Kitap 1
20
In truth, they argued in this manner—the most honourable men spoke to one another and to me in this manner—that there were now manifestly and undeniably no courts of justice at all. The very criminal who the day before thought that he was already condemned, is acquitted now that his defender has been made consul. What are we to think then? Will it avail nothing that all Sicily, all the Sicilians, that all the merchants who have business in that country, that all public and private documents are now at Rome? Nothing, if the consul elect wills it otherwise. What! will not the judges be influenced by the accusation, by the evidence, by the universal opinion of the Roman people? No. Everything will be governed by the power and authority of one man. I will speak the truth, O judges. This thing agitated me greatly; for every good man was speaking in this way—“That fellow will be taken out of your hands; but we shall not preserve our judicial authority much longer; for who, when Verres is acquitted, will be able to make any objection to transferring it from us?”
