Cicero (14 page)

In fact, the one thing that most upset Crassus throughout his life was Pompey's predominance. Once when someone said, “Pompey the Great is coming,” he laughed and asked,
“AS
great as what?” A
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a rule Crassus did not bear grudges. This was not because he had a good heart but because other people rarely engaged his emotions. He had little difficulty in dropping friends or making up quarrels as occasion served. Cicero, whose view of friendship was different, had a very low opinion of him.

The two generals deserved the state's gratitude for their military accomplishments, but the Senate regarded them as serious threats to the status quo. Yet despite the fact that Pompey was underage, had not yet become a Senator nor yet been elected to any of the magistracies, it proved impossible to stop him from standing as candidate with Crassus for the Consulship in 70. They stood out from the common run of their contemporaries, and had no trouble getting elected.

Pompey and Crassus were on very poor personal terms, and neither wished to be put at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the other. A
S
a result, they hesitated for some time before disbanding their armies; but they could see that if they did not hold firm as partners in the face of Senatorial opposition, they would be picked off separately. Pompey's glamour made him popular with the voters and there was general relief at the winding up of the slave revolt. The candidates added to their appeal by announcing a program of reforms that did away with many of the key components of Sulla's constitution; in particular, they revived the powers of the Tribunes. This was not a disinterested measure, for it gave powerful generals a handy mechanism for bullying or bypassing the Senate.

Another reform under consideration at this time was of particular interest to Cicero. Sulla had transferred the right to sit on juries from the
equites
to the Senate. The result had been judgment by peers at its most debased.
Senators were often charged with corruption and there had been a long line of scandalous acquittals, due to bribery and the unwillingness of jurors to condemn their friends and colleagues. In extortion cases in particular it seemed next to impossible to secure a conviction.

The problem came into sharp focus when a group of leading Sicilians decided to sue their former governor, Caius Verres, who had served an unusually long term of three years, thanks to the demands that Spartacus had made on the time of his appointed successor. During this period Verres had behaved with a greed and ruthlessness that was unusual even by Roman standards.

The chain of events that led to the complaint went back a couple of years. Verres got to know Sthenius, a distinguished Sicilian from the town of Thermae. Both men were art lovers and collectors and for a while they had been on good terms. The governor had persuaded his new friend to part with much of his collection. But when he also demanded some of the city's unique heritage of Greek sculpture (including a sixth-century
BC
statue of the poet Stesichorus), it was too much for Sthenius, who convinced the local council to say no.

An enraged Verres contrived to have Sthenius taken to court to face a false accusation of forgery. Deeming discretion the better part of valor, the Sicilian fled abroad and was given a heavy fine of 500,000 sesterces
in absentia
. This was not good enough for Verres, who then arranged to have a capital charge laid against him. Sthenius soon appeared in Rome, where he had many connections, to air his grievance. An official complaint was to be put before the Senate, but Verres's father arranged for it to be withdrawn after giving assurances that his son would be persuaded to relent. In spite of this, Verres went ahead with his case and brought in a conviction.

Such was the situation in late 71 when the delegation from Sicily called on Pompey, then Consul-Elect, to ask for his help. They also made contact with Cicero, who now counted Sicilians on his client list, and asked him to bring a case of extortion against Verres. This was the only legal remedy available to them, for they were not allowed to plead in court themselves and were obliged to find a Roman lawyer to act on their behalf. The young Quaestor's friendliness and lack of bias were not forgotten—nor the forensic skills he had demonstrated during his Sicilian posting. Although
not yet acknowledged as the leader of his profession, he was an obviously rising star and seemed a sound choice.

Throughout his career Cicero usually represented the defense; this was one of the rare occasions when he prosecuted. The conventions of clientship gave him little option but to agree to do so. He may have calculated that his involvement in such a high-profile event would do no harm to his chances when he stood for Aedile in the summer of 70, the next lap in the Honors Race. Aediles reported to the Consuls, on whose behalf they exercised various administrative duties in Rome; these included looking after the grain supply, the control of markets, streets and traffic and the prosecution of offenders against moneylending laws. They were also responsible for staging public shows and games. (There were two kinds of Aedile: Plebeian, open only to the popular classes, and Curule, for which both Plebeians and Patricians were entitled to stand; Cicero probably ran for the former.)

