Not in plundered provinces or in the cruelties of selfish
governors will you find its parallel; and yet there is an ancient
instance, which may show at least the path of justice. In the terrible
impeachment by which the great Roman orator has blasted through all
time the name of Verres, amidst charges of robbery and sacrilege, the
enormity which most aroused the indignant voice of his accuser, and
which still stands forth with strongest distinctness, arresting the
sympathetic indignation of all who read the story, is, that away in
Sicily he had scourged a citizen of Rome--that the cry, "I am a Roman
citizen," had been interposed in vain against the lash of the tyrant
governor. Other charges were, that he had carried away productions of
art, and that he had violated the sacred shrines. It was in the presence
of the Roman Senate that this arraignment proceeded; in a temple of
the Forum; amidst crowds--such as no orator had ever before drawn
together--thronging the porticos and colonnades, even clinging to
the house-tops and neighboring slopes--and under the anxious gaze of
witnesses summoned from the scene of crime. But an audience grander
far--of higher dignity--of more various people, and of wider
intelligence--the countless multitude of succeeding generations, in
every land, where eloquence has been studied, or where the Roman name
has been recognized,--has listened to the accusation, and throbbed with
condemnation of the criminal.
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