In C. Verrem

Did you dare to take away out of Ennathe statue of Ceres? Did you attempt at Ennato wrench Victory out of the hand of Ceres? to tear one goddess from the other?—nothing of which those men dared to violate, or even to touch, whose qualities were all more akin to wickedness than to religion. For while Publius Popillius and Publius Rupilius were consuls, slaves, runaway slaves, and barbarians, and enemies, were in possession of that place; but yet the slaves ware not so much slaves to their own masters, as you are to your passions; nor did the runaways flee from their masters as far as you flee from all laws and from all right; nor were the barbarians as barbarous in language and in race as you were in your nature and your habits; nor were the enemies as much enemies to men as you are to the immortal gods. How, then, can a man beg for any mercy who has surpassed slaves in baseness, runaway slaves in rashness, barbarians in wickedness, and enemies in inhumanity?

You heard Theodorus and Numinius and Nicasio, deputies from Enna, say, in the name of their state, that they had this commission from their fellow-citizens, to go to Verres, and to demand from him the restoration of the statues of Ceresand of Victory. And if they obtained it then they were to adhere to the ancient customs of the state of Enna, not to give any public testimony against him although he had oppressed Sicily, since these were the principles which they had received from their ancestors. But if he did not restore them, then they were to go before the tribunal, to inform the judges of the injuries they had received, but, far above all things, to complain of the insults to their religion. And, in the name of the immortal gods I entreat you, O judges, do not you despise, do not you scorn or think lightly of their complaints. The injuries done to our allies are the present question; the authority of the laws is at stake; the reputation and the honesty of our courts of justice is at stake. And though all these are great considerations, yet this is the greatest of all,—the whole province is so imbued with religious feeling, such a superstitious dread arising out of that man's conduct has seized upon the minds of all the Sicilians, that whatever public or private misfortunes happen, appear to befall them because of that man's wickedness.

You have heard the Centuripans, the Agyrians, the Catenans, the Herbitans, the Ennans, and many other deputies say, in the name of their states, how great was the solitude in their districts, how great the devastation, how universal the flight of the cultivators of the soil how deserted, how uncultivated, how desolate every place was. And although there are many and various injuries done by that man to which these things are owing, still this one cause, in the opinion of the Sicilians, is the most weighty of all; for, because of the insults offered to Ceres, they believe that all the crops and gifts of Cereshave perished in these districts. Bring remedies, O judges, to the insulted religion of the allies; preserve your own, for this is not a foreign religion, nor one with which you have no concern. But even if it were, if you were unwilling to adopt it yourselves, still you ought to be willing to inflict heavy punishment on the man who had violated it.

But now that the common religion of all nations is attacked in this way, now that these sacred observances are violated which our ancestors adopted and imported from foreign countries, and have honoured ever since,—sacred observances, which they called Greek observances, as in truth they were,—even if we were to wish to be indifferent and cold about these matters, how could we be so? I will mention the sacking of one city, also, and that the most beautiful and highly decorated of all, the city of Syracuse. And I will produce my proofs of that, O judges, in order at length to conclude and bring to an end the whole history of offences of this sort. There is scarcely any one of you who has not often heard how Syracusewas taken by Marcus Marcellus, and who has not sometimes also read the account in our annals. Compare this peace with that war; the visit of this praetor with the victory of that general; the debauched retinue of the one with the invincible army of the other; the lust of Verres with the continence of Marcellus;—and you will say that Syracusewas built by the man who took it; was taken by the man who received it well established and flourishing.

And for the present I omit those things which will be mentioned, and have been already mentioned by me in an irregular manner in different parts of my speech—what the market-place of the Syracusans, which at the entrance of Marcellus was preserved unpolluted by slaughter, on the arrival of Verres overflowed with the blood of innocent Sicilians; that the harbour of the Syracusans, which at that time was shut against both our fleets and those of the Carthaginians, was, while Verres was praetor, open to Cilician pirates, or even to a single piratical galley. I say nothing of the violence offered to people of noble birth, of the ravishment of matrons, atrocities which then, when the city was taken, were not committed, neither through the hatred of enemies, nor through military licence, nor through the customs of war or the rights of victory. I pass over, I say, all these things which were done by that man for three whole years. Listen rather to acts which are connected with those matters of which I have hitherto been speaking.

You have often heard that the city of Syracuseis the greatest of the Greek cities, and the most beautiful of all. It is so, O judges, as it is said to be; for it is so by its situation, which is strongly fortified, and which is on every side by which you can approach it, whether by sea or land, very beautiful to behold. And it has harbours almost enclosed within the walls, and in the sight of the whole city, harbours which have different entrances, but which meet together, and are connected at the other end. By their union a part of the town, which is called the island, being separated from the rest by a narrow arm of the sea, is again joined to and connected with the other by a bridge.

