equity and due severity, your authority will remain entire, and upon such an establishment as it ought to be:  but if his great riches will be able to force their way through that religious reverence and truth, which become so awful an assembly, I shall, however, obtain thus much, that the defect will be laid where it ought, and that it shall not be objected that the criminal was not produced, or that there wanted an orator to accuse him.  This man, my lords, has publicly said, that those ought to be afraid of accusations who have only robbed enough for their own support and maintenance; but that he has plundered sufficient to bribe numbers, and that nothing is so high or so holy which money cannot corrupt.  Take that support from him, and he can have no other left.  For what eloquence will be able to defend a man, whose life has been tainted with so many scandalous vices, and who has been so long condemned by the universal opinion of the world?  To pass over the foul stains and ignominy of his youth, his corrupt management in all employments he has borne, his treachery and irreligion, his injustice and oppression, he has left of late such monuments of his villainies in Sicily, made such havoc and confusion there, during his government, that the province cannot by any means be restored to its former state, and hardly recover itself at all under many years, and by a long succession of good governors.  While this man governed in that island, the Sicilians had neither the benefit of our laws, nor their own, nor even of common right.  In Sicily, no man now possesses more than what the governor’s lust and avarice have overlooked, or what he was forced to neglect out of mere weariness and satiety of oppression.  Every thing where he presided, was determined by his arbitrary will, and the best subjects he treated as enemies.  To recount his abominable debaucheries, would offend any modest ear, since so many could not preserve their daughters and wives from his lust.  I believe there is no man who ever heard his name, that cannot relate his enormities.  We bring before you in judgment, my lords, a public robber, an adulterer, a DEFILER OF ALTARS,[14] an enemy of religion, and of all that is sacred; he sold all employments in Sicily of judicature, magistracy, and trust, places in the council, and the priesthood itself, to the highest bidder; and has plundered that island of forty millions of sesterces.  And here I cannot but observe to your lordships, in what manner Verres passed the day:  the morning was spent in taking bribes, and selling employments, the rest of it in drunkenness and lust.  His discourse at table was scandalously unbecoming the dignity of his station; noise, brutality, and obsceneness.  One particular I cannot omit, that in the high character of governor of Sicily, upon a solemn day, a day set apart for public prayer for the safety of the commonwealth; he stole at evening, in a chair, to a married woman of infamous character,[15] against all decency and prudence, as well as against all laws both human and divine.  Didst thou think, O Verres, the government of Sicily was given thee with so large a commission, only by the power of that to break all the bars of law, modesty, and duty, to suppose all men’s fortunes thine, and leave no house free from thy rapine, or lust? &c.”