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    Contents:
  • The speech of M. T. Cicero as the advocate of P. Quinctius.
  • THE ORATION FOR SEXTUS ROSCIUS OF AMERIA.
  • THE SPEECH FOR Q. ROSCIUS THE ACTOR
  • THE SPEECH AGAINST QUINTUS CAECILIUS.
    		•

    M. Tullius Cicero, Orations: for Quintius, Sextus Roscius, Quintus Roscius, against Quintus Caecilius, and against Verres (ed. C. D. Yonge)

    The Fifth Book of the Second Pleading in the Prosecution against Verres.: The Speech on the Punishments.

    Editions and translations: Latin (ed. Albert Clark) | English (ed. C. D. Yonge)
    Your current position in the text is marked in red. Click anywhere on the line to jump to another position.
    text=Quinct.:section=8 text=Quinct.:section=20 text=Quinct.:section=33 text=Quinct.:section=45 text=Quinct.:section=57 text=Quinct. text=Quinct.:section=83 text=Quinct.:section=94 text=S. Rosc.:section=4 text=S. Rosc.:section=16 text=S. Rosc.:section=29 text=S. Rosc.:section=41 text=S. Rosc.:section=53 text=S. Rosc. text=S. Rosc.:section=78 text=S. Rosc.:section=90 text=S. Rosc.:section=102 text=S. Rosc. text=S. Rosc.:section=128 text=S. Rosc.:section=140 text=S. Rosc. text=Q. Rosc. text=Q. Rosc.:section=20 text=Q. Rosc.:section=32 text=Q. Rosc.:section=45 text=Div. Caec. text=Div. Caec. text=Div. Caec.:section=24 text=Div. Caec. text=Div. Caec.:section=50 text=Div. Caec.:section=62 text=Ver. text=Ver.:section=12 text=Ver.:section=24 text=Ver. text=Ver. text=Ver.:book=1:section=3 text=Ver.:book=1:section=15 text=Ver.:book=1:section=27 text=Ver.:book=1:section=39 text=Ver.:book=1 text=Ver.:book=1 text=Ver.:book=1 text=Ver.:book=1:section=87 text=Ver.:book=1:section=99 text=Ver.:book=1:section=112 text=Ver.:book=1:section=124 text=Ver.:book=1 text=Ver.:book=1 text=Ver.:book=2 text=Ver.:book=2:section=11 text=Ver.:book=2:section=24 text=Ver.:book=2:section=35 text=Ver.:book=2 text=Ver.:book=2:section=58 text=Ver.:book=2:section=70 text=Ver.:book=2 text=Ver.:book=2:section=94 text=Ver.:book=2:section=106 text=Ver.:book=2 text=Ver.:book=2 text=Ver.:book=2 text=Ver.:book=2 text=Ver.:book=2 text=Ver.:book=2:section=178 text=Ver.:book=2:section=189 text=Ver.:book=3:section=6 text=Ver.:book=3 text=Ver.:book=3:section=31 text=Ver.:book=3:section=43 text=Ver.:book=3 text=Ver.:book=3 text=Ver.:book=3 text=Ver.:book=3 text=Ver.:book=3 text=Ver.:book=3:section=113 text=Ver.:book=3:section=123 text=Ver.:book=3:section=135 text=Ver.:book=3:section=147 text=Ver.:book=3:section=159 text=Ver.:book=3 text=Ver.:book=3:section=182 text=Ver.:book=3 text=Ver.:book=3:section=206 text=Ver.:book=3:section=217 text=Ver.:book=4 text=Ver.:book=4:section=9 text=Ver.:book=4 text=Ver.:book=4:section=33 text=Ver.:book=4:section=44 text=Ver.:book=4:section=56 text=Ver.:book=4:section=68 text=Ver.:book=4:section=79 text=Ver.:book=4:section=90 text=Ver.:book=4 text=Ver.:book=4:section=113 text=Ver.:book=4:section=125 text=Ver.:book=4:section=137 text=Ver.:book=4:section=149 text=Ver.:book=5 text=Ver.:book=5:section=18 text=Ver.:book=5:section=31 text=Ver.:book=5:section=43 text=Ver.:book=5:section=55 text=Ver.:book=5:section=67 text=Ver.:book=5 text=Ver.:book=5:section=92 text=Ver.:book=5 text=Ver.:book=5:section=116 text=Ver.:book=5:section=129 text=Ver.:book=5:section=141 text=Ver.:book=5:section=153 text=Ver.:book=5 text=Ver.:book=5

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    LXVI.[169] But why need I say more about Gavius? as if you were hostile to Gavius, and not rather an enemy to the name and class of citizens, and to all their rights. You were not, I say, an enemy to the individual, but to the common cause of liberty. For what was your object in ordering the Mamertines, when, according to their regular custom and usage, they had erected the cross behind the city in the Pompeian road, to place it where it looked towards the strait; and in adding, what you can by no means deny, what you said openly in the hearing of every one, that you chose that place in order that the man who said that he was a Roman citizen, might be able from his cross to behold Italy and to look towards his own home? And accordingly, O judges, that cross, for the first time since the foundation of Messana, was erected in that place. A spot commanding a view of Italy was picked out by that man, for the express purpose that the wretched man who was dying in agony and torture might see that the rights of liberty and of slavery were only separated by a very narrow strait, and that Italy might behold her son murdered by the most miserable and most painful punishment appropriate to slaves alone.

    [170] It is a crime to bind a Roman citizen; to scourge him is a wickedness; to put him to death is almost parricide. What shall I say of crucifying him? So guilty an action cannot by any possibility be adequately expressed by any name bad enough for it. Yet with all this that man was not content. “Let him behold his country,” said he; “let him die within sight of laws and liberty.” It was not Gavius, it was not one individual, I know not whom,--it was not one Roman citizen,--it was the common cause of freedom and citizenship that you exposed to that torture and nailed on that cross. But now consider the audacity of the man. Do not you think that he was indignant that be could not erect that cross for Roman citizens in the forum, in the comitium, in the very rostra? For the place in his province which was the most like those places in celebrity, and the nearest to them in point of distance, he did select. He chose that monument of his wickedness and audacity to be in the sight of Italy, in the very vestibule of Sicily, within sight of all passers-by as they sailed to and fro.

    Preferred URL for linking to this page: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Cic.+Ver.+5.169

    The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

    This text is based on the following book(s):
    M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
    OCLC: 4709897


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