[191]
You see the word Verrutius?—You see the
first letters untouched? you see the last part of the name, the tail of Verres,
smothered in the erasure, as in the mud. The original accounts, O judges, are in
exactly the same state as this copy.—What are you waiting for? What more
do you want? You, Verres, why are you sitting there? Why do you delay? for either
you must show us Verrutius, or confess that you yourself are Verrutius. The ancient
orators are extolled, the Crassi and Antonii, because they had the skill to efface
the impression made by an accusation with great clearness, and to defend the causes
of accused persons with eloquence. It was not, forsooth, in ability only that they
surpassed those who are now employed here as counsel, but also in good fortune. No
one, in those times, committed such crimes as to leave no room for any defence; no
one lived in such a manner that no part of his life was free from the most extreme
infamy; no one was detected in such manifest guilt, that, shameless as he had been
in the action, he seemed still more shameless if he denied it.
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