[158]
In this way has that fellow
learnt to take care of himself and of his own safety, by entering both in his own
private registers and in the public documents what had never happened; by effacing
all mention of what had; and by continually taking away something, changing
something (taking care that no erasure was visible), interpolating something. For he
has come to such a pitch, that he cannot even find a defence for his crimes without
committing other grimes. That most senseless man thought that such a substitution of
his own judges also could be effected by the instrumentality of his comrade, Quintus
Curtius, who was to be principal judge; and unless I had prevented that by the power
of the people, and the outcries and reproaches of all men, the advantage of having
judges taken from this decuria 1 of our body, whose influence it was desirable for me
should be rendered as extensive an possible, while he was substituting others for
them without any reason, and placing on the bench those whom Verres had approved.
[The rest of this oration is lost.]
[The rest of this oration is lost.]
