Did you take away by force some splendid harness, which is said to have belonged to
King Hiero, from Philarchus of Centuripa, a wealthy and high-born man, or did you
buy it of him? When I was in Sicily, this
is what I heard from the Centuripans and from everybody else, for the case was very
notorious; people said that you had taken away this harness from Philarchus of
Centuripa, and other very beautiful harness from Aristus of Panormus, and a third set from Gratippus of
Tyndarus. Indeed, if Philarchus had sold it to you, you would not, after the
prosecution was instituted against you, have promised to restore it. But because you
saw that many people knew of it, you thought that if you restored it to him, you
would only have so much the less, but the original transaction would be proved
against you nevertheless; and so you did not restore it. Philarchus said in his
evidence, that when he became acquainted with this disease of yours, as your friends
call it, he wished to conceal from you the knowledge of the existence of this
harness; that when he was summoned by you, he said that he had not got any; and
indeed, that he had removed them to another person's house, that they might not be
found; but that your instinct was so great, that you saw them by the assistance of
the very man in whose custody they were deposited; that then he could not deny that
you had found him out, and so that the harness was taken from him against his will,
and without any payment.
Now, O judges, it is worth your while to know how he was accustomed to find and
trace out all these things. There are two brothers, citizens of Cibyra, Tlepolemus and Hiero, one of whom, I
believe, was accustomed to model in wax, the other was a painter. I fancy these men,
as they had become suspected by their fellow-citizens of having plundered the temple
of Apollo at Cibyra, fearing a trial and
the punishment of the law, had fled from their homes. As they had known that Verres
was a great connoisseur of such works as theirs, at the time that he, as you learnt
from the witnesses, came to Cibyrawith
fictitious bills of exchange, they, when flying from their homes as exiles, came to
him when he was in Asia. He has kept them
with him ever since that time; and in the robberies he committed, and in the booty
he acquired during his lieutenancy, he greatly availed himself of their assistance
and their advice.
These are the men who were meant when Quintus Tadius made an entry in his books
that he had given things by Verres's order to some Greek painters. They were already
well known to, and had been thoroughly tried by him, when he took them with him into
Sicily. And when they arrived there, they
scented cut and tracked everything in so marvellous a manner, (you might have
thought they were bloodhounds,) that, wherever anything was they found it out by
some means or other. Some things they found out by threatening, some by promising;
this by means of slaves, that through freemen; one thing by a friend, another by an
enemy. Whatever pleased them was sure to be lost. They whose plate was demanded had
nothing else to hope, than that Tlepolemus and Hiero might not approve of it.
I will relate to you this fact, O judges, most truly. I recollect that Pamphilus of
Lilybaeum, a connection of mine by ties
of hospitality, and a personal friend of mine, a man of the highest birth, told me,
that when that man had taken from him, by his absolute power, an ewer made by the
hand of Boethus, of exquisite workmanship and great weight, he went home very sad in
truth, and greatly agitated, because a vessel of that sort, which had been left to
him by his father and his forefathers, and which he was accustomed to use on days of
festival, and on the arrival of ancient friends, had been taken from him. While I
was sitting at home, said he, in great indignation, up comes one of the slaves of
Venus; he orders me immediately to bring to the praetor some embossed goblets. I was
greatly vexed, said he; I had two; I order them both to be taken out of the closet,
lest any worse thing should happen, and to be brought after me to the praetor's
house. When I got there the praetor was asleep; the Cibyratic brothers were walking
about, and when they saw me, they said, Pamphilus, where are the cups? I show them
with great grief;—they praise them.—I begin to complain that I shall have nothing
left of any value at all, if my cups too were taken away. Then they, when they see
me vexed, say, What are you willing to give us to prevent these from being taken
from you? To make my story short, I said that I would give six hundred sesterces. Meantime the praetor summons us; he asks for
the cups. Then they began to say to the praetor, that they had thought from what
they had heard, that Pamphilus's cups were of some value, but that they were
miserable things, quite unworthy of Verres's having them among his plate. He said,
he thought so too.
So Pamphilus saved his exquisite goblets. And indeed, before I heard this, though I
knew that it was a very trifling sort of accomplishment to understand things of that
sort, yet I used to wonder that he had any knowledge of them at all, as I knew that
in nothing whatever had he any qualities like a man. But when I heard this, I then for the
first time understood that that was the use of these two Cibyratic brothers; that in
his robberies he used his own hands, but their eyes. But he was so covetous of that
splendid reputation of being thought to be a judge of such matters, that lately,
(just observe the man's madness,) after his case was adjourned, when he was already
as good as condemned, and civilly dead, at the time of the games of the circus, when
early in the morning the couches were spread in preparation for a banquet at the
house of Lucius Sisenna, a man of the first consideration, and when the plate was
all set out, and when, as was suited to the dignity of Lucius Sisenna, the house was
full of honourable men, he came to the plate, and began in a leisurely way to
examine and consider every separate piece. Some marveled at the folly of the man,
who, while his trial was actually going on, was increasing the suspicion of that
covetousness of which he was accused; others marveled at his insensibility, that any
such things could come into his head, when the time for judgment in his cause was so
near at hand, and when so many witnesses had spoken against him. But Sisenna's
servants, who, I suppose, had heard the evidence which had been given against him,
never took their eyes off him, and never departed out of reach of the plate.
It is the part of a sagacious judge, from small circumstances to form his opinion
of every man's covetousness or incontinence. And will any one believe that this man
when praetor, was able to keep either his covetousness or his hands from the plate
of the Sicilians, when, though a defendant, and a defendant within two days of
judgment, a man in reality, and in the opinion of all men as good as already
condemned, he could not in a large assembly restrain himself from handling and
examining the plate of Lucius Sisenna?