdictio Siciliensis,
founded
rescind at once the laws against malversation, that
5. Oratio Frumentaria.
so for the time to come provincial governors might
the Deposi-
6.
tions.
De Signis.
plunder, merely to enrich themselves, and not also
17. De Suppliciis.
to provide the means of averting penalties which | These were circulated as documents or manifestocs
were never enforced.
of the cause after the flight of Verres. A good
The fact that of the seven Verrine orations— abstract of the Verrine Impeachment is given by
for the Dirinutio in Caecilium belongs to them Drumann (Geschichte Roins, vol. v. p. 363-328,
two only, the Divinatio and the Actio Prima, were Tullii. )
(W. B. D. ]
spoken, while the remaining five were compiled VE'RRIUS FLACCUS (Flaccus. ]
from the depositions after the verdict, may seemn at VERRUCOSUS, an agnomen of Q. Fabius
first sight to detract from their oratorical if not Maximus (MAXIMUS, No. 4), and of Asinius
froin their literary value. But so perfectly has Pollio, consul A. D. 81. [Pollio, No. 4. ]
Cicero imparted to the entire series the semblance VERTICO'RDIA. (VENUS. )
of delivery, and so rarely did the orators of anti- VERTUMNUS or VORTUMNUS, is said
quity pronounce extempore speeches, that we pro- to have been an Etruscan divinity whose worship
bably lose little by the course which necessity im- was introduced at Rome by an ancient Vulsiniai
posed on the orator. For while following the colony occupying at first the Caelian hill, and
various moods and evolutions of this great impeach- afterwards the vicus Tuscus. (Propert iv. 2. 6,
ment, it seems almost impossible to believe that &c. ; 0v. Met. xiv. 642. ) The name is evidently
Verres was not actually writhing beneath the connected with verto, and formed on the analogy
scourge, that Hortensius was not listening in im- of alumnus from alo, whence it must signify " the
potent dismay, that the judices were not hurried god who changes or metamorphoses himself. ” For
along by the burning words and the glowing pic- this reason the Romans connected Vertumnus with
tures of vice, ignominy, and crime, that the senate all occurrences to which the verb verto applies,
was not panic-struck, that the equites and the such as the change of seasons, purchase and sale,
plebs were not hailing the dawn of retribution, the return of rivers to their proper beds, &c. (Comp.
and that the provincials were not gazing in fear and Horat. Sat. ii. 7. 14. ) But in reality the god was
wrath upon the panorama of malversation exhibited connected only with the transformation of plants,
by Cicero. In the Catilinarian orations the in- and their progress from being in blossom to that
vective is perhaps more condensed, and the tone of bearing fruit. (Schol. ad Horat. Epist. i. 20. 1;
of the speech more strictly forensic: in the Phi- Ascon. in Cic. Verr. i. 59; Propert. iv. 2. 10, &c. )
lippics the assault is deadlier since the struggle Hence the story, that when Vertumnus was in
was internecine. But in neither does the imagin- love with Pomona, he assumed all possible forms,
ation of the orator embrace so wide a range of until at last he gained bis end by metamorphosing
topics, expatiate so genially on whatever was col- himself into a blooming youth. (Propert iv. 2. 21,
lateral to the cause, or wield with such absolute &c. ; Ov. l. c. ) Gardeners accordingly offered to
sway the powers of language and rhetoric as in him the first produce of their gardens and garlands
the Verrine orations. It is almost needless to point of budding flowers. (Propert. iv. 2. 18 and 45. )
out instances of satire, invective, argument, and But the whole people celebrated a festival to Ver-
description which have ever since furnished works of tumnus on the 23d of August, under the name of
rhetoric with examples and the practical orator with the Vortumnalia, denoting the transition from the
studies in his art. A few of the most striking in beautiful season of autumn to the less agreeable
each kind may be ranged under the following heads. one. He had a temple in the vicus Tuscus, and a
1. Sacrilege. The details of this crime are statue of him stood in the vicus Jugarius near the
Bummed up in the peroration of the 5th book of the altar of Ops. (Propert. l. c. ; Cic. in Verr. i. 59. )
2d. Pleading. The peroration itself may be com- The story of the Etruscan origin seems to be suffi-
pared with Burke's conclusion to his general ciently refuted by his genuine Roman name, and
charge against Warren Hastings. Special nar- it is much more probable that the worship of Ver-
ratives of sacrilege are found (ii. 1. 18, 19, 20), tumnus was of Sabine origin, which in fact is im-
and throughout the oration De Signis.
plied in his connection with T. Tatius. (Varro, De
2. Tampering with law and ignorance of pre- L. L. v. 75. ) The importance of the worship of
cedents.
