ld--to the cities which they established round the
Mediterranean--they collected in their new homes great store of
ornamental wealth. This was done with much profusion at Syracuse, a
Greek city in Sicily, and spread from them over the whole island. The
temples of the gods were filled with the works of the great Greek
artists, and every man of note had his gallery. That Verres, hog as he
is described to have been, had a passion for these things, is manifest
to us. He came to his death at last in defence of some favorite images.
He had returned to Rome by means of Caesar's amnesty, and Marc Antony had
him murdered because he would not surrender some treasures of art. When
we read the De Signis--About Statues--we are led to imagine that the
search after these things was the chief object of the man throughout his
three years of office--as we have before been made to suppose that all
his mind and time had been devoted to the cheating of the Sicilians in
the matter of corn. But though Verres loved these trinkets, it was not
altogether for himself that he sought them. Only one third of his
plunder was for himself. Senators, judges, advocates, Consuls, and
Praetors could be bribed with articles of _vertu_ as well as with money.

There are eleven separate stories told of these robberies. I will give
very shortly the details of one or two. There was one Marcus Heius, a
rich citizen of Messana, in whose house Verres took great delight.
Messana itself was very useful to him, and the Mamertines, as the people
of Messana were called were his best friends in all Sicily: for he made
Messana the depot of his plunder, and there he caused to be built at the
expense of the Government an enormous ship called the _Cybea_,[126] in
which his treasures were carried out of the island. He therefore
specially favored Messana, and the district of Messana was supposed to
have been scourged by him with lighter rods than those used elsewhere in
Sicily. But this man Heius had a chapel, very sacred, in which were
preserved four specially beautiful images. There was a Cupid by
Praxiteles, and a bronze Hercules by Myro, and two Can[oe]phrae by
Polycletus. These were treasures which all the world came to see, and
which were open to be seen by all the world. These Verres took away, and
caused accounts to be forged in which it was made to appear that he had
bought them for trifling sums. It seems that some forced assent had been
obtained from Heius as to the