Of the speeches made by Cicero as advocate after his Quæstorship, and before those made in the accusation of Verres, we have the fragment only of the second of two spoken in defence of Marcus Tullius Decula, whom we may suppose to have been distantly connected with his family. He does not avow any relationship. "What," he says, in opening his argument, "does it become me, a Tullius, to do for this other Tullius, a man not only my friend, but my namesake?" It was a matter of no great importance, as it was addressed to judges not so called, but to "recuperatores," judges chosen by the Prætor, and who acted in lighter cases.
There are six episodes, or, as I may say, divisions in the life of Cicero to which special interest attaches itself. The first is the accusation against Verres, in which he drove the miscreant howling out of the city. The second is his Consulship, in which he drove Catiline out of the city, and caused certain other conspirators who were joined with the arch rebel to be killed, either legally or illegally. The third was his exile, in which he himself was driven out of Rome. The fourth was a driving out, too, though of a more honorable kind, when he was compelled, much against his will, to undertake the government of a province. The fifth was Cæsar's passing of the Rubicon, the battle of Pharsalia, and his subsequent adherence to Cæsar. The last was his internecine combat with Antony, which produced the Philippics, and that memorable series of letters in which he strove to stir into flames the expiring embers of the Republic. The literary work with which we are acquainted is spread, but spread very unequally, over his whole life. I have already told the story of Sextus Roscius Amerinus, having taken it from his own words. From that time onward he wrote continually; but the fervid stream of his eloquence came forth from him with unrivalled rapidity in the twenty last miserable months of his life.
We have now come to the first of those episodes, and I have to tell the way in which Cicero struggled with Verres, and how he conquered him. In 74 B.C. Verres was Prætor in Rome. At that period of the Republic there were eight Prætors elected annually, two of whom remained in the city, whereas the others were employed abroad, generally with the armies of the Empire. In the next year, 73 B.C., Verres went in due course to Sicily with proconsular or proprætorial authority, having the government assigned to him for twelve months. This was usual and constitutional, but it was not unusual, even if unconstitutional, that this period should be prolonged. In the case of Verres it was prolonged, so that he should hold the office for three years. He had gone through the other offices of the State, having been Quæstor in Asia and Ædile afterward in Rome, to the great misfortune of all who were subjected to his handling, as we shall learn by-and-by. The facts are mentioned here to show that the great offices of the Republic were open to such a man as Verres. They were in fact more open to such a candidate than they would be to one less iniquitous--to an honest man or a scrupulous one, or to one partially honest, or not altogether unscrupulous. If you send a dog into a wood to get truffles, you will endeavor to find one that will tear up as many truffles as possible. A proconsular robber did not rob only for himself; he robbed more or less for all Rome. Verres boasted that with his three years of rule he could bring enough home to bribe all the judges, secure all the best advocates, and live in splendid opulence for the rest of his life. What a dog he was to send into a wood for truffles!