them the head of the Gorgon and carried it
away, leaving them to be rude doors, Goth that he was!

And he took the Sappho from the Prytaneum, the work of Silanion! a thing
of such beauty that no other man can have the like of it in his own
private house; yet Verres has it--a man hardly fit to carry such a work
of art as a burden, not possess it as a treasure of his own. "What,
too!" he says, "have you not stolen Paean from the temple of
AEsculapius--a statue so remarkable for its beauty, so well-known for the
worship attached to it, that all the world has been wont to visit it?
What! has not the image of Aristaeus been taken by you from the temple of
Bacchus? Have you not even stolen the statue of Jupiter Imperator, so
sacred in the eyes of all men--that Jupiter which the Greeks call
Ourios? You have not hesitated to rob the temple of Proserpine of the
lovely head in Parian marble."[128] Then Cicero speaks of the worship
due to all these gods as though he himself believed in their godhead. As
he had begun this chapter with the Mamertines of Messana, so he ends it
with an address to them. "It is well that you should come, you alone out
of all the provinces, and praise Verres here in Rome. But what can you
say for him? Was it not your duty to have built a ship for the Republic?
You have built none such, but have constructed a huge private
transport-vessel for Verres. Have you not been exempted from your tax on
corn? Have you not been exempted in regard to naval and military
recruits? Have you not been the receptacle of all his stolen goods? They
will have to confess, these Mamertines, that many a ship laden with his
spoils has left their port, and especially this huge transport-ship
which they built for him!"

In the De Suppliciis--the treatise about punishments, as the last
division of this process is called--Cicero tells the world how Verres
exacted vengeance from those who were opposed to him, and with what
horrid cruelty he raged against his enemies. The stories, indeed, are
very dreadful. It is harrowing to think that so evil a man should have
been invested with powers so great for so bad a purpose. But that which
strikes a modern reader most is the sanctity attached to the name of a
Roman citizen, and the audacity with which the Roman Proconsul
disregarded that sanctity. "Cives Romanus" is Cicero's cry from the
beginning to the end. No doubt he is addressing himself to Romans, and
seeking popularity, as he always d