In the affair with Verres, there are two matters to interest the reader--indeed, to instruct the reader--if the story were sufficiently well told. The iniquity of Verres is the first--which is of so extravagant a nature as to become farcical by the absurdity of the extent to which he was not afraid to go in the furtherance of his avarice and lust. As the victims suffered two thousand years ago, we can allow ourselves to be amused by the inexhaustible fertility of the man's resources and the singular iniquity of his schemes. Then we are brought face to face with the barefaced corruption of the Roman judges--a corruption which, however, became a regular trade, if not ennobled, made, at any rate, aristocratic by the birth, wealth high names, and senatorial rank of the robbers. Sulla, for certain State purposes--which consisted in the maintenance of the oligarchy--had transferred the privileges of sitting on the judgment-seat from the Equites, or Knights, to the Senators. From among the latter a considerable number--thirty, perhaps, or forty, or even fifty--were appointed to sit with the Prætor to hear criminal cases of importance, and by their votes, which were recorded on tablets, the accused person was acquitted or condemned. To be acquitted by the most profuse corruption entailed no disgrace on him who was tried, and often but little on the judges who tried him. In Cicero's time the practice, with all its chances, had come to be well understood. The Provincial Governors, with their Quæstors and lieutenants, were chosen from the high aristocracy, which also supplied the judges. The judges themselves had been employed, or hoped to be employed, in similar lucrative service. The leading advocates belonged to the same class. If the proconsular thief, when he had made his bag, would divide the spoil with some semblance of equity among his brethren, nothing could be more convenient. The provinces were so large, and the Greek spirit of commercial enterprise which prevailed in them so lively, that there was room for plunder ample, at any rate, for a generation or two. The Republic boasted that, in its love of pure justice, it had provided by certain laws for the protection of its allied subjects against any possible faults of administration on the part of its own officers. If any injury were done to a province, or a city, or even to an individual, the province, or city, or individual could bring its grievance to the ivory chair of the Prætor in Rome and demand redress; and there had been cases not a few in which a delinquent officer had been condemned to banishment. Much, indeed, was necessary before the scheme as it was found to exist by Verres could work itself into perfection. Verres felt that in his time everything had been done for security as well as splendor. He would have all the great officers of State on his side. The Sicilians, if he could manage the case as he thought it might be managed, would not have a leg to stand upon. There