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.
On this he immediately sends men on whom he can rely to Melita; he writes to certain inhabitants of
Melitato search out those vessels for
him; he desires Diodorus to give them letters to that relation of his—the time
appeared to him endless till he could see those pieces of plate. Diodorus, a prudent
and careful man, who wished to keep his own property, writes to his relation to make
answer to those men who came from Verres, that he had sent the cups to Lilybaeuma few days before. In the meantime he
himself leaves the place. He preferred leaving his home, to staying in it and losing
that exquisitely wrought silver work. But when Verres heard of this, he was so
agitated that he seemed to every one to be raving, and to be beyond all question
mad. Because he could not steal the plate himself, he said that he had been robbed
by Diodorus of some exquisitely wrought vessels; he poured out threats against the
absent Diodorus; he used to roar out before people; sometimes he could not restrain
his tears. We have heard in the mythology of Eriphyla being so covetous that when
she had seen a necklace, made, I suppose, of gold and jewels, she was so excited by
its beauty, that she betrayed her husband for the sake of it. His covetousness was
similar; but in one respect more violent and more senseless, because she was
desiring a thing which she had seen, while his wishes were excited not only by his
eyes, but even by his ears.
He orders Diodorus to be sought for over the whole province. He had by this time
struck his camp, packed up his baggage, and left Sicily. Verres, in order by some means or other to bring the man back
to the province, devises this plan, if it is to be called a plan, and not rather a
piece of madness. He sets up one of the men he calls his hounds, to say that he
wishes to institute a prosecution against Diodorus of Melitafor a capital offence. At first all men wondered at such a
thing being imputed to Diodorus, a most quiet man, and as far removed as any man
from all suspicion, not only of crime, but of even the slightest irregularity. But
it soon became evident, that all this was done for the sake of his silver. Verres
does not hesitate to order the prosecution to be instituted; and that, I imagine,
was the first instance of his allowing an accusation to be made against an absent
man.