[147]
When by these practices his prison had become full of merchants, then those scenes
took place which you have heard related by Lucius Suetius, a Roman knight, and a
most virtuous man, and by others. The necks of Roman citizens were broken in a most
infamous manner in the prison; so that very expression and form of entreaty,
“I am a Roman citizen,” which has often brought to many, in the
most distant countries, succour and assistance, even among the barbarians, only
brought to these men a more bitter death and a more immediate execution. What is
this, O Verres? What reply are you thinking of making to this? That I am telling
lies? that I am inventing things? that I am exaggerating this accusation? Will you
dare to say any one of these things to those men who are defending you? Give me, I
pray you, the documents of the Syracusans taken from his own bosom, which, methinks,
were drawn up according to his will; give me the register of the prison, which is
most carefully made up, stating in what day each individual was committed to prison,
when he died, how he was executed. [The documents of the Syracusans are read.]
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