Verres and his friends in the Senate were uneasy. His counsel was the best that could be found: Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. Eight years older than Cicero, he was a virtuoso of an elaborate “Asiatic” (as it was called) style of oratory, and the most celebrated member of the Roman bar. In case this was not enough to win an acquittal, steps were taken to sabotage the proceedings in various ways. First, an attempt was made to prevent Cicero from appearing at all. There being no state prosecution service, anyone could bid to take on a case; a friend of Verres, who had once been his Quaestor, volunteered to prosecute him—with the clear intention of pulling his punches and so reducing the risk of conviction. Also, if possible, he would drag out the trial till the following year, when a number of Verres's friends would probably be assuming important official positions. (Hortensius, for example, was running for Consul.)

So a preliminary hearing had to be held to determine which of the competing advocates had priority. Cicero won the decision and then asked for a stay of trial for 110 days so that he could collect evidence and recruit witnesses. He traveled to Sicily with his cousin Lucius in the depths of an unusually harsh winter and began his investigations. The current governor of Sicily was Lucius Caecilius Metellus, a friend of Verres and a member of one of Rome's most aristocratic clans. His good offices, supplemented by the recycling of some of Verres's ill-gotten gains back to Sicily in the
form of bribes, hindered Cicero's detective work. Local communities were unexpectedly reluctant to appoint delegations to attend the trial. Although Cicero was entitled to ask for documents, they were not always produced. Witnesses became mysteriously unavailable for questioning.

Cicero was undeterred, tracking people down to remote cottages or fields where they were working at the plow. He completed his inquiries in fifty days and, after a trying, storm-tossed voyage in a small boat, was back in Rome for the summer well before his deadline was up.

An unpleasant surprise awaited him. The case had been delayed by the specious interposition of another trial and was now unlikely to take place before August. This was a serious blow, for there were very few
fasti
days between August and mid-November when trials could be heard. This was partly because of the large number of regular holidays and festivals, but also because Pompey was planning some additional games to celebrate his Spanish victory.

Worse was to come. Hortensius and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus, Verres's patron, won the Consular elections for the following year, 69, and a few days later yet another Metellus was elected Praetor, with responsibility for the extortion court before which Cicero would be appearing. On top of that, a fourth Metellus was appointed to follow his brother as governor of Sicily. The only good news was that an attempt to prevent Cicero from being elected as Aedile was decisively thwarted. In fact, he scored a notable success, leading his competitors by a large majority.

From Verres's point of view, the battle seemed to be won before it started. Taken overall, the election results were almost as good as an acquittal and congratulations began to pour in. Of course, it would be necessary to put up with the formality of trial, but a formality was all it was expected to be. When proceedings opened in the Forum on August 4, the accused man had reason to feel optimistic.

Cicero thought hard about the tactics he should use in court. He knew that the evidence he had assembled was detailed and robust, but he had to find a way of preventing the case from trickling desultorily through the autumn into the new year. He decided to launch a surprise attack. Roman trials usually began with long addresses by the advocates. With permission from the presiding Praetor, Cicero gave up the opportunity for time-consuming oratorical display and, after a brief introduction detailing Verres's delaying tactics, proceeded directly to the evidence itself. He showed
methodically, and with full reference to witnesses and documents, that during his three years in Sicily Verres had amassed the enormous sum of 40 million sesterces.

“Today the eyes of the world are upon you,”
Cicero told the jurors, fearing that they would allow themselves to be suborned. “This man's case will establish whether a jury composed exclusively of Senators can possibly convict someone who is very guilty—and very rich. Let me add that because the defendant is the kind of man who is distinguished by nothing except his criminality and his wealth, the only imaginable explanation for an acquittal will be the one that brings the greatest discredit to you. No one will believe that anybody likes Verres, or that he is related to any of you, or that he has behaved well in other aspects of his life, no, nor even that he is moderate in his faults. No such excuses can extenuate the number and scale of his offenses.”

