Verres, that, driven to despair, he submitted, without awaiting his sentence, to a voluntary exile(318). It therefore appears, that of the six orations against Verres, only one was pronounced. The other five, forming the series of harangues which he intended to deliver after the proof had been completed, were subsequently published in the same shape as if the delinquent had actually stood his trial, and was to have made a regular defence. The first of these orations, which to us appears rather foreign to the charge, but was meant to render the proper part of the accusation more probable, exposes the excesses and malversations committed by Verres in early life, before his appointment to the Prætorship of Sicily—his embezzlement of public money while Quæstor of Gaul—his extortions under Dolabella in Asia, and, finally, his unjust, corrupt, and partial decisions while in the office of _Prætor Urbanus_ at Rome, which, forming a principal part of the oration, the whole has been entitled _De Prætura Urbana_. In the following harangue, entitled _De Jurisdictione Siciliensi_, the orator commences with an elegant eulogy on the dignity, antiquity, and usefulness of the province, which was not here a mere idle or rhetorical embellishment, but was most appropriately introduced, as nothing could be better calculated to excite indignation against the spoiler of Sicily, than the picture he draws of its beauty; after which, he proceeds to give innumerable instances of the flagrant sale of justice, offices, and honours, and, among the last, even of the priesthood of Jupiter. The next oration is occupied with the malversations of Verres concerning grain, and the new ordinances, by which he had contrived to put the whole corps of the island at the disposal of his officers. In this harangue the dry statements of the prices of corn are rather fatiguing; but the following oration, _De Signis_, is one of the most interesting of his productions, particularly as illustrating the history of ancient art. For nearly six centuries Rome had been filled only with the spoils of barbarous nations, and presented merely the martial spectacle of a warlike and conquering people. Subsequently, however, to the campaigns in _Magna Græcia_, Sicily, and Greece, the Roman commanders displayed at their triumphs costly ornaments of gold, pictures, statues, and vases, instead of flocks driven from the Sabines or Volsci, the broken arms of the Samnites, and empty chariots of the Gauls. The statues and paintings which Marcellus transported from Syracuse to Rome, first excited that cupidity which led the Roman provincial magistrates to pillage, without scruple or distinction, the houses of private individuals, and temples of the gods(319). Marcellus and Mummius, however, despoiled only hostile and conquered countries. They had made over their plunder to the public, and, after it was conveyed to Rome, devoted it to the embellishment of the