In C. Verrem

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.

To return again to Marcellus. Judge of the case, O judges, in this way; think that more gods were lost to the Syracusans owing to the arrival of Verres, than even were owing to the victory of Marcellus. In truth, he is said to have sought diligently for the great Archimedes, a man of the highest genius and skill, and to have been greatly concerned when he heard that he had been killed; but that other man sought for everything which he did seek for, not for the purpose of preserving it, but of carrying it away. At present, then, all those things which might appear more insignificant, I will on that account pass over—how he took away Delphic tables made of marble, beautiful goblets of brass, an immense number of Corinthian vases, out of every sacred temple at Syracuse;

and therefore, O judges, those men who are accustomed to take strangers about to all those things which are worth going to see, and to show them every separate thing, whom they call mystagogi, (or cicerones,) now have their description of things reversed; for as they formerly used to show what there was in every place, so now they show what has been taken from every place. What do you think, then? Do you think that those men are affected with but a moderate indignation? Not so, O judges: in the first place, because all men are influenced by religious feeling, and think that their paternal gods, whom they have received from their ancestors, are to be carefully worshipped and retained by themselves; and secondly, because this sort of ornament, these works and specimens of art, these statues and paintings, delight men of Greek extraction to an excessive degree; therefore by their complaints we can understand that these things appear most bitter to those men, which perhaps may seem trifling and contemptible to us. Believe me, O judges, although I am aware to a certainty that you yourselves hear the same things, that though both our allies and foreign nations have during these past years sustained many calamities and injuries, yet men of Greek extraction have not been, and are not, more indignant at any than at this ruthless plundering of their temples and altars.

Although that man may say that he bought these things, as he is accustomed to say, yet, believe me in this, O judges,—no city in all Asiaor in all Greecehas ever sold one statue, one picture, or one decoration of the city, of its own free will to anybody. Unless, perchance, you suppose that, after strict judicial decisions had ceased to take place at Rome, the Greeks then began to sell these things, which they not only did not sell when there were courts of justice open, but which they even used to buy up; or unless you think that Lucius Crassus, Quintus Scaevola, Caius Claudius, most, powerful men, whose most splendid aedileships we have seen had no dealings in those sort of matters with the Greeks, but that those men had such dealings who became aediles after the destruction of the courts of justice.

Know also that that false presence of purchase was more bitter to the cities than if any one were privately to filch things, or boldly to steal them and carry them off. For they think it the most excessive baseness, that it should be entered on the public records that the city was induced by a price, and by a small price too, to sell and alienate those things which it had received from men of old. In truth, the Greeks delight to a marvellous degree in those things, which we despise. And therefore our ancestors willingly allowed those things to remain in numbers among the allies, in order that they might be as splendid and as flourishing as possible under our dominion; and among those nations whom they rendered taxable or tributary, [*](The Latin is quos vectigales aut stipendiarius fuerant—“Stipendiariiand vectigalesare thus distinguished: Stipendiariiare those who pay annually a fixed sum as tribute; vectigales, those who pay in proportion to their property or income.”—Riddle's Dict. v. Stipendiarius.)still they left these things, in order that they who take delight in those things which to us seem insignificant, might have them as pleasures and consolations in slavery.

What do you think that the Rhegians, who now are Roman citizens, would take to allow that marble Venus to be taken from them? What would the Tarentines take to lose the Europa sitting on the Bull? or the Satyr which they have in the temple of Vesta? or their other monuments? What would the Thespians take to lose the statue of Cupid, the only object for which any one ever goes to see Thespiae? What would the men of Cnidostake for their marble Venus? or the Coans for their picture of her? or the Ephesians for Alexander? the men of Cyzicusfor their Ajax or Medea? What would the Rhodians take for Ialysus? the Athenians for their marble Bacchus, or their picture of Paralus, or their brazen Heifer, the work of Myron? It would be a long business and an unnecessary one, to mention what is worth going to see among all the different nations in all Asiaand Greece; but that is the reason why I am enumerating these things, because I wish you to consider that an incredible indignation must be the feeling of those men from whose cities these things are carried away.