Vertumnus at Rome is evident from the fact, that
See the whole account De Praetura Urbana it was attended to by a special filamen (flamen
(ii. 1. 40–60); the introduction to Jurisdictio Vortumnalis ; see Varro, De L. L. vii. 45, with
Siciliensis (ii. 2. 7—ff. ) and (ii. 3) Leges Decu- Müller's note ; Festus, p. 379 ; Plin. H. N. xxiii.
manae Hieronicae.
1; Müller, Anc. Art and its Rem. § 404). (L. S. ]
3. Extortion of money, works of art, &c. (ii. 1. VERULA'NA GRACI’LIA. [GRACILIA. )
17, 34, 2. 6. 22—28); and the oration de Sigis VERULA'NUS SEVEʻRUS. [SEVERUS. )
generally.
VERUS, ATTI'LIUS, a primipili centurio,
4. Corruption of morals (ii. 1 24), and the A. D. 69.
there seems to have been some connection also with class Verres became an important personage, since
the Caecilii Metelli. (Verrin. ii. 2. 26, 56. ) upon the issue of his trial depended the senate's
Sula, on his return from Greece B. c. 83, created tenure of the judicia, the prevalence of the oligarchy,
a numerous body of Cornelii by emancipating and the very existence of the provincial and colonial
## p. 1242 (#1258) ##########################################
1242
VERRES.
VERRES.
posts; and the
arable land, an
bardens. Bs
gation of theis
gaty both the
Terenue. On
Forse erils th
the worst of
vious praetors
desolated the
recent servil
tween Carth
the island.
spoils and
spared by
the mild se
rival of th
with Sparta
tation ada
of the Sic
tuming to
Fears in
ployed his
amassed et
were con
plunder
quittal.
tained in
we shall
he retirec
ill-gotten
public of
empire of Rome. We shall, therefore, briefly give decessor in the Cilician quaestorship, C. Malleolus,
the dates and periods of Verres's public career, and of his patrimony: he exacted from the heir and
dwell rather on the history of the cause than on executors of P. Junius a heary fine for neglecting
that of the criminal.
to repair the temple of Castor ; and intercepted
That he took an active part in Sulla's proscrip- the fine from the state's coffers ; and, instead of
tion may be inferred from Cicero (Verrin. i. 1. rebuilding, whitewashed the defective columns of
§ 16), who, while exploring the darkest recesses the temple ; his edicts varied with the person or
of the defendant's life, purposely passes orer his rather with the price, and were drawn in defiance
apprenticeship in crime, — "Omni tempore Sullano of precedent, law, and common sense ; and un-
cz accusatione circumscripto "- as common to the less his political preferences were for the moment
times, and not peculiar to the man. For a like suspended by his avarice or his lust, his summary
reason he excepts from exposure whatever vices decisions were invariably favourable to the oligar-
and excesses Verres had displayed or committed chical party. In B. c. 74, occurred the notorious
previous to his holding a public magistracy, Judicium Juniunum (JUNIUS, No. 5). In this
Verres was quaestor to Cn. Papirius Carbo transaction, Verres was not so deeply involved as
(No. 7) in his third consulship B. c. 82. He was others of his party ; but neither was he exempt
therefore at that period of the Marian faction from the ignominy attached to the verdict, since
(Schol. Gronov. in Verrin. p. 387, Orelli), which he declared that the list of the judices had been
he quitted for that of Sulla, betraying Carbo by tampered with, and their signatures forged, him-
desertion, and the republic by embezzling the self having previously subscribed the list, and
monies with which as quaestor he was intrusted sanctioned the verdict officially. The repeal of
for the administration of Cisalpine Gaul. Sulla Sulla's laws had been guarded against by the
sent his new adherent to Beneventum, where he dictator himself, who imposed a mulct on any
was allowed a share of the confiscated estates, person who should attempt to abrogate or modify
but at the same time narrowly watched by the any portion of the Cornelian constitution. But
veterans. He was, however, called to account for in B. c. 75, M. Aurelius Cotta as consul brought
his receipts from the treasury by the quaestores forward a bill for exempting the tribunes of the
aerarii for B. C. 8), with what result is unknown. plebs from that clause of the Lex Cornelia
Verres next appears in the suite of Cn. Cornelius which excluded them from the higher offices of
Dolabella (No. 6), praetor of Cilicia in B. C. 80- the commonwealth, and Q. Opimins, tribune of
79, and one of the most rapacious and oppressive the plebs, introduced it to the comitia. Opinius,
of the provincial governors. On the death of the in the following year, was condemned and fined
regular quaestor C. Malleolus, Verres, who had by Verres for this offence : his property was put up
been Dolabella's legatus, became his pro-quaestor. to anction, and Verres enriched himself equally at
In Verres Dolabella found an active and unscru- the expense of the defendant and the treasury.
