In C. Verrem

But that my discourse may return to Lilybaeum, from which I have made this digression, there is a man named Diocles, the son-in-law of Pamphilus, of that Pamphilus from whom the ewer was taken away, whose surname is Popillius. From this man he took away every article on his sideboard where his plate was set out. He may say, if he pleases, that he had bought them. In fact, in this case, by reason of the magnitude of the robbery, an entry of it, I imagine, has been made in the account-books. He ordered Timarchides to value the plate. How did he do it? At as low a price as any one ever valued any thing presented to an actor. Although I have been for some time acting foolishly in saying as much about your purchases, and in asking whether you bought the things, and how, and at what price you bought them, when I can settle all that by one word. Produce me a written list of what plate you acquired in the province of Sicily, from whom, and at what price you bought each article.

What will you do? Though I ought not to ask you for these accounts, for I ought to have your account-books and to produce them. But you say that you never kept any accounts of your expenses in these years. Make me out at least this one which I am asking for, the account of the plate, and I will not mind the rest at present. “I have no writings of the sort; I cannot produce any accounts.” What then is to be done? What do you think that these judges can do? Your house was full of most beautiful statues already, before your praetorship; many were placed in your villas, many were deposited with your friends; many were given and presented to other people; yet you have no accounts speaking of any single one having been bought. All the plate in Sicilyhas been taken away. There is nothing left to any one that can be called his own. A scandalous defence is invented, that the praetor bought all that plate; and yet that cannot be proved by any accounts. If you do produce any accounts, still there is no entry in them how you have acquired what you have got. But of these years during which you say that you bought the greatest number of things, you produce no accounts at all. Must you not inevitably be, condemned, both by the accounts which you do, and by those which you do not produce?

You also took away at Lilybaeumwhatever silver vessels you chose from Marcus Caelius, a Roman knight, a most excellent young man. You did not hesitate to take away the whole furniture, of Caius Cacurius, a most active and accomplished man, and of the greatest influence in his city. You took away, with the knowledge of every body, a very large and very beautiful table of citron-wood from Quintus Lutatius Diodorus, who, owing to the kind exertion of his interest by Quintus Catulus, was made a Roman citizen by Lucius Sulla. I do not object to you that you stripped and plundered a most worthy imitator of yours in his whole character, Apollonius, the son of Nico, a citizen of Drepanum, who is now called Aulus Clodius, of all his exquisitely wrought silver plate;—I say nothing of that. For he does not think that any injury has been done to him, because you came to his assistance when he was a ruined man, with the rope round his neck, and shared with him the property belonging to their father, of which he had plundered his wards at Drepanum. I am even very glad if you took anything from him, and I say that nothing was ever better done by you. But it certainly was not right that the statue of Apollo should have been taken away from Lyso of Lilybaeum, I a most eminent man, with whom you had been staying as a guest. But you will say that you bought it—I know that—for six hundred sesterces. So I suppose: I know it, I say; I will produce the accounts; and yet that ought not to have been done. Will you say that the drinking vessels with emblems of Lilybaeumon them were, bought from Heius, the minor to whom Marcellus is guardian, whom you had plundered of a large sum of money, or will you confess that they were taken by force?

But why do I enumerate all his ordinary iniquities in affairs of this sort, which appear to consist only in robberies committed by him, and in losses borne by those whom he plundered? Listen, if you please, O judges, to an action of such a sort as will prove to you clearly his extraordinary madness and frenzy, rather than any ordinary covetousness. There is a man of Melita, called Diodorus, who has already given evidence before you. He has been now living at Lilybaeummany years; a man of great nobility at home, and of great credit and popularity with the people among whom he has settled, on account of his virtue. It is reported to Verres of this man that he has some exceedingly fine specimens of chased work; and among them two goblets called Thericlean, [*](“Thericles was a potter in the time of Aristophanes, who made earthenware vessels of a peculiar black clay. In subsequent time, any goblets made in imitation of his, whether of wood, silver, or glass, were called Thericlean.”—Graevius.)made by the hand of mentor with the most exquisite skill. And when Verres heard of this, he was inflamed with such a desire, not only of beholding, but also of appropriating them, that he summoned Diodorus, and demanded them. He replied, as was natural for a man who took great pride in them, that he had not got them at Lilybaeum; that he had left them at Melita, in the house of a relation of his.

