[103]
I feel, O judges, that I must now set some bounds to the length of my speech, and
that I must avoid wearying you. I will no longer dwell on one kind of injury alone,
and I will leave the other instances out of my speech, though they will still make a
part of my accusation. You shall hear the complaints of the Agregentines, most
gallant, and most industrious men; you shall become acquainted, O judges, with the
sufferings and the injuries of the Entellans, a people of the greatest perseverance
and the greatest industry; the wrongs of the men of Heraclea, and Gela, and
Solentum shall be mentioned: you shall be told of the fields of the Catanians, a
most wealthy people and most friendly to us, ravaged by Apronius: you shall be made
aware that the cities of Tyndaris,
that most noble city, of Cephalaedis, of Halentia, of Apollonia, of Enguina, of Capitia, have been
ruined by the iniquity of these farmers; that actually nothing is left to the
citizens of Ina, of Murgentia, of Assoria, of Elorum, of Enna, and of Ietum; that the people of Cetaria and
Acheria, small cities, are wholly crushed and destroyed; in short, that all the
lands liable to the payment of tenths have been for three years tributary to the
Roman people, to the extent of one tenth of their produce, and to Caius Verres to
the extent of all the rest; that to most of the cultivators nothing at all is left,
that if anything was either remitted to or left to any one, it was only just so much
as remained of that property by which the avarice of that man had bees satiated.
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