pulous agent, and, in return, connived at his ex- On the expiration of his praetorship, Verres ob-
But the proquaestor proved as faithless tained the wealthiest and most important province
to Dolabella as he had been to Carbo ; turned of the empire. Sicily was not merely the granary
evidence against him on his prosecution by M. of Rome, but from its high civilisation, its pro-
Scaurus in B. C. 78, and by shifting his own crimes ductive soil and vicinity to Italy, had long been
to the praetor's account, and stipulating for a par- the favourite resort of Roman capitalists. The yoke
don for himself, mainly contributed to the verdict of conquest pressed more lightly on this island
against Dolabella. During this pro-quaestorship than on any other of the state's dependencies.
Verres first acquired or affected a taste for the fine The ancient Greek nobility had rather gained
It is not clear, indeed, whether Cicero be-than lost by their change of rulers: the fiscal re-
lieved him to possess a genuine relish for the gulations of the Hieros and Gelos were retained :
beautiful, or whether he considered the legates the exemptions which the Marcelli had granted
appropriations as a rnere brutal lust of pillage, and and the Scipios confirmed, were respected ; and
a means of purchasing the support of the oligarchy the Sicilians hardly regretted their turbulent de-
at Rome. The criminality of the acts was the mocracies in the enjoyment of personal freedom
But Cicero at one time describes Verres, and social luxury. Verres and his predecessor
ironically, as a fine gentleman and a connoisseur ; Sacerdos came to the government of that province
and, at another, as better fitted for a porter than at a critical period. Two servile wars had re-
an artist (Verrin. ii. 4. 44, 57). The wealth cently swept over the island, and during the two
Verres acquired in Achaia and Asia, he employed years of Verres's administration, Italy itself was
in securing a praetorship in B. c. 74. The lot as- raraged by Spartans, and the Mediterranean
signed to him the urbana jurisdictio, and he re- swarmed with the Cilician pirates. The loss or the
hearsed at Rome the blunders, the venality, and retention of Sicily was, therefore, an object of higher
the licence, which afterwards marked his Sicilian moment than ever to Rome; and even an ordinary
administration. His official duties were mostly praetor might have risked by supineness or ca-
discharged by his clerks and his freedwoman and price this portion of the state-demesneg. But
mistress Chelidon. Without the interest of the in Verres, Sicily received a governor, who, even in
latter, indeed, nothing could he obtained from tranquil times, would have tried its allegiance or
him, and she, accordingly, charged high for exert-provoked disaffection. Accompanied by his son,
The city-praetor was the guardian of his daughter's husband, and a suite of rapacious
orphans; the curator of public buildings, civil and clerks, parasites and pandars, he began his extor.
religious; the chief judge in equity ; and the sit- tions even before he landed in the island. No
ting magistrate within the bounds of the pomae- class of its inhabitants was exempted from his
rium, during his year of office. In each of avarice, his cruelty, or his insults. The wealthy
these departments, according to Cicero, Verres vio- lad money or works of art to yield up; the
lated a trust. He defrauded the son of his pre middle classes might be made to pay heavier im-
Antonio
cesses.
the cons
teat er
trenty-
nessing
republic
abandor
Verres
Chilo
arts.
son, wl
the spa
same.
