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?
But that my discourse may return to Lilybaeum, from which I have made this digression, there is a man
named Diocles, the son-in-law of Pamphilus, of that Pamphilus from whom the ewer was
taken away, whose surname is Popillius. From this man he took away every article on
his sideboard where his plate was set out. He may say, if he pleases, that he had
bought them. In fact, in this case, by reason of the magnitude of the robbery, an
entry of it, I imagine, has been made in the account-books. He ordered Timarchides
to value the plate. How did he do it? At as low a price as any one ever valued any
thing presented to an actor. Although I have been for some time acting foolishly in
saying as much about your purchases, and in asking whether you bought the things,
and how, and at what price you bought them, when I can settle all that by one word.
Produce me a written list of what plate you acquired in the province of Sicily, from whom, and at what price you bought each
article.
What will you do? Though I ought not to ask you for these accounts, for I ought to
have your account-books and to produce them. But you say that you never kept any
accounts of your expenses in these years. Make me out at least this one which I am
asking for, the account of the plate, and I will not mind the rest at present. “I
have no writings of the sort; I cannot produce any accounts.” What then is to be
done? What do you think that these judges can do? Your house was full of most
beautiful statues already, before your praetorship; many were placed in your villas,
many were deposited with your friends; many were given and presented to other
people; yet you have no accounts speaking of any single one having been bought. All
the plate in Sicilyhas been taken away.
There is nothing left to any one that can be called his own. A scandalous defence is
invented, that the praetor bought all that plate; and yet that cannot be proved by
any accounts. If you do produce any accounts, still there is no entry in them how
you have acquired what you have got. But of these years during which you say that
you bought the greatest number of things, you produce no accounts at all. Must you
not inevitably be, condemned, both by the accounts which you do, and by those which
you do not produce?
You also took away at Lilybaeumwhatever
silver vessels you chose from Marcus Caelius, a Roman knight, a most excellent young
man. You did not hesitate to take away the whole furniture, of Caius Cacurius, a
most active and accomplished man, and of the greatest influence in his city. You
took away, with the knowledge of every body, a very large and very beautiful table
of citron-wood from Quintus Lutatius Diodorus, who, owing to the kind exertion of
his interest by Quintus Catulus, was made a Roman citizen by Lucius Sulla. I do not
object to you that you stripped and plundered a most worthy imitator of yours in his
whole character, Apollonius, the son of Nico, a citizen of Drepanum, who is now called Aulus Clodius, of all
his exquisitely wrought silver plate;—I say nothing of that. For he does not think
that any injury has been done to him, because you came to his assistance when he was
a ruined man, with the rope round his neck, and shared with him the property
belonging to their father, of which he had plundered his wards at Drepanum. I am
even very glad if you took anything from him, and I say that nothing was ever better
done by you. But it certainly was not right that the statue of Apollo should have
been taken away from Lyso of Lilybaeum, I a
most eminent man, with whom you had been staying as a guest. But you will say that
you bought it—I know that—for six hundred sesterces. So I suppose: I know it, I say; I will produce the accounts;
and yet that ought not to have been done. Will you say that the drinking vessels
with emblems of Lilybaeumon them were,
bought from Heius, the minor to whom Marcellus is guardian, whom you had plundered
of a large sum of money, or will you confess that they were taken by force?
But why do I enumerate all his ordinary iniquities in
affairs of this sort, which appear to consist only in robberies committed by him,
and in losses borne by those whom he plundered? Listen, if you please, O judges, to
an action of such a sort as will prove to you clearly his extraordinary madness and
frenzy, rather than any ordinary covetousness.
There is a man of Melita, called Diodorus,
who has already given evidence before you. He has been now living at Lilybaeummany years; a man of great nobility at
home, and of great credit and popularity with the people among whom he has settled,
on account of his virtue. It is reported to Verres of this man that he has some
exceedingly fine specimens of chased work; and among them two goblets called
Thericlean, “Thericles was a potter in the time of
Aristophanes, who made earthenware vessels of a peculiar black clay. In subsequent
time, any goblets made in imitation of his, whether of wood, silver, or glass,
were called Thericlean.”—Graevius.made by the hand of mentor with the most
exquisite skill. And when Verres heard of this, he was inflamed with such a desire,
not only of beholding, but also of appropriating them, that he summoned Diodorus,
and demanded them. He replied, as was natural for a man who took great pride in
them, that he had not got them at Lilybaeum; that he had left them at Melita, in the house of a relation of his.