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.