third corn tax was
the "aestimatum." This consisted of a certain fixed quantity which had to
be supplied to the Praetor for the use of his governmental
establishment--to be supplied either in grain or in money. What such a
one as Verres would do with his, the reader may conceive.

All this was of vital importance to Rome. Sicily and Africa were the
granaries from which Rome was supplied with its bread. To get supplies
from a province was necessary. Rich men have servants in order that they
may live at ease themselves. So it was with the Romans to whom the
provinces acted as servants. It was necessary to have a sharp agent,
some Proconsul or Propraetor; but when there came one so sharp as Verres,
all power of recreating supplies would for a time be destroyed. Even
Cicero boasted that in a time of great scarcity, he, being then Quaestor
in Sicily, had sent extraordinary store of corn over to the city.[124]
But he had so done it as to satisfy all who were concerned.

Verres, in his corn dealings with the Sicilians, had a certain friend,
companion, and minister--one of his favorite dogs, perhaps we may call
him--named Apronius, whom Cicero specially describes. The description I
must give, because it is so powerful; because it shows us how one man
could in those days speak of another in open court before all the world;
because it affords us an instance of the intensity of hatred which the
orator could throw into his words; but I must hide it in the original
language, as I could not translate it without offence.[125]

Then we have a book devoted to the special pillage of statues and other
ornaments, which, for the genius displayed in story-telling, is perhaps
of all the Verrine orations the most amusing. The Greek people had
become in a peculiar way devoted to what we generally call Art. We are
much given to the collecting of pictures, china, bronze, and marbles,
partly from love of such things, partly from pride in ornamenting our
houses so as to excite the admiration of others, partly from a feeling
that money so invested is not badly placed with a view to future
returns. All these feelings operated with the Greeks to a much greater
extent. Investments in consols and railway shares were not open to them.
Money they used to lend at usury, no doubt, but with a great chance of
losing it. The Greek colonists were industrious, were covetous, and
prudent. From this it had come to pass that, as they made their way
about the wor