On this he immediately sends men on whom he can rely to Melita; he writes to certain inhabitants of Melitato search out those vessels for him; he desires Diodorus to give them letters to that relation of his—the time appeared to him endless till he could see those pieces of plate. Diodorus, a prudent and careful man, who wished to keep his own property, writes to his relation to make answer to those men who came from Verres, that he had sent the cups to Lilybaeuma few days before. In the meantime he himself leaves the place. He preferred leaving his home, to staying in it and losing that exquisitely wrought silver work. But when Verres heard of this, he was so agitated that he seemed to every one to be raving, and to be beyond all question mad. Because he could not steal the plate himself, he said that he had been robbed by Diodorus of some exquisitely wrought vessels; he poured out threats against the absent Diodorus; he used to roar out before people; sometimes he could not restrain his tears. We have heard in the mythology of Eriphyla being so covetous that when she had seen a necklace, made, I suppose, of gold and jewels, she was so excited by its beauty, that she betrayed her husband for the sake of it. His covetousness was similar; but in one respect more violent and more senseless, because she was desiring a thing which she had seen, while his wishes were excited not only by his eyes, but even by his ears.

He orders Diodorus to be sought for over the whole province. He had by this time struck his camp, packed up his baggage, and left Sicily. Verres, in order by some means or other to bring the man back to the province, devises this plan, if it is to be called a plan, and not rather a piece of madness. He sets up one of the men he calls his hounds, to say that he wishes to institute a prosecution against Diodorus of Melitafor a capital offence. At first all men wondered at such a thing being imputed to Diodorus, a most quiet man, and as far removed as any man from all suspicion, not only of crime, but of even the slightest irregularity. But it soon became evident, that all this was done for the sake of his silver. Verres does not hesitate to order the prosecution to be instituted; and that, I imagine, was the first instance of his allowing an accusation to be made against an absent man.

The matter was notorious over all Sicily, that men were prosecuted for capital offences because the praetor coveted their chased silver plate; and that prosecutions were instituted against them not only when they were present, but even in their absence. Diodorus goes to Rome, and putting on mourning, calls on all his patrons and friends; relates the affair to every one. Earnest letters are written to Verres by his father, and by his friends, warning him to take care what he did, and what steps he took respecting Diodorus; that the matter was notorious and very unpopular; that he must be out of his senses; that this one charge would ruin him if he did not take care. At that time he considered his father, if not in the light of a parent, at least in that of a man. He had not yet sufficiently prepared himself for a trial; it was his first year in the province; he was not, as he was by the time of the affair of Sthenius, loaded with money. And so his frenzy was checked a little, not by shame, but by fear and alarm. He does not dare to condemn Diodorus; he takes his name out of the list of defendants while he is absent. In the meantime Diodorus, for nearly three years, as long as that man was praetor, was banished from the province and from his home.

Every one else, not only Sicilians, but Roman citizens too, settled this in their minds, that, since he had carried his covetousness to such an extent, there was nothing which any one could expect to preserve or retain in his own possession if it was admired ever so little by Verres. But after they understood that that brave man, Quintus Arrius, whom the province was eagerly looking for, was not his successor, they then settled that they could keep nothing so carefully shut up or hidden away, as not to be most open and visible to his covetousness. After that, he took away from an honourable and highly esteemed Roman knight, named Cnaeus Salidius, whose son he knew to be a senator of the Roman people and a judge, some beautiful silver horses which had belonged to Quintus Maximus. I did not mean to say this, O judges, for he bought those, he did not steal them;

I wish I had not mentioned them. Now he will boast, and have a fine ride on these horses. “I bought them, I have paid the money for them.” I have no doubt account books also will be produced. It is well worth while. Give me then the account-books. You are at liberty to get rid of this charge respecting Calidius, as long as I can get a sight of these accounts; still, if you had bought them, what ground had Calidius for complaining at Rome, that, though he had been living so many years in Sicilyas a trader, you were the only person who had so despised and so insulted him, as to plunder him in common with all the rest of the Sicilians? what ground had he for declaring that he would demand his plate back again from you, if he had sold it to you of his own free will? Moreover, how could you avoid restoring it to Cnaeus Calidius; especially when he was such an intimate friend of Lucius Sisenna, your defender, and as you had restored their property to the other friends of Sisenna?