what does it exhibit, but one continued fcene of villanies? Cneus Carbo plundered of the public money by his own treafurer, a conful stripped and betrayed, an army deferted and reduced to want, a province robbed, the civil and religious rights of a people violated.

6. The employment he held in Afia Minor and Pamphylia, what did it produce, but the ruin of thofe countries? in which houfes, cities and temples, were robbed by him.What was his conduct in his pretorship here at home? Let the plundered temples, and the public works, neglected, that he might embezzle the money intended for carrying them on, bear witness. But his pretorship in Sicily crowns all his works of wickednefs, and furnishes a lafting monument to his infamy.

7. The mischiefs done by him in that country, during the three years of his iniquitous administration, are fuch, that many years, under the wifeft and beft of pretors, will not be fufficient to restore things to the condition in which he found them.

8. For it is notorious, that during the time of his tyranny, the Sicilians neither enjoyed the protection of their original laws, of the regulations made for their benefit by the Roman fenate upon their coming under the protection of the commonwealth, nor of the natural and unalienable rights of men.

9. His nod has decided all caufes in Sicily these three years; and his decifions have broken all law, all precedent, all right. The fums he has, by arbitrary taxes and unheard of impofitions, extorted from the industrious poor, are not to be computed. The most faithful allies of the commonwealth

have been treated as enemies.

10. Roman citizens, have, like flaves, been put to death with tortures. The most atrocious criminals, for money have been exempted from deferved punishments; and men of the moft unexceptionable characters condemned and banished unheard.

11. The harbors, though fufficiently fortified, and the gates of ftrong towns, opened to pirates and ravagers; the foldiery and failors belonging to a province under the protection of the commonwealth, ftarved to death; whole fleets, to the great detriment of the province suffered to perish; the ancient monuments of either Sicilian or Rome greatness, the ftatues of heroes and princes, carried off; and the temples ftripped of their images.

12. The infamy of his lewdness has been fuch as decency forbids me to describe; nor will I by mentioning particulars, put thofe unfortunate perfons to fresh pain, who have not been' able to fave their wives and daughters from his impurity.

13. And thefe his atrocious crimes, have been committed in fo public a manner, that there is no one who has heard of his name, but could reckon up his actions. Having, by his iniquitous fentences, filled the prifons with the most induftrious and deferving of the people, he then proceeded to order numbers of Roman citizens to be ftrangled in the gaols; fo that the exclamation, "I am a citizen of Rome," which has often, in the most diftant regions and among the most barbarous people, been a protection, was of no fervice to them, but on the contrary, brought upon them a fpeedier and more fe vere punishment.

14. I afk now, Verres, what you have to advance against this charge? Will you pretend to deny it? Will you pretend that any thing falfe, that even any thing aggravated is alleged against you? Had any prince, or any ftate committed the fame outrage against the privilege of Roman citizens, should we not think we had fufficient ground for declaring immediate war against them.

15. What punishment then ought to be inflicted upon a tyrannical and wicked preto who dared, at no greater diftance than Sicily, within fight of the Italian coaft, to put to the infamous death of crucifixion, that unfortunate and innocent cit izen, Publius Gavius Cofanus, only for his having afferted his privilege of citizenship, and declared his intention of appealing to the juftice of his country against a cruel oppreffor, who had unjustly confined him in prifon, at Syracufe, from whence he had just made his escape.

16. The unhappy man, arrested as he was going to embark for his native country, is brought before the wicked pretor. With eyes darting fury, and a countenance diftorted with cru elty, he orders the helplefs victim of his rage to be ftripped, and rods to be brought; accufing him, but without the leaft fhadow of evidence, or even of fufpicion, of having come to Sicily as a spy.

"I am

17. It was in vain that the unhappy man cried out, a Roman citizen-I have ferved under Lucius Pretius, who is now at Panornius, and will atteft my innocence.". The

blood thirty pretor, deaf to all he could urge in his own defenfe, ordered the infamous punishment to be inflicted. Thus, fathers, was an innocent Roman citizen publicly mangled with fcourging, whilft the only words he uttered amidst his cruel fufferings, were, "I am a Roman citizen!"

18. With these he hoped to defend himself from violence and infamy: But of fo little fervice was this privilege to him, that while he was thus afferting his citizenship, the order was given for his execution-for his execution upon the cross!

19. O liberty-O found, once delightful to every Roman ear!-O facred privilege of Roman citizenship! Once facred, now trampled upon! But what then? Is it come to this?

20. Shall an inferior magiftrate, a governor who holds his own power of the Roman people, in a Roman province, within fight of Italy, bind, fcourge, torture with fire and red hot plates of iron, and at laft put to the infamous death of the crofs, a Roman citizen ?

