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 world--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 Cæsar'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 Prætors could be bribed with articles of _vertu_ as well as with money.