honest when honesty is out of fashion is magnificent.

In the affair with Verres, there are two matters to interest the
reader--indeed, to instruct the reader--if the story were sufficiently
well told. The iniquity of Verres is the first--which is of so
extravagant a nature as to become farcical by the absurdity of the
extent to which he was not afraid to go in the furtherance of his
avarice and lust. As the victims suffered two thousand years ago, we
can allow ourselves to be amused by the inexhaustible fertility of the
man's resources and the singular iniquity of his schemes. Then we
are brought face to face with the barefaced corruption of the Roman
judges--a corruption which, however, became a regular trade, if not
ennobled, made, at any rate, aristocratic by the birth, wealth high
names, and senatorial rank of the robbers. Sulla, for certain State
purposes--which consisted in the maintenance of the oligarchy--had
transferred the privileges of sitting on the judgment-seat from
the Equites, or Knights, to the Senators. From among the latter a
considerable number--thirty, perhaps, or forty, or even fifty--were
appointed to sit with the Praetor to hear criminal cases of
importance, and by their votes, which were recorded on tablets, the
accused person was acquitted or condemned. To be acquitted by the most
profuse corruption entailed no disgrace on him who was tried, and
often but little on the judges who tried him. In Cicero's time the
practice, with all its chances, had come to be well understood. The
Provincial Governors, with their Quaestors and lieutenants, were
chosen from the high aristocracy, which also supplied the judges.
The judges themselves had been employed, or hoped to be employed, in
similar lucrative service. The leading advocates belonged to the same
class. If the proconsular thief, when he had made his bag, would
divide the spoil with some semblance of equity among his brethren,