That city is so great that it may be said to consist of four cities of the largest size; one of which, as I have said, is that “Island,” which, surrounded by two harbours, projects out towards the mouth and entrance of each. In it there is a palace which did belong to king Hiero, which our praetors are in the habit of using; in it are many sacred buildings, but two, which have a great pre-eminence over all the others,—one a temple of Diana, and the other one, which before the arrival of that man was the most ornamented of all, sacred to Minerva. At the end of this island is a fountain of sweet water, the name of which is Arethusa, of incredible size, very full of fish, which would be entirely overwhelmed by the waves of the sea, if it were not protected from the sea by a rampart and dam of stone.

There is also another city at Syracuse, the name of which is Achradina, in which there is a very large forum, most beautiful porticoes, a highly decorated town-hall, a most spacious senate-house, and a superb temple of Jupiter Olympius; and the other districts of the city are joined together by one broad unbroken street, and divided by many cross streets, and by private houses. There is a third city, which because in that district there is an ancient temple of Fortune, is called Tyche, in which there is a spacious gymnasium, and many sacred buildings, and that district is the most frequented and the most populous. There is also a fourth city, which, because it is the last built, is called Neapolis, [*](Neapolismeaning “new city,” or as we might say, Newtown, from the Greek words *ne/a po/lis, as Tyche is the Greek name of Fortune—*tu/xhcompare with this passage the description of Syracusegiven by Thucydides in his sixth and seventh books.)in the highest part of which there is a very large theatre, and, besides that there are two temples of great beauty, one of Ceres, the other of Libera, and a statue of Apollo, which is called Temenites, very beautiful and of colossal size; which, if he could have moved them, he would not have hesitated to carry off.

Now I will return to Marcellus, that I may not appear to have entered into this statement without any reason. He, when with his powerful army he had taken this splendid city, did not think it for the credit of the Roman people to destroy and extinguish this splendour, especially as no danger could possibly arise from it, and therefore he spared all the buildings, public as well as private, sacred as well as ordinary, as if he had come with his army for the purpose of defending them, not of taking them by storm. With respect to the decorations of the city, he had a regard to his own victory, and a regard to humanity, he thought it was due to his victory to transport man, things to Romewhich might be an ornament to this city, and due to humanity not utterly to strip the city, especially as it was one which he was anxious to preserve.

In this division of the ornaments, the victory of Marcellus did not covet more for the Roman people than his humanity reserved to the Syracusans. The things which were transported to Romewe see before the temples of Honour and of Virtue, and also in other places. He put nothing in his own house, nothing in his gardens, nothing in his suburban villa; he thought that his house could only be an ornament to the city if he abstained from carrying the ornaments which belonged to the city to his own house. But he left many things of extraordinary beauty at Syracuse; he violated not the respect due to any god; he laid hands on none. Compare Verres with him; not to compare the man with the man,—no such injury must be done to such a man as that, dead though he be; but to compare a state of peace with one of war, a state of law and order, and regular jurisdiction, with one of violence and martial law, and the supremacy of arms; to compare the arrival and retinue of the one with the victory and army of the other.

There is a temple of Minerva in the island, of which I have already spoken, which Marcellus did not touch, which he left full of its treasures and ornaments, but which was so stripped and plundered by Verres, that it seems to have been in the hands, not of any enemy,—for enemies, even in war, respect the rites of religion, and the customs of the country,—but of some barbarian pirates. There was a cavalry battle of their king Agathocles, exquisitely painted in a series of pictures, and with these pictures the inside walls of the temple were covered. Nothing could be more noble than those paintings; there was nothing at Syracusethat was thought more worthy going to see. These pictures, Marcus Marcellus, though by that victory of his he had divested everything of its sacred inviolability of character, still, out of respect for religion, never touched; Verres, though, in consequence of the long peace, and the loyalty of the Syracusan people, he had received them as sacred and under the protection of religion, took away all those pictures, and left naked and unsightly those walls whose decorations had remained inviolate for so many ages, and had escaped so many wars:

Marcellus, who had vowed that if he took Syracusehe would erect two temples at Rome, was unwilling to adorn the temple which he was going to build with these treasures which were his by right of capture; Verres, who was bound by no vows to Honour or Virtue, as Marcellus was, but only to Venus and to Cupid, attempted to plunder the temple of Minerva. The one was unwilling to adorn gods in the spoil taken from gods, the other transferred the decorations of the virgin Minerva to the house of a prostitute. Besides this, he took away out of the same temple twenty-seven more pictures beautifully painted; among which were likenesses of the kings and tyrants of Sicily, which delighted one, not only by the skill of the painter, but also by reminding us of the men, and by enabling us to recognise their persons. And see now, how much worse a tyrant this man proved to the Syracusans than any of the old ones, as they, cruel as they were, still adorned the temples of the immortal gods, while this man took away the monuments and ornaments from the gods.

