In C. Verrem

What? did you not also at Agrigentumtake away a monument of the same Publius Scipio, a most beautiful statue of Apollo, on whose thigh there was the name of Myron, inscribed in diminutive silver letters, out of that most holy temple of Aesculapius? And when, O judges, he had privately committed that atrocity, and when in that most nefarious crime and robbery he had employed some of the most worthless men of the city as his guides and assistants, the whole city was greatly excited. For the Agrigentines were regretting at the same time the kindness of Africanus, and a national object of their worship, and an ornament of their city, and a record of their victory, and an evidence of their alliance with us. And therefore a command is imposed on those men who were the chief men of the city, and a charge is given to the quaestors and aediles to keep watch by night over the sacred edifices. And, indeed, at Agrigentum, (I imagine, on account of the great number and virtue of these men, and because great numbers of Roman citizens, gallant and intrepid and honourable men, live and trade in that town among the Agrigentines in the greatest harmony,) he did not dare openly to carry off, or even to beg for the things that took his fancy.

There is a temple of Hercules at Agrigentum, not far from the forum, considered very holy and greatly reverenced among the citizens. In it there is a brazen image of Hercules himself, than which I cannot easily tell where I have seen anything finer; (although I am not very much of a judge of those matters, though I have seen plenty of specimens;) so greatly venerated among them, O judges, that his mouth and his chin are a little worn away, because men in addressing their prayers and congratulations to him, are accustomed not only to worship the statue, but even to kiss it. While Verres was at Agrigentum, on a sudden, one stormy night, a great assemblage of armed slaves, and a great attack on this temple by them, takes place, under the leading of Timarchides. A cry is raised by the watchmen and guardians of the temple. And, at first, when they attempted to resist them and to defend the temple, they are driven back much injured with sticks and bludgeons. Afterwards, when the bolts were forced open, and the doors dashed in, they endeavour to pull down the statue and to overthrow it with levers; meantime, from the outcries of the keepers, a report got abroad over the whole city, that the national gods were being stormed, not by the unexpected invasion of enemies, or by the sudden irruption of pirates, but that a well armed and fully equipped band of fugitive slaves from the house and retinue of the praetor had attacked them.

No one in Agrigentumwas either so advanced in age, or so infirm in strength, as not to rise up on that night, awakened by that news, and to seize whatever weapon chance put into his hands. So in a very short time men are assembled at the temple from every part of the city. Already, for more than an hour, numbers of men had been labouring at pulling down that statue; and all that time it gave no sign of being shaken in any part; while some, putting levers under it, were endeavouring to throw it down, and others, having bound cords to all its limbs, were trying to pull it towards them. On a sudden all the Agrigentines collect together at the place; stones are thrown in numbers; the nocturnal soldiers of that illustrious commander run away—but they take with them two very small statues, in order not to return to that robber of all holy things entirely empty-handed. The Sicilians are never in such distress as not to be able to say something facetious and neat; as they did on this occasion. And so they said that this enormous boar had a right to be accounted one of the labours of Hercules, no less than the other boar of Erymanthus.

The people of Assorum, gallant and loyal men, afterwards imitated this brave conduct of the Agrigentines, though they did not come of so powerful or so distinguished a city. There is a river called Chrysas, which flows through the territories of Assorum. Chrysas, among that people, is considered a god, and is worshipped with the greatest reverence. His temple is in the fields, near the road which goes from Assorum to Enna. In it there is an image of Chrysas, exquisitely made of marble. He did not dare to beg that of the Assorians on account of the extraordinary sanctity of that temple; so he entrusts the business to Tlepolemus and Hiero. They, having prepared and armed a body of men, come by night; they break in the doors of the temple; the keepers of the temple and the guardians hear them in time. A trumpet the signal of alarm well known to all the neighbourhood, is sounded; men come in from the country, Tlepolemus is turned out and put to fight; nor was anything missed out of the temple of Chrysas except one very diminutive image of brass.

There is a temple of the mighty mother Cybele at Enguinum, for I must new not only mention each instance with the greatest brevity, but I must even pass over a great many, in order to come to the greater and more remarkable thefts and atrocities of this sort which this man has committed. In this temple that same Publius Scipio, a man excelling in every possible good quality, had placed breastplates and helmets of brass of Corinthian workmanship, and some huge ewers of a similar description, and wrought with the same exquisite skill, and had inscribed his own name upon them. Why should I make any more statements or utter any further complaints about that man's conduct? He took away, O judges, every one of those things. He left nothing in that most holy temple except the traces of the religion he had trampled on, and the name of Publius Scipio. The spoils won from the enemy, the memorials of our commanders, the ornaments and decorations of our temples, will hereafter, when these illustrious names are lost, be reckoned in the furniture and appointments of Caius Verres.

Are you, forsooth, the only man who delights in Corinthian vases? Are you the best judge in the world of the mixture of that celebrated bronze, and of the delicate tracery of that work? Did not the great Scipio, that most learned and accomplished mall, under stand it too? But do you, a man without one single virtue, without education, without natural ability, and without any information, understand them and value them? Beware lest he be seen to have surpassed you and those other men who wished to be thought so elegant, not only in temperance, but in judgment and taste; for it was because he thoroughly understood how beautiful they were, that he thought that they were made, not for the luxury of men, but for the ornamenting of temples and cities, in order that they might appear to our posterity to be holy and sacred monuments.

Listen also, O judges, to the man's singular covetousness, audacity and madness, especially in polluting those sacred things, which not only may not be touched with the hands, but which may not be violated even in thought. There is a shrine of Ceresamong the Catenans of the same holy nature as the one at home, and worshipped as the goddess is worshipped among foreign nations, and in almost every country in the world. In the inmost part of that shrine there was an extremely ancient statue of Ceres, as to which men were not only ignorant of what sort it was, but even of its existence. For the entrance into that shrine does not belong to men, the sacred ceremonies are accustomed to be performed by women and virgins. Verres's slaves stole this statue by night out of that most holy and most ancient temple. The next day the priestesses of Ceres, and the female attendants of that temple, women of great age, noble and of proved virtue, report the affair to their magistrates. It appeared to all a most bitter, and scandalous, and miserable business.

Then that man, influenced by the atrocity of the action, in order that all suspicion of that crime might be removed from himself, employs some one connected with him by ties of hospitality to find a man whom he might accuse of having done it, and bids him take care that he be convicted of the accusation, so that he himself might not be subject to the charge. The matter is not delayed. For when he had departed from Catina, an information is laid against a certain slave. He is accused; false witnesses are suborned against him; the whole senate sits in judgment on the affair, according to the laws of the Catenans. The priestesses are summoned; they are examined secretly in the senate-house, and asked what had been done, and how they thought that the statue had been carried off. They answer that the servants of the praetor had been seen in the temple. The matter, which previously had not been very obscure, began to be clear enough by the evidence of the priestesses. The judges deliberate; the innocent slave is acquitted by every vote, in order that you may the more easily be able to condemn this man by all your votes.