To return again to Marcellus. Judge of the case, O judges, in this way; think that
more gods were lost to the Syracusans owing to the arrival of Verres, than even were
owing to the victory of Marcellus. In truth, he is said to have sought diligently
for the great Archimedes, a man of the highest genius and skill, and to have been
greatly concerned when he heard that he had been killed; but that other man sought
for everything which he did seek for, not for the purpose of preserving it, but of
carrying it away. At
present, then, all those things which might appear more insignificant, I will on
that account pass over—how he took away Delphic tables made of marble, beautiful
goblets of brass, an immense number of Corinthian vases, out of every sacred temple
at Syracuse;
and therefore, O judges, those men who are accustomed to take strangers about to
all those things which are worth going to see, and to show them every separate
thing, whom they call mystagogi, (or cicerones,) now have their description of
things reversed; for as they formerly used to show what there was in every place, so
now they show what has been taken from every place. What do
you think, then? Do you think that those men are affected with but a moderate
indignation? Not so, O judges: in the first place, because all men are influenced by
religious feeling, and think that their paternal gods, whom they have received from
their ancestors, are to be carefully worshipped and retained by themselves; and
secondly, because this sort of ornament, these works and specimens of art, these
statues and paintings, delight men of Greek extraction to an excessive degree;
therefore by their complaints we can understand that these things appear most bitter
to those men, which perhaps may seem trifling and contemptible to us. Believe me, O
judges, although I am aware to a certainty that you yourselves hear the same things,
that though both our allies and foreign nations have during these past years
sustained many calamities and injuries, yet men of Greek extraction have not been,
and are not, more indignant at any than at this ruthless plundering of their temples
and altars.
Although that man may say that he bought these things, as he is accustomed to say,
yet, believe me in this, O judges,—no city in all Asiaor in all Greecehas ever
sold one statue, one picture, or one decoration of the city, of its own free will to
anybody. Unless, perchance, you suppose that, after strict judicial decisions had
ceased to take place at Rome, the Greeks
then began to sell these things, which they not only did not sell when there were
courts of justice open, but which they even used to buy up; or unless you think that
Lucius Crassus, Quintus Scaevola, Caius Claudius, most, powerful men, whose most
splendid aedileships we have seen had no dealings in those sort of matters with the
Greeks, but that those men had such dealings who became aediles after the
destruction of the courts of justice.
Know also that that false presence of purchase was more bitter to the cities than
if any one were privately to filch things, or boldly to steal them and carry them
off. For they think it the most excessive baseness, that it should be entered on the
public records that the city was induced by a price, and by a small price too, to
sell and alienate those things which it had received from men of old. In truth, the
Greeks delight to a marvellous degree in those things, which we despise. And
therefore our ancestors willingly allowed those things to remain in numbers among
the allies, in order that they might be as splendid and as flourishing as possible
under our dominion; and among those nations whom they rendered taxable or tributary,
The Latin is quos vectigales aut
stipendiarius fuerant—“Stipendiariiand vectigalesare thus
distinguished: Stipendiariiare those who pay
annually a fixed sum as tribute; vectigales,
those who pay in proportion to their property or income.”—Riddle's Dict. v.
Stipendiarius.still they left these
things, in order that they who take delight in those things which to us seem
insignificant, might have them as pleasures and consolations in slavery.
What do you think that the Rhegians, who now are Roman citizens, would take to
allow that marble Venus to be taken from them? What would the Tarentines take to
lose the Europa sitting on the Bull? or the Satyr which they have in the temple of
Vesta? or their other monuments? What would the Thespians take to lose the statue of
Cupid, the only object for which any one ever goes to see Thespiae? What would the men of Cnidostake for their marble Venus? or the Coans for
their picture of her? or the Ephesians for Alexander? the men of Cyzicusfor their Ajax or Medea? What would the
Rhodians take for Ialysus? the Athenians
for their marble Bacchus, or their picture of Paralus, or their brazen Heifer, the
work of Myron? It would be a long business and an unnecessary one, to mention what
is worth going to see among all the different nations in all Asiaand Greece; but that is the reason why I am enumerating these things,
because I wish you to consider that an incredible indignation must be the feeling of
those men from whose cities these things are carried away.
And to say nothing of other nations, judge of the Syracusans themselves. For when I
went to Syracuse, I originally
believed what I had heard at Romefrom that
man's friends, that the city of Syracuse, on account of the inheritance of Heraclius, was no less
friendly to him than the city of the Mamertines, because of their participation in
all his booty and robberies. And at the same time I was afraid that, owing to the
influence of the high-born and beautiful women at whose will he had directed all the
measures of his praetorship for three years, and of the men to whom they were
married, I should be opposed not only by an excessive lenity, but even by a feeling
of liberality towards that man, if I were to seek for any evidence out of the public
records of the Syracusans.