But now what shall I say of the folding-doors of that temple? I am afraid that those who have not seen these things may think that I am speaking too highly of, and exaggerating everything, though no one ought to suspect that I should be so inconsiderate as to be selling that so many men of the highest reputation, especially when they are judges in this cause, who have been at Syracuse, and who have seen all these things themselves, should be witnesses to my rashness and falsehood. I am able to prove this distinctly, O judges, that no more magnificent doors, none more beautifully wrought of gold and ivory, ever existed in an, temple. It is incredible how many Greeks have left written accounts of the beauty of these doors: they, perhaps, may admire and extol them too much; be it so, still it is more honourable for our republic, O judges, that our general, in a time of war, should have left those things which appeared to them so beautiful, than that our praetor should have carried them off in a time of peace. On the folding-doors were some subjects most minutely executed in ivory; all these he caused to be taken out; he tore off and took away a very tine head of the Gorgon with snakes for hair; and he showed, too, that he was influenced not only by admiration for the workmanship, but by a desire of money and gain; for he did not hesitate to take away also all the golden knobs from these folding-doors, which were numerous and heavy; and it was not the workmanship of these, but the weight which pleased him. And so he left the folding-doors in such state, that, though they had formerly contributed greatly to the ornament of the temple, they now seemed to have been made only for the purpose of shutting it up.

Am I to speak also of the spears made of grass? for I saw that you were excited at the name of them when the witnesses mentioned them. They were such that it was sufficient to have seen them once, as there was neither any manual labour in them, nor any beauty, but simply an incredible size, which it would be quite sufficient even to hear of, and too much to see them more than once. Did you covet even those?

For the Sappho which was taken away out of the town-hall affords you so reasonable an excuse, that it may seem almost allowable and pardonable. That work of Silanion, so perfect, so elegant, so elaborate, (I will not say what private man, but) what nation could be so worthy to possess, as the most elegant and learned Verres? Certainly, nothing will be said against it. If any one of us, who are not as happy, who cannot be as refined as that man, should wish to behold anything of the sort, let him go to the temple of Good Fortune, to the monument of Catulus, to the portico of Metellus; let him take pains to get admittance into the Tusculan villa of any one of those men; let him see the forum when decorated, if Verres is ever so kind as to lend any of his treasures to the aediles. Shall Verres have all these things at home? shall Verres have his house full of his villas crammed with, the ornaments of temples and cities? Will you still, O judges, bear with the hobby, as he calls it, and pleasures of this vile artisan? a man who was born in such a rank, educated in such a way, and who is so formed both in mind and body, that he appears a much fitter person to take down statues than to appropriate them.

And how great a regret this Sappho which he carried off left behind her, can scarcely be told; for in the first place it was admirably made, and, besides, it had a very noble Greek epigram engraved upon the pedestal; and would not that learned man, that Grecian, who is such an acute judge of these matters, who is the only man who understands them, if he had understood one letter of Greek, have taken that away too? for now, because it is engraved on an empty pedestal, it both declares what was once, on the pedestal, and proves that it has been taken away. What shall I say more? Did you not take away the statue of Paean from out of the temple of Aesculapius, beautifully made, sacred, and holy as it was? a statue which all men went to see for its beauty, and worshipped for its sacred character. What more? was not the statue of Aristaeus openly taken away by your command out of the temple of Bacchus?

What more? did you not take away out of the temple of Jupiterthat most holy statue of Jupiter Imperator, which the Greeks call *)/ourios, most beautifully made? What next? did you hesitate to take away out of the temple of Libera, that most exquisite bust of Parian marble, which we used to go to see? And that Paean used to be worshipped among that people together with Aesculapius, with anniversary sacrifices. Aristaeus, who being, as the Greeks report, the son of Bacchus, is said to have been the inventor of oil, was consecrated among them together with his father Bacchus, in the same temple.

But how great do you suppose was the honour paid to Jupiter Imperator in his own temple? You may collect it from this consideration, if you recollect how great was the religious reverence attached to that statue of the same appearance and form which Flaminius brought out of Macedonia, and placed in the Capitol. In truth, there were said to be in the whole world three statues of Jupiter Imperator, of the same class, all beautifully made: one was that one from Macedonia, which we have seen in the Capitol; a second was the one at the narrow straits, which are the mouth of the Euxine Sea; the third was that which was at Syracuse, till Verres came as praetor. Flaminius removed the first from its habitation, but only to place it in the Capitol, that is to say, in the house of Jupiter upon earth.

But as to the one that is at the entrance of the Euxine, that, though so many wars have proceeded from the shores of that sea, and though so many have been poured into Pontus, has still remained inviolate and untouched to this day. This third one, which was at Syracuse, which Marcus Marcellus, when in arms and victorious, had seen, which he had spared to the religion of the place, which both the citizens of, and settlers in Syracusewere used to worship, and strangers not only visited, but often venerated, Caius Verres took away from the temple of Jupiter.

To return again to Marcellus. Judge of the case, O judges, in this way; think that more gods were lost to the Syracusans owing to the arrival of Verres, than even were owing to the victory of Marcellus. In truth, he is said to have sought diligently for the great Archimedes, a man of the highest genius and skill, and to have been greatly concerned when he heard that he had been killed; but that other man sought for everything which he did seek for, not for the purpose of preserving it, but of carrying it away. At present, then, all those things which might appear more insignificant, I will on that account pass over—how he took away Delphic tables made of marble, beautiful goblets of brass, an immense number of Corinthian vases, out of every sacred temple at Syracuse;