wealthy homes, there was not a single piece of silver plate, a single article of Corinthian or Delian ware, a single jewel or pearl, a single article of gold or ivory, a single picture, whether on panel or on canvas, which he did not hunt up and examine, and, if it pleased his fancy, abstract.  This is a great thing to say, you think.  Well, mark how I say it.  It is not for the sake of rhetorical exaggeration that I make this sweeping assertion, that I declare that this fellow did not leave a single article of the kind in the whole province.  I speak not in the language of the professional accuser but in plain Latin.  Nay, I will put it more clearly still:  in no single private house, in no town; in no place, profane or even sacred; in the hands of no Sicilian, of no citizen of Rome, did he leave a single article, public or private property, of things profane or things religious, which came under his eyes or touched his fancy.”

Some of the more remarkable of these acts of spoliation it may be worth while to relate.  A certain Heius, who was at once the wealthiest and most popular citizen of Messana, had a private chapel of great antiquity in his house, and in it four statues of the very greatest value.  There was a Cupid by Praxiteles, a replica of a famous work which attracted visitors to the uninteresting little town of Thespiae in Boeotia; a Hercules from the chisel of Myro; and two bronze figures, “Basket-bearers,” as they were called, because represented as carrying sacred vessels in baskets on their heads.  These were the work of Polyclitus.  The Cupid had been brought to Rome to ornament the forum on some great occasion, and had been carefully restored to its place.  The chapel and its contents was the great sight of the town.  No one passed through without inspecting it.  It was naturally, therefore, one of the first things that Verres saw, Messana being on his route to the capital of his province.  He did not actually take the statues, he bought them; but the price that he paid was so ridiculously low that purchase was only another name for robbery.  Something near sixty pounds was given for the four.  If we recall the prices that would be paid now-a-days for a couple of statues by Michael Angelo and two of the masterpieces of Raphael and Correggio, we may imagine what a monstrous fiction this sale must have been, all the more monstrous because the owner was a wealthy man, who had no temptation to sell, and who was known to value his possessions not only as works of art but as adding dignity to his hereditary worship.

A wealthy inhabitant of Tyndaris invited the governor to dinner.  He was a Roman citizen and imagined that he might venture on a display which a provincial might have considered to be dangerous.  Among the plate on the table was a silver dish adorned with some very fine medallions.  It struck the fancy of the guest, who promptly had it removed, and who considered himself to be a marvel of moderation when he sent it back with the medallions abstracted.