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Updated: June 26, 2025
There are extant seven so-called orations about Verres, of which the two first apply to the manner in which the case should be brought before the courts. These two were really spoken, and were so effective that Verres or probably Hortensius, on his behalf was frightened into silence.
Hortensius lived in a house on the Palatine, afterwards occupied by Augustus. The residence of his friend Atticus, on the Quirinal, was more modest, whose chief ornament was a grove. Pompey surrounded his house with gardens and porticos. The year 83 B.C. was marked by the destruction by fire of the old Capitoline Temple, which had withstood the ravages of the Gauls.
Take care also and it is on this account that I think you should cultivate Hortensius himself by means of Pomponius that the epigram on the lex Aurelia attributed to you when candidate for the ædileship is not proved by false testimony to be yours.
Hortensius Martius' proposal pleased because it opened out such magnificent possibilities: the imperium itself, which had seemed infinitely remote from so many, now appeared within reach of all. Anyone who was young, well-favoured, and of patrician birth might aspire to the hand of the Augusta, and not one of those who possessed at least two of those qualifications doubted his own ability to win.
He is free enough in accusing Hortensius of having accepted a beautiful statuette, an ivory sphinx of great value. What he knew of Hortensius, Hortensius would have known of him, had it been there to know; and what Hortensius or others had heard would certainly have been told.
Accordingly, the first proposition, that of Bibulus, having been delivered, that three legates should restore the king: the second, that of Hortensius, that you should restore him without an army: the third, that of Volcatius, that Pompey should do it, a demand was made that the proposal of Bibulus should be taken in two parts.
Seeing that the commencement of his undertaking and the onset did not so much require a large force at the present, but were to be effected by the alarm which a bold stroke would create and by quickly seizing his opportunity, for he concluded that he should strike terror by his unexpected movement more easily than he could overpower his enemies by attacking them with all his force, he ordered his superior officers and centurions with their swords alone and without any other weapons to take Ariminum, a large city of Gaul, avoiding all bloodshed and confusion as much as possible; and he intrusted the force to Hortensius.
"Introduce, then," said he, "those intermediate Orators you may think worthy of our notice: and afterwards let us return to yourself, and Hortensius." "To Hortensius," replied I, "with all my heart; but as to my own character, I shall leave it to other people to examine, if they choose to take the trouble."
"I had no thought of disparagement for Dea Flavia's genius. The gods forbid!" he added with mock fervour. "Then dost deserve that I force thee down to thy knees," retorted Hortensius, not yet mollified, "to make public acknowledgment of Dea Flavia's beauty, her talents and her virtues, and public confession of thine own unworthiness in allowing her hallowed name to pass thy wine-sodden lips."
Atticus and others dissuaded him from this, and recommended him to fly. Among these Cato and Hortensius have both been named. To this advice he at last yielded, and it may be doubted whether any better could have been given. Lawlessness, which had been rampant in Rome before, had, under the Triumvirate, become almost lawful.
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