perfumes; what a crowd of citizens, yes, of citizens, follow him; you
see how he looks down upon every one, thinks no one can be compared to
himself, fancies himself the one rich and powerful man in Rome?"

The jury seems to have caught the contagion of courage from the
advocate. They acquitted the accused. It is not known whether he ever
recovered his property. But as Sulla retired from power in the following
year, and died the year after, we may hope that the favorites and the
villains whom he had sheltered were compelled to disgorge some at least
of their gains.




CHAPTER IV.

A ROMAN MAGISTRATE.


Of all the base creatures who found a profit in the massacres and
plunderings which Sulla commanded or permitted, not one was baser than
Caius Verres. The crimes that he committed would be beyond our belief if
it were not for the fact that he never denied them. He betrayed his
friends, he perverted justice, he plundered a temple with as little
scruple as he plundered a private house, he murdered a citizen as boldly
as he murdered a foreigner; in fact, he was the most audacious, the most
cruel, the most shameless of men. And yet he rose to high office at home
and abroad, and had it not been for the courage, sagacity, and eloquence
of one man, he might have risen to the very highest. What Roman citizens
had sometimes, and Roman subjects, it is to be feared, very often to