1. Cicero, In Verrem, 2.4.128-2.4.131 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •praxiteles, bonus eventus Found in books: Rutledge, Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting (2012) 15 | 2.4.128. What more? did you not take away out of the temple of Jupiter that most holy statue of Jupiter Imperator, which the Greeks call Ὄυριος, most beautifully made? What next? did you hesitate to take away out of the temple of Libera, that most exquisite bust of Parian marble, which we used to go to see? And that Paean used to be worshipped among that people together with Aesculapius, with anniversary sacrifices. Aristaeus, who being, as the Greeks report, the son of Bacchus, is said to have been the inventor of oil, was consecrated among them together with his father Bacchus, in the same temple. [58] 2.4.129. But how great do you suppose was the honour paid to Jupiter Imperator in his own temple? You may collect it from this consideration, if you recollect how great was the religious reverence attached to that statue of the same appearance and form which Flaminius brought out of Macedonia, and placed in the Capitol. In truth, there were said to be in the whole world three statues of Jupiter Imperator, of the same class, all beautifully made: one was that one from Macedonia, which we have seen in the Capitol; a second was the one at the narrow straits, which are the mouth of the Euxine Sea; the third was that which was at Syracuse, till Verres came as praetor. Flaminius removed the first from its habitation, but only to place it in the Capitol, that is to say, in the house of Jupiter upon earth. 2.4.130. But as to the one that is at the entrance of the Euxine, that, though so many wars have proceeded from the shores of that sea, and though so many have been poured into Pontus, has still remained inviolate and untouched to this day. This third one, which was at Syracuse, which Marcus Marcellus, when in arms and victorious, had seen, which he had spared to the religion of the place, which both the citizens of, and settlers in Syracuse were used to worship, and strangers not only visited, but often venerated, Caius Verres took away from the temple of Jupiter. 2.4.131. To return again to Marcellus. Judge of the case, O judges, in this way; think that more gods were lost to the Syracusans owing to the arrival of Verres, than even were owing to the victory of Marcellus. In truth, he is said to have sought diligently for the great Archimedes, a man of the highest genius and skill, and to have been greatly concerned when he heard that he had been killed; but that other man sought for everything which he did seek for, not for the purpose of preserving it, but of carrying it away. [59] At present, then, all those things which might appear more insignificant, I will on that account pass over — how he took away Delphic tables made of marble, beautiful goblets of brass, an immense number of Corinthian vases, out of every saved temple at Syracuse; |
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