A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

3. C.Heius, the principal citizen of Messana in Sicily, and head of the deputation which Verres persuaded or compelled that city to send to Rome in B. C. 70, to give evidence in his favour, when impeached by Cicero. But Heius, although he his public commission, was in his own person an important witness for the prosecution. He had, indeed, been one of the principal sufferers from the praetor's rapacity. Before the administration of Verres Heius was the possessor, by long inheritance, of some of the rarest and most perfect specimens of Grecian art. Among them were the famous Eros in marble by Praxiteles; an equally celebrated Heracles in bronze, by Myron; Canephoroe, by Polycletus; and Attalic tapestry, as rare and much more costly than the Gobelin tapestry of modern times. All these ancestral treasures of the Heian family, some of which being the furniture of the family-chapel, were sacred as well as priceless, Verres purchased from their reluctant owner at a nominal price, borrowed without returning, or seized without apology, until both the house and lararium of Heius were stripped bare of every work of art, except one ancient piece, probably of Pelasgian manufacture, which was neither beautiful nor curious enough for the praetor's cabinet. Verres had been equally unscrupulous with the money and property of Heius, who declared, when examined by Cicero, that so far from consentig to the sale of his statues, no price could have induced alienate them from the Heian inheritance. (Cic. in Verr. 2.5, 4.2, 7, 67, 5.18.)

[W.B.D]