Pseudo
married
Sicily.
Inst. ij
The
judica
(B. C.
ferred
(B. C.
there
judicia
proved
ported
moure
was a
Sulla's
ness o
accord
ing it.
Verre
rian b
his ac
formar
dence
conder
previo
## p. 1243 (#1259) ##########################################
VERRES.
1243
VERRES.
A C. Valeria
the best and
be for meget
revenue.
BOŠ, Den
ctive coisas
to the persone
iran in de za
sense; ad
e far we recet
able to be con
mred the source
Na 5] I
deap's istoires
er was be exzes
the rerd et sa
e judices had been
atures and
bed the is
-5. The main
ded against the
d a muca
abrogate Dach
constitutio :
3 the tributes of
the La Casas
the bigher dos al
Op Erzs, tritese d
the comia Oroza
condensed and te
his property vaca
Kibed binsel echita
dant and the rest
posts ; and the exports of the vineyards, the afterwards wiblushing corruption, had been bis
arable land, and the loom, be saddled with heavier steps to prefermento He was supported by the
burdens. By capricious changes or violent abro. Metelli, the Scipios, and Hortensius, because their
gation of their compacts, Verres reduced to bego interests were accidentally involved with his. But
gary both the producers and the farmers of the the reasons which detract from the individual im-
On the native Greeks, he accumulated portance of Verres add historical value to the im-
worse evils than the worst of their ancient despots, peachment. Verres was the representative of the
the worst of their mobs, or the worst of their pre- grosser elements of a revolutionary era, as Catiline
vious praetors had inflicted. His three years' rule was of its periodical crimes and turbulence. And
desolated the island more effectually than the two with every allowance for exaggeration on Cicero's
recent servile wars, and than the old struggle be- part, Verres was a type of Roman provincial go-
tween Carthage and Rome for the possession of vernors, and, as such, his career forms no unim-
the island. Messana alone, where he deposited his portant chapter in the annals of the expiring com-
spoils and provided for himself a retreat, was monwealth.
spared by Verres ; but even Messana righed for Cicero had been Lilybaean quacstor in Sicily
the mild government of Sacerdos, and for the ar- in B. c. 75, and on his departure from that island
rival of the new practor Arrius, whom the war had promised his good offices to the Sicilians, when-
with Spartacus detained in Italy, and whose de- ever they might demand them. They committed
tention added eighteen months to the sufferings to him the prosecution of Verres. For a rising
of the Sicilians. Verres, therefore, instead of re- advocate at the bar, depending on his own exer-
tuming to Italy in B. C. 72, remained nearly three tions alone for preferment, the opportunity was
years in his government, and so diligently em- critical, whether for advancement or defeat. On
ployed his opportunities, that he boasted of having the one hand, Cicero's attack on the aristocracy
amassed enough for a life of opulence, even if he would win for him the equites' and the people";
were compelled to disgorge two-thirds of bis on the other, it closed upon him an effective
plunder in stifling inquiry or purchasing an ac- source of patronage, and involved him with a party
quittal. The remainder of Verres's life is con- which he deserted on the first occasion. He
tained in the history of the Verrine orations, which seems, however, without scruple to have redeemed
we shall presently examine. On his condemnation, his promise to the Sicilians, and to have heartily
he retired to Marseilles, retaining so much of his entered into their cause. The Verrine trial is one
ill-gotten wealth, as to render him careless of of the three eras of Cicero's life, and perhaps that
public opinion, and so many of his treasures of art, in which his cause was best, and his motives were
as to cause, eventually, his proscription by M. most pure. He may have amplified the vices of
Antonius in B. c. 43. Before his death, Verres had Verres ; he could scarcely exaggerate the faults of
the consolation of hearing of the murder of his the provincial government of Rome. In the con-
great enemy Cicero, and during his long exile of duct of the prosecution, be infringed upon no law:
twenty-seven years, had the satisfaction of wit- on obtaining his verdict, he displayed no offen-
nessing from his retreat the convulsions of the sive vanity. In Catiline and Antonius, he was op-
republic, and the calamities of the friends who posed to political rivals : in Verres, he encountered
abandoned, and of the judges who convicted him. the enemy of the law, of social and domestic sanc-
Verres married a sister of a Ronan eques, Vettiustities, of the faith of compacts, and the security
Chilo (Verrin. ii. 3. 71, 72), by whom he had a of life and property. Neither during his admini-
son, whom, at fifteen years of age, he admitted as stration, nor after his return to Rome, had Verres
the spectator and partner of his vices (16. 9. 68 ; neglected to enlist for himself staunch and nume-
Pseudo Ascon, in loc. ), and a daughter, who was rous supporters. With some, a bribe in its crudest
married at the time of her accompanying Verres to form sufficed ; but in many cases it was accom.
