M. Tullius Cicero, Against Verres
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

[141] For what reason? O ye immortal gods!—though in asking that I am doing injury to the common cause of all the citizens, and to the privilege of citizenship, for I am asking what reason there was in the case of Servilius for this treatment, as if there could be any reason for its being legally inflicted on any Roman citizen. Pardon me this one error, O judges, for I will not in the rest of the cases ask for any reason. He had spoken rather freely of the dishonesty and worthlessness of Verres. And as soon as he was informed of this, he orders the man to Lilybaeum to give security in a prosecution instituted against him by one of the slaves of Verres. He gives security. He comes to Lilybaeum. Verres begins to compel him, though no one proceeded with any action against him, though no one made any claim on him, to be bound over in the sum of two thousand sesterces, to appear to a charge brought against him by his own lictor, in the formula,—“If he had made any profit by robbery.”—He says that he will appoint judges out of his own retinue. Servilius demurs, and entreats that he may not be proceeded against by a capital prosecution before unjust judges, and where there is no prosecutor.