And to say nothing of other nations, judge of the Syracusans themselves. For when I went to Syracuse, I originally believed what I had heard at Romefrom that man's friends, that the city of Syracuse, on account of the inheritance of Heraclius, was no less friendly to him than the city of the Mamertines, because of their participation in all his booty and robberies. And at the same time I was afraid that, owing to the influence of the high-born and beautiful women at whose will he had directed all the measures of his praetorship for three years, and of the men to whom they were married, I should be opposed not only by an excessive lenity, but even by a feeling of liberality towards that man, if I were to seek for any evidence out of the public records of the Syracusans.

Therefore when at SyracuseI was chiefly with Roman citizens; I copied out their papers; I inquired into their injuries. As I was a long time occupied by that business, in order to rest a little and to give my mind a respite from care, I returned to those fine documents of Carpinatius; in which, in company with some of the most honourable knights of the body of Roman settlers, I unraveled the case of those Verrutii, whom I have mentioned before, but I expected no aid at all, either publicly or privately, from the Syracusans, nor had I any idea of asking for any. While I was doing this, on a sudden Heraclius came to me, who was in office at Syracuse, a man of high birth, who had been priest of Jupiter, which is the highest honour among the Syracusans; he requests of me and of my brother, if we have no objection, to go to their senate; that they were at that moment assembled in full numbers in the senate-house, and he said that he made this request to us to attend by command of the senate.

At first we were in doubt what to do; but afterwards it soon occurred to us that we ought not to shun that assembly or that place. Therefore we came to the senate-house; they all rise at our entry to do us honour. We sat down at the request of the magistrates. Diodorus the son of Timarchides, who was the first man in that body both in influence and in age, and also as it seemed to me in experience and knowledge of business, began to speak; and the first sentence of his speech was to this effect—That the senate and people of Syracusewere grieved and indignant, that, though in all the other cities of SicilyI had informed the senate and people of what I proposed for their advantage or for their safety, and though I had received from them all commissions, deputies, letters and evidence, yet in that city I had done nothing of that sort. I answered, that deputies from the Syracusans had not been present at Romein that assembly of the Sicilians when my assistance was entreated by the common resolution of all the deputations, and when the cause of the whole of Sicilywas entrusted to me; and that I could not ask that any decree should be passed against Caius Verres in that senate-house in which I saw a gilt statue of Caius Verres.

And after I said that, such a groaning ensued at the sight and mention of the statue, that it appeared to have been placed in the senate-house as a monument of his wickednesses and not of his services. Then every one for himself, as fast as each could manage to speak, began to give me information of those things which I have just now mentioned; to tell me that the city was plundered—the temples stripped of their treasures—that of the inheritance of Heraclius, which he had adjudged to the men of the palaestra, he had taken by far the greatest share himself; and indeed, that they could not expect that he should care for the men of the palaestra, when he had taken away even the god who was the inventor of oil; that that statue had neither been made at the public expense, nor erected by public authority, but that those men who had been the sharers in the plunder of the inheritance of Heraclius, had had it made and placed where it was; and that those same men had been the deputies at Rome, who had been his assistants in dishonesty, his partners in his thefts and the witnesses of his debaucheries; and that therefore I ought the less to wonder if they were wanting to the unanimity of the deputies and to the safety of Sicily.

When I perceived that their indignation at that man's injuries was not only not less, but almost greater than that of the rest of the Sicilians, then I explained my own intentions to them, and my whole plan and system with reference to the whole of the business which I had undertaken; then I exhorted them not to be wanting to the common cause and the common safety, and to rescind that panegyric which they had voted a few days before, being compelled, a, they said, by violence and fear. Accordingly, O judges, the Syracusans, that man's clients and friends, do this. First of all, they produce to me the public documents which they had carefully stored up in the most sacred part of the treasury; in which they show me that everything, which I have said had been taken away, was entered, and even more things than I was able to mention. And they were entered in this way. “What had been taken out of the temple of Minerva .. This,... and that.” “What was missing out of the temple of Jupiter.” “What was missing out of the temple of Bacchus.” As each individual had had the charge of protecting and preserving those things, so it was entered; that each, when according to law he gave in his accounts, being bound to give up what he had received, had begged that he might be pardoned for the absence of these things and that all had accordingly been released from liability on that account, and that it was kept secret; all which documents I took care to have sealed up with the public seal and brought away.