If Segesta had its Diana, Tyndaris had its Mercury; and this also Verres was resolved to add to his collection.  He issued his orders to Sopater, chief magistrate of the place, that the statue was to betaken to Messana. (Messana being conveniently near to Italy was the place in which he stored his plunder.) Sopater refusing was threatened with the heaviest penalties if it was not done without delay, and judged it best to bring the matter before the local senate.  The proposition was received with shouts of disapproval.  Verres paid a second visit to the town and at once inquired what had been done about the statue.  He was told that it was impossible.  The senate had decreed the penalty of death against any one that touched it.  Apart from that, it would be an act of the grossest impiety.  “Impiety?” he burst out upon the unlucky magistrates; “penalty of death! senate! what senate?  As for you, Sopater, you shall not escape.  Give me up the statue or you shall be flogged to death.”  Sopater again referred the matter to his townsmen and implored them with tears to give way.  The meeting separated in great tumult without giving him any answer.  Summoned again to the governor’s presence, he repeated that nothing could be done.  But Verres had still resources in store.  He ordered the lictors to strip the man, the chief magistrate, be it remembered, of an important town, and to set him, naked as he was, astride on one of the equestrian statues that adorned the market-place.  It was winter; the weather was bitterly cold, with heavy rain.  The pain caused by the naked limbs being thus brought into close contact with the bronze of the statue was intense.  So frightful was his suffering that his fellow-townsmen could not bear to see it.  They turned with loud cries upon the senate and compelled them to vote that the coveted statue should be given up to the governor.  So Verres got his Mercury.

We have a curious picture of the man as he made his progresses from town to town in his search for treasures of art.  “As soon as it was spring—­and he knew that it was spring not from the rising of any constellation or the blowing of any wind, but simply because he saw the roses—­then indeed he bestirred himself.  So enduring, so untiring was he that no one ever saw him upon horseback.  No—­he was carried in a litter with eight bearers.  His cushion was of the finest linen of Malta, and it was stuffed with roses.  There was one wreath of roses upon his head, and another round his neck, made of the finest thread, of the smallest mesh, and this, too, was full of roses.  He was carried in this litter straight to his chamber; and there he gave his audiences.”

When spring had passed into summer even such exertions were too much for him.  He could not even endure to remain in his official residence, the old palace of the kings of Syracuse.  A number of tents were pitched for him at the entrance of the harbor to catch the cool breezes from the sea.  There he spent his days and nights, surrounded by troops of the vilest companions, and let the province take care of itself.