entreaties and pitiable cries did not check you, were you not moved by the
tears and groans which burst from the Roman citizens who were present at
the scene? Did you dare to drag to the cross any man who claimed to be a
citizen of Rome?--I did not intend, gentlemen, in my former pleading, to
press this case so strongly--I did not indeed; for you saw yourselves
how the public feeling was already embittered against the defendant by
indignation, and hate, and dread of a common peril".

He then proceeds to prove by witnesses the facts of the case and the
falsehood of the charge against Gavius of having been a spy. "However", he
goes on to say, addressing himself now to Verres, "we will grant, if
you please, that your suspicions on this point, if false, were honestly
entertained".

"You did not know who the man was; you suspected him of being a spy. I do
not ask the grounds of your suspicion. I impeach you on your own evidence.
He said he was a Roman citizen. Had you yourself, Verres, been seized and
led out to execution, in Persia, say, or in the farthest Indies, what
other cry or protest could you raise but that you were a Roman citizen?
And if you, a stranger there among strangers, in the hands of barbarians,
amongst men who dwell in the farthest and remotest regions of the earth,
would have found protection in the name of your city, known and renowned
in every nation under heaven, could the victim whom you were dragging to
the cross, be he who he might--and you did not know who he was--when he
declared he was a citizen of Rome, could he obtain from you, a Roman
magistrate, by the mere mention and claim of citizenship, not only no
reprieve, but not even a brief respite from death?

"Men of neither rank nor wealth, of humble birth and station, sail the
seas; they touch at some spot they never saw before, where they are