But to return to that private chapel; there was this statue, which I am speaking
of, of Cupid, made of marble. On the other side there was a Hercules, beautifully
made of brass; that was said to be the work of Myron, as I believe, and it
undoubtedly was so. Also before those gods there were little altars, which might
indicate to any one the holiness of the chapel. There were besides two brazen
statues, of no very great size, but of marvellous beauty, in the dress and robes of
virgins, which with uplifted hands were supporting some sacred vessels which were
placed on their heads, after the fashion of the Athenian virgins. They were called
the Canephorae, but their maker was.... (who? who was he? thank you, you are quite
right,) they called him Polycletus. Whenever any one of our citizens went to
Messana, he used to go and see these
statues. They were open every day for people to go to see them. The house was not
more an ornament to its master, than it was to the city.
Caius Claudius, whose aedileship we know to have been a
most splendid affair, used this statue of Cupid, as long as he kept the forum
decorated in honour of the immortal gods and the Roman people. And as he was
connected by ties of hospitality with the Heii, and was the patron of the Mamertine
people,—as he availed himself of their kindness to lend him this, so he was careful
to restore it There have lately been noble men of the same kind, O judges;—why do I
say lately, Yes, we have seen some very lately, a very little while ago indeed, who
have adorned the forum and the public buildings, not with the spoils of the
provinces, but with ornaments belonging to their friends,—with splendid things lent
by their own connections, not with the produce of the thefts of guilty men,—and who
afterwards have restored the statues and decorations, each to its proper owner; men
who have not taken things away out of the cities of our allies for the sake of a
four-day festival, under presence of the shows to be exhibited in their aedileship,
and after that carried them off to their own homes, and their own villas.
All these statues which I have mentioned, O judges, Verres took away from Heius,
out of his private chapel. Be left, I say, not one of those things, nor anything
else, except one old wooden figure.—Good Fortune, as I believe; that, forsooth, he
did not choose to have in his house! Oh! for the good faith of gods and men! What is the meaning of all
this? What a cause is this? What impudence is this! The statues which I am speaking
of, before they were taken away by you, no commander ever came to Messanawithout seeing So many praetors, so many
consuls as there have been in Sicily, in
time of peace, and in time of war; so many men of every sort as there have been—I do
not speak of upright, innocent, conscientious men, but so many covetous, so many
audacious, so many infamous men as there have been, not one of them all was violent
enough, or seemed to himself powerful enough or noble enough, to venture to ask for,
or to take away, or even to touch anything in that chapel. Shall Verres take away
everything which is most beautiful everywhere? Shall it not be allowed to any one
besides to have anything? Shall that one house of his contain so many wealthy
houses? Was it for this reason that none of his predecessors ever touched these
things, that he might be able to carry them off? Was this the reason why Caius
Claudius Pulcher restored them, that Caius Verres might be able to steal them? But
that Cupid had no wish for the house of a pimp and the establishment of a harlot; he
was quite content to stay in that chapel where he was hereditary; he knew that he
had been left to Heius by his ancestors, with the rest of the sacred things which he
inherited; he did not require the heir of a prostitute.
But why am I borne on so impetuously? I shall in a moment be refuted by one word.
“I bought it,” says he. O ye immortal gods, what a splendid defence! we sent a
broker into the province with military command and with the forces, to buy up all
the statues, all the paintings, all the silver plate and gold plate, and ivory, and
jewels, and to leave nothing to any body. For this defence seems to me to be got
ready for everything; that he bought them. In the first place, if I should grant to
you that which you wish, namely, that you bought them, since against all this class
of accusations you are going to use this defence alone, I ask what sort of tribunals
you thought that there would be at Rome,
if you thought that any one would grant you this, that you in your praetorship and
in your command The Latin word is imperium. “Imperium(as opposed to
Potestas) is the power which was conferred by
the state upon an individual who was appointed to command an army.... The imperiumwas as necessary for the governor of a province,
as for a general who merely commanded the armies of the republic; as without it he
could not exercise military authority.... It was conferred by a special law, and
was limited, if not by the terms in which it was conferred, at least by usage. It
could not be held or exercised within the city.”—Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 508, v.
Imperium.bought up so many and such
valuable things,—everything, in short, which was of any value in the whole province.
Remark the care of our ancestors, who as yet suspected no such conduct as this, but
yet provided against the things which might happen in affairs of small importance.
They thought that no one who had gone as governor or as lieutenant into a province
would be so insane as to buy silver, for that was given him out of the public fends;
or raiment, for that was afforded him by the laws; they thought he might buy a
slave, a thing which we all use, and which is not provided by the laws. They made a
law, therefore, “that no one should buy a slave except in the room of a slave who
was dead.” If any slave had died at Rome?
No, if any one had died in the place where his master was. For they did not mean you
to furnish your house in the province, but to be of use to the province in its
necessities.
What was the reason why they so carefully kept us from making purchases in the
provinces? This was it, O judges, because they thought it a robbery, not a purchase,
when the seller was not allowed to sell on his own terms. And they were aware that,
in the provinces, if he who was there with the command and power The Latin word in each case is potestas. “According to Paulus, potestas, as applied to a magistrate, is equivalent to imperium... But potestasis applied to magistrates who had not the imperiumas, for instance, to quaestors and tribunes of
the people; and potestasand imperiumare often opposed in Cicero. Thus it seems that
potestas, like many other Roman terms, had both
a wider signification and a narrower one; in its wider signification it might mean
all the power that was delegated to any person by the state, whatever might be the
extent of that power; in its narrower signification, it was on the one hand
equivalent to imperiumand on the other, it
expressed the power of these functionaries who had not the imperium.” Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 727 v. Potestas.of a governor wished to purchase what was in any
one's possession, and was allowed to do so, it would come to pass that he would get
whatever he chose, whether it was to be sold or not, at whatever price he pleased.
Some one will say, “Do not deal with Verres in that manner; do not try and examine
his actions by the standard of old-fashioned conscientiousness; allow him to have
bought them without being punished for it, provided he bought them in a fair way,
not through any arbitrary exercise of power, nor from any one against his will, or
by violence.” I will so deal with him. If Heius had anything for sale, if he sold it
for the price at which he valued it, I give up inquiring why you bought it.