the same day, and heard what had happened.  He ordered the man to be stripped and flogged in the market-place.  Gavius pleaded that he was a Roman citizen and offered proof of his claim.  Verres refused to listen, and enraged by the repetition of the plea, actually ordered the man to be crucified.  “And set up,” he said to his lictors, “set up the cross by the straits.  He is a Roman citizen, he says, and he will at least be able to have a view of his native country.”  We know from the history of St. Paul what a genuine privilege and protection this citizenship was.  And Cicero exactly expresses the feeling on the subject in his famous words.  “It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in irons; it is positive wickedness to inflict stripes upon him; it is close upon parricide to put him to death; as to crucifying him there is no word for it.”  And on this crowning act of audacity Verres had the recklessness to venture.

After holding office for three years Verres came back to Rome.  The people of Messana, his only friends in the islands, had built a merchantman for him, and he loaded it with his spoils.  He came back with a light heart.  He knew indeed that the Sicilians would impeach him.  His wrong-doings had been too gross, too insolent, for him to escape altogether.  But he was confident that he had the means in his hands for securing an acquittal.  The men that were to judge him were men of his own order.  The senators still retained the privilege which Sulla had given them.  They, and they alone, furnished the juries before whom such causes were tried.  Of these senators not a few had a fellow-feeling for a provincial governor accused of extortion and wrong.  Some had plundered provinces in the past; others hoped to do so in the future.  Many insignificant men who could not hope to obtain such promotion were notoriously open to bribes.  And some who would have scorned to receive money, or were too wealthy to be influenced by it, were not insensible to the charms of other gifts—­to a fine statue or a splendid picture judiciously bestowed.  A few, even more scrupulous, who would not accept such presents for their own halls or gardens, were glad to have such splendid ornaments for the games which they exhibited to the people.  Verres came back amply provided with these means of securing his safety.  He openly avowed—­for indeed he was as frank as he was unscrupulous—­that he had trebled his extortions in order that, after leaving a sufficiency for himself, he might have wherewith to win the favor of his judges.  It soon became evident to him that he would need these and all other help, if he was to escape.  The Sicilians engaged Cicero to plead their cause.  He had been quaestor in a division of the province for a year six years before, and had won golden opinions by his moderation and integrity.  And Cicero was a power in the courts of the law, all the greater because he had never yet prosecuted, but had kept himself to what was held the more honorable task of defending persons