Sicily. (Sen. Suas. p. 43, Bip. ed. ; Lactant. Div. panied with some choice production of the chisel,
;
Inst. ii. 4. )
the easel, or the loom. But his services were
The trial of Verres was a political as well as a most in demand when his partisans in their official
judicial cause. From the tribunate of the Gracchi characters exhibited games in the forum. Horten-
(B. C. 133—123), when the judicia were trans- sius and the Metelli were thus enabled to exhibit,
ferred to the equites, to the dictatorship of Sulla for the first time, to a Roman mob many of the
(B. C. 81–79), who restored them to the senate, most exquisite specimens of Mentor, Myron, and
there had been an eager contest at Rome for the Polycleitus, collected from nearly every province
judicial power. The equites and the senators had from the foot of Mount Taurus to the Lily baean
proved equally corrupt, and the Marian party, sup- promontory. The practice of borrowing works of
ported by the Italians and the provincials, cla art from the provincials with which to adorn the
moured loudly for a reform of the courts. Verres capital on festivals, was not indeed peculiar to
was a criminal whose condemnation might justify Verres or his age. But neither the refined Cor-
Sulla's law, whose acquittal would prove the unfit- nelii nor the rude Mummii had, wlien the occasion
ness of the senate for the judicial office. Cicero, ended, adorned their own villas with these trea-
accordingly, in his introductory speech (Verrin. i. ), sures, or distributed them among the galleries of
puts “ this alternative prominently forward. " In their friends and adherents.
Verres's condemnation, he urges upon the senato. Meanwhile, neither threats nor offers were
rian bench of judices, “lies your order's safety ; in spared. Hortensius and Verres at Rome, and M.
his acquittal, your degradation now and hence- Metellus, the successor of Verres in Sicily, alter-
forward. ” This rather than the weight of evi- nately flattered and bullied the deputies of that
dence adduced was the à priori ground for Verres's island, and Cicero more than once insinuates that
condemnation. The defendant himself had neither money was indirectly offered to himself. The
previous reputation nor ancestral honours to re- prosecutors, howerer, bad nothing further to lose,
commend him. At first, guilty compliance, and I and were desperate ; Cicero bad reputation to
on this shared
praetorship Team
most important par
$ Dut mere i3e LT
bigb cirilisation, ON
to Italy, had long beses
man capitalists. There
re ligbey
the states desende
brity had raiber fasad
ze of rulers: the isar
and Gelos were rea':
the Vareli had man
zred, were respected; and
retted their turist de
urment of persona in
l'erres and his pedana?
government of that are
Two seriile sans lendem
je is’and, and duris 179
jministration, Ita'r i 138
ans, and the Mediteran
Lician pirates. The has a chi
as, therefore, an object ai
to Rome; and erez ao ardat
le risked by sup:genesis
of the state-dezente
eceived a gorernor, sku
, ereta
ould have tried its apaizar
tion Accompanied by Cis ex
usband and a suite of 2
and pandar be bayas de este
A
re he landed in the kind to
erempted he is
abitants was
Cueltr, or his insulta 'The was
or works of art to pielt up; **
might be made to pay beaute
## p. 1244 (#1260) ##########################################
1244
VENRES:
VERRES.
