Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/50

 42 CICEEO. the prsetors, favoring Verres, had deferred the trial by several adjournments to the last day, in which it was evi- dent there could not be sufficient time for the advocates to be heard, and the cause brought to an issue. Cicero, therefore, came forward, and said there was no need of speeches; and after producing and examining witnesses, ho required the judges to proceed to sentence. However, many witty sayings are on record, as having been used by Cicero on the occasion. When a man named Caacilius, one of the freed slaves, who was said to be given to Jew- ish practices, would have put by the Sicilians, and under- taken the prosecution of Verres himself, Cicero asked, "What has a Jew to do with swine?" verres being the Koman word for a boar. And when Verres began to re- proach Cicero with effeminate living, "You ought," replied he, '' to use this language at home, to your sons ; " Verres having a son who had fallen into disgraceful courses. Hortensius the orator, not daring directly to undertake the defence of Verres, was yet persuaded to appear for him at the laying on of the fine, and received an ivory sphinx for his reward ; and when Cicero, in some passage of his speech, obliquely reflected on him, and Hortensius told him he was not skilful in solving riddles, "No," said Cicero, "and yet you have the Sphinx in your house ! " Verres was thus convicted ; though Cicero, who set the fine at seventy-five myriads,* lay under the suspicion of being corrupted by bribery to lessen the sum. But the Sicilians, in testimony of their gratitude, came and brought him aU sorts of presents from the island, when he was 750,000 drachmas; Plutarch most figures given in Cicero's own oia- likely counting the drachma as tions, and must be regarded as equivalent to the denarius. But quite uncertain.
 * Seventy-five ten thousands, i. e. the sum does not agree with the