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It is commonly represented that in order to gain over the people to his side he cynically bribed them by his Lex Frumentaria. Now if this were true, and Caius were as clear-sighted as the same writers who insist on the badness of the law describe him to have been, it is hard to see how they can in the same breath eulogise his goodness and nobleness.
Inter aratores et decumanos lege frumentaria, quam Hieronicam appellant, judicia fiunt. Because the rest would oblige me to a discourse too large for this place, it shall suffice that I have showed you how it was in Sicily.
When Caius renewed his brother's laws he purposely charged the land distributed to the poor with a yearly vectigal. How different was this from the mere demagogic trick of Drusus! It appears, then, that the Lex Frumentaria of Caius is not the indefensible measure which modern writers, filled with modern notions, have called it.
It consists of a narration of the villainies of Verres, and is divided into what have been called five different speeches, to which the following appellations are given: De Prætura Urbana, in which we are told what Verres did when he was city Prætor, and very many things also which he did before he came to that office, De Jurisdictione Siciliensi, in which is described his conduct as a Roman magistrate on the island; De Re Frumentaria, setting forth the abomination of his exactions in regard to the corn tax; De Signis, detailing the robberies he perpetuated in regard to statues and other ornaments; and De Suppliciis, giving an account of the murders he committed and the tortures he inflicted.
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