In C. Verrem

Am I to speak also of the spears made of grass? for I saw that you were excited at the name of them when the witnesses mentioned them. They were such that it was sufficient to have seen them once, as there was neither any manual labour in them, nor any beauty, but simply an incredible size, which it would be quite sufficient even to hear of, and too much to see them more than once. Did you covet even those?

For the Sappho which was taken away out of the town-hall affords you so reasonable an excuse, that it may seem almost allowable and pardonable. That work of Silanion, so perfect, so elegant, so elaborate, (I will not say what private man, but) what nation could be so worthy to possess, as the most elegant and learned Verres? Certainly, nothing will be said against it. If any one of us, who are not as happy, who cannot be as refined as that man, should wish to behold anything of the sort, let him go to the temple of Good Fortune, to the monument of Catulus, to the portico of Metellus; let him take pains to get admittance into the Tusculan villa of any one of those men; let him see the forum when decorated, if Verres is ever so kind as to lend any of his treasures to the aediles. Shall Verres have all these things at home? shall Verres have his house full of his villas crammed with, the ornaments of temples and cities? Will you still, O judges, bear with the hobby, as he calls it, and pleasures of this vile artisan? a man who was born in such a rank, educated in such a way, and who is so formed both in mind and body, that he appears a much fitter person to take down statues than to appropriate them.

And how great a regret this Sappho which he carried off left behind her, can scarcely be told; for in the first place it was admirably made, and, besides, it had a very noble Greek epigram engraved upon the pedestal; and would not that learned man, that Grecian, who is such an acute judge of these matters, who is the only man who understands them, if he had understood one letter of Greek, have taken that away too? for now, because it is engraved on an empty pedestal, it both declares what was once, on the pedestal, and proves that it has been taken away. What shall I say more? Did you not take away the statue of Paean from out of the temple of Aesculapius, beautifully made, sacred, and holy as it was? a statue which all men went to see for its beauty, and worshipped for its sacred character. What more? was not the statue of Aristaeus openly taken away by your command out of the temple of Bacchus?

What more? did you not take away out of the temple of Jupiterthat most holy statue of Jupiter Imperator, which the Greeks call *)/ourios, most beautifully made? What next? did you hesitate to take away out of the temple of Libera, that most exquisite bust of Parian marble, which we used to go to see? And that Paean used to be worshipped among that people together with Aesculapius, with anniversary sacrifices. Aristaeus, who being, as the Greeks report, the son of Bacchus, is said to have been the inventor of oil, was consecrated among them together with his father Bacchus, in the same temple.

But how great do you suppose was the honour paid to Jupiter Imperator in his own temple? You may collect it from this consideration, if you recollect how great was the religious reverence attached to that statue of the same appearance and form which Flaminius brought out of Macedonia, and placed in the Capitol. In truth, there were said to be in the whole world three statues of Jupiter Imperator, of the same class, all beautifully made: one was that one from Macedonia, which we have seen in the Capitol; a second was the one at the narrow straits, which are the mouth of the Euxine Sea; the third was that which was at Syracuse, till Verres came as praetor. Flaminius removed the first from its habitation, but only to place it in the Capitol, that is to say, in the house of Jupiter upon earth.

But as to the one that is at the entrance of the Euxine, that, though so many wars have proceeded from the shores of that sea, and though so many have been poured into Pontus, has still remained inviolate and untouched to this day. This third one, which was at Syracuse, which Marcus Marcellus, when in arms and victorious, had seen, which he had spared to the religion of the place, which both the citizens of, and settlers in Syracusewere used to worship, and strangers not only visited, but often venerated, Caius Verres took away from the temple of Jupiter.