:
partly by curi
scourged and
respected neith
boasted that
Durderer, the
the laws of m
The provincia
were aoquitu
rescind at on
so for the tin
plunder, me
to provide i
were never
'The fact
for the Diri
two only, t1
Spoken, w
from the de
first sight
from their
Cicero imp
of deliver
quity pror
bably lose
posed on
Tarious TL
ment, it
Vertes
win, and was firm. Upon this, Hortensius changed the impeachment be put off to the next year,
his tactics. The impeachment could not be stopped Verres was safe. Hortensius himself would then
entirely ; but it might be parried. Q. Caecilius be consul, with Q. Metellus for his colleague,
Niger had been quaestor to the defendant, had M. Metellus would be city-praetor, and L. Me
quarrelled with him, and had the means of exposing tellus was already praetor in Sicily. For every
officially his abuse of the public money. To this firm and honest judex whom the upright M. Acilius
prosecutor, said Hortensius, we do not object ; he Glabrio (No. 5), then city praetor, had named,
is seeking redress ; but Cicero, notoriety. "But the a partial or venal substitute would be found.
Sicilians rejected Caecilius altogether, not merely Glabrio himself would give place as quaesitor or
as no match for Hortensius, but as foisted into president of the court to M. Metellus, a partisan,
the cause by the defendant or his advocate. By if not a kinsman of the defendant ; public curiosity
a technical process of the Roman law, called Divi. would cool ; the witnesses be frightened or con.
natio, the judices, without hearing evidence, de ciliated ; and time be allowed for forging and orga-
termined from the arguments of counsel alone, who nising a chain of counter-depositions. It was al-
should be appointed prosecutor. They decided in ready the month of July. The games to be ex-
Cicero's favour. Of all the Verrine orations, the hibited by Cn. Pompey were fixed for the middle
Divinatio in Q.
Caecilium is the most argument of August, and would occupy a fortnight; the
ative, and the most in accordance with modern Roman games would immediately succeed them,
practice. The orator demonstrates that the Si- and thus forty days intervene between Cicero's
cilians rejected Caecilius, and demanded himself: charge and the reply of Hortensius, who again,
that a volunteer accuser is as objectionable as a by dexterous adjournments, would delay the pro-
volunteer witness: that Caecilius cannot come into ceedings until the games of Victory, and the com-
court with clean hands, since, as quaestor, he must mencement of the new year. Cicero therefore
officially have been cognizant of the peculations of | abandoned all thought of eloquence or display, and
his principal : and that his quarrel with Verres merely introducing his case in the first of the
the ground of his alleged fitness for prosecutor -
Verrine orations, rested all his hopes of success on
was all a pretence. (NIGER, Q. CAECILIUs. ] the weight of testimony alone. The “king of the
The pretensions of Caecilius were thus set aside. Forum," - 80 Hortensius was called — was dis-
Yet hope did not yet forsake Verres and his armed. His histrionic arts of dress, intonation,
friends. Evidence for the prosecution was to be pathos, and invective, found no place in dry cross-
collected in Sicily itself. Cicero was allowed 110 examinations. He was quite unprepared with
day's for the purpose. Verres once again attempted counter-evidence, and after the first day, when he
to set up a sham prosecutor, who undertook to im- put a few petulant questions, and offered some
peach him for his former extortions in Achaia, trivial objections to the course pursued, he aban-
and to gather the evidence in 108 days. Had doned the cause of Verres. Before the nine days
this been really done, the effect would have been, occupied in hearing evidence were over, the de-
that the false impeachment would have taken pre- fendant was on his road to Marseilles. The im-
cedence, and the Sicilian cause either been referred peachment of Verres presented a scene for the
to a packed bench, or indefinitely adjourned. But historian and the artist. The judices met in the
the new prosecutor--one Piso or Damianus-never temple of Castor - already signalised by one of
went even so far as Brundisium in quest of evidence, the defendant's most fraudulent acts (Verrin. ii. 1,
and the design was abandoned. (Verrin. i. 2; 49, ff. ). They were surrounded by the senate,
Schol. Gronov. p. 388, Orelli ; ii. l, ll; Pseud. whose retention of the judicia depended on their
Ascon. p. 165, ib. ) Instead of the 110 days verdict. They were watched by the equites, whose
allowed, Cicero, assisted by his cousin Lucius, recovery of the judicia rested on the same issue.
completed his researches in 50, and returned But neither the senate nor the equites were pro.
