Book 5
108
However, an accuser is produced against them, a certain Naevius Turpio, who, when Caius Sacerdos was praetor, had been convicted of an assault; a very suitable tool for the audacity of Verres; a man whom he had frequently employed in matters connected with the tenths, in capital prosecutions, and in every sort of false accusation, as a scout and emissary. The parents and relations of these unfortunate young men came to Syracuse, being aroused by the sudden news of this misfortune. They see their children loaded with chains, bearing on their necks and shoulders the punishment due to the avarice of Verres. They come forward, they defend them, they raise an outcry; they implore your good faith which at no time and no place had ever any existence. The father of one came forward, Dexis the Tyndaritan; a man of the noblest family, connected by ties of hospitality with you yourself, at whose house you had been, whom you had called your friend. When you saw him, a man of such high rank in such distress could not his tears, could not his old age could not the claims of hospitality and the name of friend recall you back from your wickedness to some degree of humanity?
