At last one of Verres's lictors--absolutely a Roman lictor--is killed, and the woman is not carried off.

The man at least bore the outward signs of a lictor, but, according to Cicero, was in the pay of Verres as his pimp.
So far Verres fails; and the reader, rejoicing at the courage of the father who could protect his own house even against Romans, begins to feel some surprise that this case should have been selected.

So far the lieutenant had not done the mischief he had intended, but he soon avenges his failure.

He induces Dolabella, his chief, to have Philodamus and his son carried off to Laodicea, and there tried before Nero, the then Proconsul, for killing the sham lictor.

They are tried at Laodicea before Nero, Verres himself sitting as one of the judges, and are condemned.