[71]
And when they came thither, when the
same men came in numbers on the bench who were used to sit there, and when the whole
defence of Sopater rested on this hope, namely, on the number and dignity of the
bench of judges, and on the fact of their being, as I have said before, the same men
who had before acquitted Sopater of the same charge, mark the open rascality and
audacity of the man, not attempted to be disguised, I will not say under any reason,
but with even the least dissimulation. He orders Marcus Petilius, a Roman knight,
whom he had with him on the bench, to attend to a private cause in which he was
judge. Petilius refused, because Verres himself was detaining his friends whom he
had wished to have with him on the bench. He, liberal man, said that he did not wish
to detain any of the men who preferred being with Petilius. And so they all go; for
the rest also prevail upon him not to detain them, saying that they wished to appear
in favour of one or other of the parties who were concerned in that trial. And so he
is left alone with his most worthless retinue.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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