with a mass of evidence and a crowd of witnesses bably the most anxious spectators of the proceed-
gathered from all parts of the island, from the rich ings. The range of the defendant's extortions had
and the poor, the agriculturist and the artisan, in: been so wide, that the witnesses alone formed no
differently. At Syracuse and Messana alone did inconsiderable portion of the audience. From the
Cicero meet with reluctance or opposition. At the foot of Mount Taurus, from the shores of the Black
former city he completely overcame Verres's par- Sea, from many cities of the Grecian mainland,
tisans, carried away with him a huge budget of from many islands of the Aegean, from every city
vouchers and documents, and procured the erasure and market-town of Sicily, deputations thronged
from the public register of an honorary decree, to Rome. In the porticoes and on the steps of
which had been extorted by Verres from the Sy, the temple, in the area of the Forum, in the co-
At Messana he was less successful. lonnades that surrounded it, on the house-tops
That city had, comparatively, been favoured by the and on the overlooking declivities, were stationed
ex-praetor. Here also Cicero encountered his old dense and eager crowds of impoverished heirs
enemy Caecilius Niger, and the praetor L. Me- and their guardians, bankrupt publicani and coru-
tellus, an alleged kinsman of Verres. The praetor merchants, fathers bewailing their children car-
forbade the Messanese to aid or harbour the orator ried off to the praetor's harem, children mourning
or his suite: reproached him for tampering with for their parents dead in the praetoris dungeons,
Greeks, and addressing them in their own tongue ; Greek nobles whose descent was traced to Cecrops
and threatened to seize the documents he brought or Eurysthenes or to the great lonian and Minyan
with him. Cicero, however, eluded the praetor houses, and Phoenicians whose ancestors had been
and all attempts of Verres to obstruct his return, priests of the Tyrian Melcarth, or claimed kindred
and reached the capital nearly two months before with the Zidonian lah.
“ All these and more
either friends or opponents expected him.
came flocking," and the casual multitude was
Hortensius now grasped at his last chance of an swelled by thousands of spectators from Italy
acquittal, and it was not an unlikely one. Could partly attracted by the approaching games, and
scourge,
polent di
along by
tures of
was not
plets i
and the
vrath
by Cic
Vectise
of the
lippic
was i
ation
topics
latera
-
ssay
Out
desc
Thes
stuc
20
racusans.
ch
## p. 1245 (#1261) ##########################################
VERRES.
1245
VERUS.
on
partly by curiosity to behold a criminal who had Cicero's own division of the impeachment is the
scourged and crucified Roman citizens, who had following:
respected neither local nor national shrines, and who
1. In Q. Caecilium or Divinatio
boasted that wealth would even yet rescue the 1. Preliminary 3 2. Proemium — Actio Prina
murderer, the violator, and the temple-robber from
Statement of the Case.
the laws of man and from the nemesis of the Gods. These alone were spoken.
The provincials scrupled not to avow that Verres
2. Orations
3. Verres's official life to B. c. 73.
were aoquitted, they would petition the senate to
4. Jurisdictio Siciliensis,
founded
rescind at once the laws against malversation, that
5. Oratio Frumentaria.
so for the time to come provincial governors might
the Deposi-
6.
tions.
De Signis.
plunder, merely to enrich themselves, and not also
17. De Suppliciis.
to provide the means of averting penalties which | These were circulated as documents or manifestocs
were never enforced.
of the cause after the flight of Verres. A good
The fact that of the seven Verrine orations— abstract of the Verrine Impeachment is given by
for the Dirinutio in Caecilium belongs to them Drumann (Geschichte Roins, vol. v. p. 363-328,
two only, the Divinatio and the Actio Prima, were Tullii. )
(W. B. D. ]
spoken, while the remaining five were compiled VE'RRIUS FLACCUS (Flaccus. ]
from the depositions after the verdict, may seemn at VERRUCOSUS, an agnomen of Q. Fabius
first sight to detract from their oratorical if not Maximus (MAXIMUS, No. 4), and of Asinius
froin their literary value. But so perfectly has Pollio, consul A. D. 81. [Pollio, No. 4. ]
Cicero imparted to the entire series the semblance VERTICO'RDIA. (VENUS. )
of delivery, and so rarely did the orators of anti- VERTUMNUS or VORTUMNUS, is said
quity pronounce extempore speeches, that we pro- to have been an Etruscan divinity whose worship
bably lose little by the course which necessity im- was introduced at Rome by an ancient Vulsiniai
posed on the orator. For while following the colony occupying at first the Caelian hill, and
various moods and evolutions of this great impeach- afterwards the vicus Tuscus. (Propert iv. 2. 6,
ment, it seems almost impossible to believe that &c. ; 0v. Met. xiv. 642. ) The name is evidently
Verres was not actually writhing beneath the connected with verto, and formed on the analogy
scourge, that Hortensius was not listening in im- of alumnus from alo, whence it must signify " the
potent dismay, that the judices were not hurried god who changes or metamorphoses himself. ” For
along by the burning words and the glowing pic- this reason the Romans connected Vertumnus with
tures of vice, ignominy, and crime, that the senate all occurrences to which the verb verto applies,
was not panic-struck, that the equites and the such as the change of seasons, purchase and sale,
plebs were not hailing the dawn of retribution, the return of rivers to their proper beds, &c. (Comp.
