[22]
Therefore he sets up a man to claim that
inheritance for Venus Erycina. For it was not (as would have been usual) the
quaestor in whose province Mount Eryx was, who made the demand. A fellow of the name
of Naevius Turpo is the claimant, a spy and emissary of Verres, the most infamous of
all that band of informers of his, who had been condemned in the praetorship of
Caius Sacerdos for many wickednesses. For the cause was such that the very praetor
himself when he was seeking for an accuser, could not find one a little more
respectable than this fellow. Verres acquits his man of any forfeiture to Venus, but
condemns him to pay forfeit to himself. He preferred, forsooth, to have men do wrong
rather than gods;—he preferred himself to extort from Dio what was
contrary to law, rather than to let Venus take anything that was not due to her.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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