But Enna, where those things which I am
speaking of are said to have been done, is in a high and lofty situation, on the top
of which is a large level plain, and springs of water which are never dry. And the
whole of the plain is cut off and separated, so as to be difficult of approach.
Around it are many lakes and groves, and beautiful flowers at every season of the
year; so that the place itself appears to testify to that abduction of the virgin
which we have heard of from our boyhood. We have the same
advantage as, or rather greater advantages than Cicero in this respect, for we
have heard the story from our boyhood told far more beautifully than any Sicilian
ever imagined it. See Ovid Fasti, iv.
419.Near it is a cave turned towards the north, of unfathomable depth,
where they say that Father Pluto suddenly rose out of the earth in his chariot, and
carried the virgin off from that spot, and that on a sudden, at no great distance
from Syracuse, he went down beneath
the earth, and that immediately a lake sprang up in that place; and there to this
day the Syracusans celebrate anniversary festivals with a most numerous assemblage
of both sexes On account
of the antiquity of this belief, because in those places the traces and almost the
cradles of those gods are found, the worship of
Ceresof Ennaprevails to a wonderful extent, both in private and in public
over all Sicily. In truth, many prodigies
often attest her influence and divine powers. Her present help is often brought to
many in critical circumstances, so that this island appears not only to be loved,
but also to be watched over and protected by her.
Nor is it the Sicilians only, but even all other tribes and nations greatly worship
Ceresof Enna. In truth, if initiation into those sacred mysteries of the
Athenians sought for with the greatest avidity, to which people
Ceresis said to have come in that long
wandering of hers, and then she brought them corn. How much greater reverence ought
to be paid to her by those people among whom it is certain that she was born, and
first discovered corn. And, therefore, in the time of our fathers, at a most
disastrous and critical time to the republic, when, after the death of Tiberius
Gracchus, there was a fear that great dangers were portended to the state by various
prodigies, in the consulship of Publius Mucius and Lucius Calpurnius, recourse was
had to the Sibylline books, in which it was found set down, “that the most ancient
Ceresought to be appeased.” Then,
priests of the Roman people, selected from the most honourable college of decemvirs,
although there was in our own city a most beautiful and magnificent temple of
Ceres, nevertheless went as far as
Enna. For such was the authority and
antiquity of the reputation for holiness of that place, that when they went thither,
they seemed to be going not to a temple of
Ceres, but to
Ceresherself.
I will not din this into your ears any longer. I have been some time afraid that my
speech may appear unlike the usual fashion of speeches at trials unlike the daily
method of speaking. This I say, that this very Ceres, the most ancient, the most holy, the very chief of all sacred
things which are honoured by every people, and in every nation, was carried off by
Caius Verres from her temple and her home. Ye who have been to Enna, have seen a statue of
Ceresmade of marble, and in the other
temple a statue of Libera. They are very colossal and very beautiful, but not
exceedingly ancient. There was one of brass, of moderate size, but extraordinary
workmanship, with the torches in its hands, very ancient, by far the most ancient of
all those statues which are in that temple; that he carried off, and yet he was not
content with that.
Before the temple of Ceres, in an open and
an uncovered place, there are two statues, one of
Ceres, the other of Triptolemus, very
beautiful, and of colossal size. Their beauty was their danger, but their size their
safety, because the taking of them down and carrying them off appeared very
difficult. But in the right hand of
Ceresthere stood a beautifully wrought image
of Victory, and this he had wrenched out of the hand of
Ceresand carried off. What now must be his feelings at the
recollection of his crimes, when I, at the mere enumeration of them, am not only
roused to indignation in my mind, but even shudder over my whole body? For thoughts
of that temple, of that place, of that holy religion come into my mind. Everything
seems present before my eyes,—the day on which, when I had arrived at Enna, the priests of
Cerescame to meet me with garlands of
vervain, and with fillets; the concourse of citizens, among whom, while I was
addressing them, there was such weeping and groaning that the most bitter grief
seemed to have taken possession of the whole.
They did not complain of the absolute way in which the tenths were levied, nor of
the plunder of property, nor of the iniquity of tribunals, nor of that man's
unhallowed lusts, nor of his violence, nor of the insults by which they had been
oppressed and overwhelmed. It was the divinity of
Ceres, the antiquity of their sacred
observances, the holy veneration due to their temple, which they wished should have
atonement made to them by the punishment of that most atrocious and audacious man.
They said that they could endure everything else, that to everything else they were
indifferent. This indignation of theirs was so great, that you might suppose that
Verres, like another king of hell, had come to Ennaand had carried off, not Proserpina, but
Ceresherself. And, in truth, that city
does not appear to be a city, but a shrine of
Ceres. The people of Ennathink that
Ceresdwells among them; so that they
appear to me not to be citizens of that city, but to be all priests, to be all
ministers and officers of Ceres.
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.