and that the provincials were not gazing in fear and Horat. Sat. ii. 7. 14. ) But in reality the god was
wrath upon the panorama of malversation exhibited connected only with the transformation of plants,
by Cicero. In the Catilinarian orations the in- and their progress from being in blossom to that
vective is perhaps more condensed, and the tone of bearing fruit. (Schol. ad Horat. Epist. i. 20. 1;
of the speech more strictly forensic: in the Phi- Ascon. in Cic. Verr. i. 59; Propert. iv. 2. 10, &c. )
lippics the assault is deadlier since the struggle Hence the story, that when Vertumnus was in
was internecine. But in neither does the imagin- love with Pomona, he assumed all possible forms,
ation of the orator embrace so wide a range of until at last he gained bis end by metamorphosing
topics, expatiate so genially on whatever was col- himself into a blooming youth. (Propert iv. 2. 21,
lateral to the cause, or wield with such absolute &c. ; Ov. l. c. ) Gardeners accordingly offered to
sway the powers of language and rhetoric as in him the first produce of their gardens and garlands
the Verrine orations. It is almost needless to point of budding flowers. (Propert. iv. 2. 18 and 45. )
out instances of satire, invective, argument, and But the whole people celebrated a festival to Ver-
description which have ever since furnished works of tumnus on the 23d of August, under the name of
rhetoric with examples and the practical orator with the Vortumnalia, denoting the transition from the
studies in his art. A few of the most striking in beautiful season of autumn to the less agreeable
each kind may be ranged under the following heads. one. He had a temple in the vicus Tuscus, and a
1. Sacrilege. The details of this crime are statue of him stood in the vicus Jugarius near the
Bummed up in the peroration of the 5th book of the altar of Ops. (Propert. l. c. ; Cic. in Verr. i. 59. )
2d. Pleading. The peroration itself may be com- The story of the Etruscan origin seems to be suffi-
pared with Burke's conclusion to his general ciently refuted by his genuine Roman name, and
charge against Warren Hastings. Special nar- it is much more probable that the worship of Ver-
ratives of sacrilege are found (ii. 1. 18, 19, 20), tumnus was of Sabine origin, which in fact is im-
and throughout the oration De Signis.
plied in his connection with T. Tatius. (Varro, De
2. Tampering with law and ignorance of pre- L. L. v. 75. ) The importance of the worship of
cedents.
Vertumnus at Rome is evident from the fact, that
See the whole account De Praetura Urbana it was attended to by a special filamen (flamen
(ii. 1. 40–60); the introduction to Jurisdictio Vortumnalis ; see Varro, De L. L. vii. 45, with
Siciliensis (ii. 2. 7—ff. ) and (ii. 3) Leges Decu- Müller's note ; Festus, p. 379 ; Plin. H. N. xxiii.
manae Hieronicae.
1; Müller, Anc. Art and its Rem. § 404). (L. S. ]
3. Extortion of money, works of art, &c. (ii. 1. VERULA'NA GRACI’LIA. [GRACILIA. )
17, 34, 2. 6. 22—28); and the oration de Sigis VERULA'NUS SEVEʻRUS. [SEVERUS. )
generally.
VERUS, ATTI'LIUS, a primipili centurio,
4. Corruption of morals (ii. 1 24), and the A. D. 69.