21. Shall neither the cries of innocence, expiring in ago By, nor the tears of pitying fpectators, nor the majesty of the Roman commonwealth, nor the fear of the juftice of his country, restrain the licentious and wanton cruelty of a monfter, who in confidence of his riches, ftrikes at the root of liberty, and fets mankind at defiance ?

22. I conclude with expreffing my hopes that your wisdom, and juftice, fathers, will not, by fuffering the atrocious and unexampled infolence of Caius Verres to efcape due punishment, leave room to apprehend the danger of a total fubverfion of authority, and introduction of general anarchy and con fufion.

SPEECH of CANULEIUS, a Roman tribune to the Confuls; in which he demands that the Plebians may be admitted into the confulfhip; and that the Law prohibiting Patricians and Plebians from intermarrying, may be repealed.

I.

WHAT an infult upon us is this! If we are not fo

rich as the Patricians, are we not citizens of Rome as well as they? Inhabitans of the fame country? members of the fame community? The nations bordering upon Rome and even strangers more remote, are admitted not only to marriages with us, but to what is of much greater importance, the freedom of the city..

2. Are we because we are commoners, to be worse treated than strangers! and when we demand that the people may be free to bestow their offices and dignities on whom they pleafe, do we afk any thing unreasonable or new? Do we claim more than their original inherent right? What occafion then for all this uproar, as if the universe was falling to ruin? They were just going to lay violent hands upon me in the fenate house.

3. What! muft this empire then be unavoidably overturned? Muft Rome of neceffity fink at once, if a plebian, worthy of the office, fhould be raised to the confulfhip? The patricians, I am perfuaded, if they could, would deprive you of the common light.

4. It certainly offends them that you breathe, that you fpeak, that you have the fhapes of men. Nay, but to make a commoner a corful, would be, fay they, a moft enormous thing. Numa Pompilius, however, without being fo much as a Roman citizen, was made king of Rome.

5. The elder Tarquin, by birth not even Italian, was nevertheless placed upon the throne. Servius Tullius, the fon of a captive woman (nobody knows who his father was) obtained the kingdom as the reward of his wifdom and virtue.

6. In those days, no man, in whom virtue fhone confpicuous, was rejected or defpifed on account of his race and defcent. And did the state profper the lefs for that? Were not these strangers the very beft of our kings? And fuppofing now, that a plebian should have their talent and merit, must not he be fuffered to govern us?

7. But, " we find upon the abolition of the legal power,

no commoner was chofen to the confulate." And what of that? Before Numa's time there were no pontiffs in Rome. Before Servius Tullius' day, there was no cenfus, no divifion of the people into claffes and centuries. Who ever heard of confuls before the expulfion of Tarquin-the proud? Dictators, we all know, are of modern invention; and fo are the offices of tribunes, ediles, queftors.

8. Within these ten years we have made decemvirs, and we have unmade them. Is nothing to be done but what has been done before? That very law, forbidding marriages of patricians and plebians, is not that a new thing? Was there any fuch law before the decemvirs enacted it? And a mo fhameful one it is, in a free ftate.

9. Such marriages, it feems, will taint the pure blood of the nobility! Why, if they think fo, let them take care to match their fifters and daughters with men of their own fort. No plebian will do violence to the daughter of a patrician.-Thofe are exploits for our prime nobles.

10. There is no need to fear that we fhall force any body. into a contract of marriage. But to make an exprefs law to prohibit marriages of patricians with plebians, what is this but to fhow the utmost contempt of us, and to declare one part of the community to be impure and unclean?

11. They talk to us of the confufion there will be in families, if this ftatute fhould be repealed. I wonder they don's make a law against a commoner's living near a nobleman or going the fame road that he is going; or being prefent at the fame feaft, or appearing in the fame market place.

12. They might as well pretend that these things make confufion in families, as that intermarriages will do it.-Does. not every one know that their children will be ranked accor-, ding to the quality of their father, let them be a patrician or a plebian? In fhort it is manifeft enough that we have nothing in view but to be treated as men and citizens; nor can they, who oppofe our demand, have any motive to do it, but the love of domineering.

13. I would fain know of you, confuls and patricans, is the fovereign power in the people of Rome, or in you? I hope you will allow, that the people can at their pleasure, either make a law or repeal one.

14. And will you, then, as foon as any law is propofed to them, pretend to inlift them immediately for the war and hinder them from giving their fuffrages by leading them into the field?

15. Hear me, confuls. Whether the news of the war you talk of is true, or whether it is only a falfe rumor spread abroad for nothing but a color to fend the people out of the city, I declare as tribune, that this people who have already fo often spilt their blood in our country's caufe, are again ready to arm for its defence and its glory, if they may be restored to their natural rights, and you will no longer treat us like strangers in our own country.

16. But if you account us unworthy of your alliance by intermarriages, if you will not fuffer the entrance to the chief