103. purum: PRED. ADJ. after servatum esset.
servatum esset: subjunct. in a SUBORDINATE CL. IN IND. STATE.
id: refers back to forum as subj. of the IND. STATE.
104. redundasse: = redundavisse; from redundare, to overflow.
portum…patuisse (106): note the close structural similarity of this and the preceding cl. (forum…redundasse); this sort of parallelism is a recurring feature of Cicero’s style.
105. classibus: dat.; Marcellus had not been able to enter the harbor during his siege of Syracuse.
Carthaginiensium: possessive gen. with classibus, balancing nostris.
106. eum: refers to portum and picks up the idea after the interruption caused by the rel. cl., just as id looked back to forum in the preceding cl.
isto praetore: ABL. ABS.; iste often, as here, has a contemptuous force.
Cilicum: Cilices,Cilicians, the people of Cilicia in southern Asia Minor. At this time pirates (praedones) were sailing at will all over the Mediterranean; in 67 B.C. Pompey was commissioned to wipe out this menace and did so in the amazingly brief space of three months.
mitto: = omitto; Latin authors often employed the simple form of a vb. in place of the expected compound form.
adhibitam: adhibere,to hold to, apply, employ (against).
Relief of warship, temple of Fortuna Primigenia, 1st century A.D. Praeneste, Italy Museo Pio Clementino, Vatican Museums, Vatican State
Scala/Art Resource, NY.
Ac iam illa omitto quae disperse a me multis in locis dicentur et dicta sunt: forum Syracusanorum, quod introitu Marcelli purum a caede servatum esset, id adventu Verris Siculorum innocentium sanguine redundasse; portum Syracusanorum, qui 105 tum et nostris classibus et Carthaginiensium clausus fuisset, eum isto praetore Cilicum praedonibus patuisse. Mitto adhibitam vim ingenuis, matres familias violatas, quae tum in urbe capta commissa non sunt neque odio hostili neque licentia militari neque more belli neque iure victoriae; mitto, inquam, haec 110 omnia, quae ab isto per triennium perfecta sunt. Ea, quae coniuncta cum illis rebus sunt de quibus antea dixi, cognoscite. (IV. 115–16, excerpts)
107. ingenuis: native, freeborn.
familias: an archaic form of the gen. familiae which survived in the phrases pater familias, the head of a household, and mater familias, matron.
quae: n. pl. referring to the crimes described in the preceding cl.
108. neque…neque (109): the repeated conjs. (POLYSYNDETON) are emphatic and do not negate but intensify the preceding non.
111. illis rebus: Verres’ thefts of works of art in other parts of Sicily were detailed earlier in the speech.
112. Graecarum…omnium (113): sc. urbium.
113. audistis: = audivistis; see above on audierit (96).
115. Insula: Ortygia (here called simply the Island), site of the original city and connected to the mainland by a bridge over a narrow channel.
116. aedes: sanctuaries, temples.
complures:several.
117. antecellant: antecellere, to surpass.
Dianae: gen., (one) Diana’s.
118. extrema: not the farthest but the farthest part of; some adjs. which indicate a sequence can be used to indicate a part of an object (e.g., medius, middle, middle of), the so-called partitive use of an adj.
119. fons: spring, source, fountain.
dulcis: i.e., fresh.
cui: DAT. OF POSSESSION.
Arethusa: associated with the river nymph Arethusa, whose waters were said to flow beneath the earth from Elis in Greece to Syracuse.
120. urbs: here, district.
Syracusis: loc.
122. porticus: one of the few f. nouns of the fourth decl.; in Greek cities porticoes were commonly employed for shelter, the conduct of business and academic lectures, etc.
prytaneum:town hall.
123. egregium: uncommon, extraordinary.
ceterae: i.e., in contrast to the public center.
124. lata: broad, wide.
