The things which you carried off from the holiest temples with wickedness, and like a robber, we cannot see, except in your own houses, or in those of your friends. The statues and decorations which Publius Servilius brought away from the cities of our enemies, taken by his courage and valour, according to the laws of war and his own rights as commander-in-chief, he brought home for the Roman people; he carried them in his triumph, and took care that a description of them should be engraved on public tablets and hid up in the treasury. You may learn from public documents the industry of that most honourable man. Read—“The accounts delivered by Publius Servilius.” You see not only the number of the statues, but the size, the figure, and the condition of each one among them accurately described in writing. Certainly, the delight arising from virtue and from victory is much greater than that pleasure which is derived from licentiousness and covetousness. I say that Servilius took much more care to have the booty of the Roman people noted and described, than you took to have your plunder catalogued.

You will say that your statues and paintings were also an ornament to the city and forum of the Roman people. I recollect: I, together with the Roman people, saw the forum and place for holding the assemblies adorned with embellishments, in appearance indeed magnificent, but to one's senses and thoughts bitter and melancholy. I saw everything glittering with your thefts, with the plunder of the provinces, with the spoils of our allies and friends. At which time, O judges, that fellow conceived the hope of committing his other crimes. For he saw that these men, who wished to be called the masters of the courts of law, were slaves to these desires.

But the allies and foreign nations then first abandoned the hope of saving any of their property and fortunes, because, as it happened, there were at that time very many ambassadors from Asia and Achaia at Rome, who worshipped in the forum the images of the gods which had been taken from their temples. And so also, when they recognised the other statues and ornaments, they wept, as they beheld the different pieces of their property in different place. And from all those men we then used to hear discourses of this sort:—“That it was impossible for any one to doubt of the ruin of our allies and friends, when men saw in the forum of the Roman people, in which formerly those men used to be accused and condemned who had done any injury to the allies, those things now openly placed which had been wickedly seized and taken away from the allies.”

Here I do not expect that he will deny that he has many statues, and countless paintings. But, as I fancy, he is accustomed at times to say that he purchased these things which he seized and stole; since indeed he was sent at the public expense, and with the title of ambassador, into Achaia, Asia, and Pamphylia as a purchaser of statues and paintings. I have all the accounts both of that fellow and of his father, of money received, which I have most carefully read and arranged; those of your father, as long as he lived, you own, as far as you say that you have made them up. For in that man, O judges, you will find this new thing. We hear that some men have never kept accounts; which is a mistaken opinion of men with respect to Antonius; for he kept them most carefully. But there may be men of that sort, but they are by no means to be approved of. We hear that some men have not kept them from the beginning, but after some time have made them up; there is a way of accounting for this too. But this is unprecedented and absurd which this man gave us for an answer, when we demanded his account of him: “That he kept them up to the consulship of Marcus Terentius and Caius Cassius; but that, after that, he gave up keeping them.”

In another place we will consider what sort of a reply this is; at present I am not concerned with it; for of the times about which I am at present occupied I have the accounts, both yours and those of your father. You cannot deny that you carried off very many most beautiful statues, very many admirable paintings. I wish you would deny it. Show in your accounts or in those of your father that any one of them was purchased, and you have gained your cause. There is not even any possibility of your having bought those two most beautiful statues which are now standing in your court, and which stood for many years by the folding doors of the Samian Juno; these two, I say, which are now the only statues left in your house, which are waiting for the broker, left alone and deserted by the other statues.

But, I suppose in these matters alone had he this irrepressible and unbridled covetousness; his other desires were restrained by some reason and moderation. To how many noble virgins, to how many matrons do you think he offered violence in that foul and obscene lieutenancy? In what town did he set his foot that he did not leave more traces of his rapes and atrocities than he did of his arrival? But I will pass over everything which can be denied; even those things which are most certain and most evident I will omit; I will select one of his abominable deeds, in order that I may the more easily at last arrive at Sicily, which has imposed the burden of this business on me.

There is a town on the Hellespont, O judges, called Lampsacus, among the first in the province of Asia for renown and for nobleness. And the citizens themselves of Lampsacus are most especially kind to all Roman citizens, and also are an especially quiet and orderly race; almost beyond all the rest of the Greeks inclined to the most perfect ease, rather than to any disorder or tumult. It happened, when he had prevailed on Cnaeus Dolabella to send him to king Nicomedes and to king Sadala, and when he had begged this expedition, more with a view to his own gain than to any advantage for the republic, that in that journey he came to Lampsacus, to the great misfortune and almost ruin of the city. He is conducted to the house of a man named Janitor as his host; and his companions also, are billeted on other entertainers. As was the fellow's custom, and as his lusts always instigating him to commit some wickedness prompted him, he immediately gives a commission to his companions, the most worthless and infamous of men, to inquire and find out whether there is any virgin woman worthy of his staying longer at Lampsacus for her sake.

He had a companion of the name of Rubrius, a man made for such vices as his, who used to find out all these things for him wherever he went, with wonderful address. He brings him the following news,—that there was a man of the name of Philodamus, in birth, in rank, in wealth, and in reputation by far the first man among the citizens of Lampsacus; that his daughter, who was living with her father because she had not yet got a husband, was a woman of extraordinary beauty, but was also considered exceedingly modest and virtuous. The fellow, when he heard this, was so inflamed with desire for that which he had not only not seen himself, but which even he from whom he heard of it had not seen himself, that he said he should like to go to Philodamus immediately. Janitor, his host, who suspected nothing, being afraid that he must have given him some offence himself, endeavoured with all his might to detain him. Verres, as he could not find any pretext for leaving his host's house began to pave his way for his meditated violence by other steps. He says that Rubrius, his most loved friend, his assistant in all such matters, and the partner of his counsels, is lodged with but little comfort. He orders him to be conducted to the house of Philodamus.