It was crucial that Cicero finish his presentation before the court went into recess with the opening of Pompey's games on August 16. In the event, he managed to set out his material expeditiously as well as comprehensively. On August 13 he rested his case.

Cicero's coup was devastating for the defense and had immediate consequences. Clearly, it was no longer feasible for Verres and his friends to try to keep the trial going indefinitely. Far more serious, though, was Hortensius's reaction. He was appalled by what he had heard and his sense of having been ambushed by Cicero magnified the impact of the evidence. He withdrew from the case without saying a word in response. Verres drew the inevitable conclusion and left at once for Massilia (in Transalpine Gaul) and a lifetime of exile. He was able to take his fortune with him, for he was as yet unconvicted, and so did not have to sacrifice his extorted comforts.

On the following day the jury, despite having been heavily bribed, had no choice but to bring in a guilty verdict. A fine of 3 million sesterces was levied—a derisory figure but probably the maximum that could be legally claimed. Hortensius was persuaded to return to court and speak in mitigation. A
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a reward Verres gave him an ivory figurine of a sphinx. In the course of his own address, Cicero made some enigmatic remark and Hortensius interrupted: “I am afraid I'm no good at solving riddles.” “Oh, really,” snapped Cicero. “In spite of having a sphinx at home?”

Although Cicero had done little more than call witnesses and examine
them, he had been able to display his eloquence, or at least his wit, in a number of heated exchanges. He had no hesitation in delivering brutal and sometimes tasteless put-downs. When a Jewish freedman named Caecilius (his name suggests he was an ex-slave of the Metelli) tried to push himself forward instead of the Sicilian witnesses, Cicero remarked scornfully: “What can a Jew have to do with a pig?”—“Verres” meaning “uncastrated boar” in Latin. At another point in the proceedings, when Verres attacked Cicero for not having the most virile or healthy of constitutions, he replied: “Virility is something you would do better to discuss with your boys at home.” (One of Verres's sons was supposed to be promiscuously homosexual.)

Even though their property was not restored, the Sicilians were delighted by the verdict. Cicero's routing of Hortensius was a professional turning point. He was now beyond dispute the leading advocate of his day. Not wanting to waste the results of his researches, he worked up the documentation he had gathered on Verres into a series of speeches which he might have delivered had he had the chance.

These made a powerful case for reform of the courts and the jury system and also allowed Cicero to demonstrate his mastery of presentation. He spoke explicitly on the subject. “Gentlemen of the jury, you must take thought and make provision for your public credit, for your good name, for your common interest in self-preservation. Your spotless characters make it impossible for you to behave badly, save at the cost of damaging and endangering the state. For if you are unable to arrive at a correct judgment in this case, the Roman People cannot expect that there will be other Senators who can. It will despair of the Senatorial Order as a whole and look around for some other type of man and some other method of administering justice.” Later in the autumn the Senatorial monopoly of juries was rescinded and their share of the membership reduced to one third, the remainder being allocated to
equites
and others.

On January 1, 69, Cicero took up his duties as Aedile and addressed the task of staging various festivals—that of Ceres with its circus games on or about April 19; ten days or so later, the celebrations in honor of Flora, goddess of flowers, with its program of popular plays and striptease shows; and from September 4 to 19 the great Roman Games (
Ludi Romani
), which featured drama performances and chariot races. Aediles were expected to supplement the official budget from their own pockets and there
was fierce competition to stage the most splendid and extravagant events. Cicero's resources were limited and he could not afford the kind of conspicuous expenditure with which Julius Caesar would cut a dash when he was Aedile later in the decade. However, his
clientela
in Sicily apparently made up for any deficiencies by flooding Rome with foodstuffs and so keeping the cost of living artificially low. This won Cicero golden opinions among the urban masses.