capital; but subsequent governors of provinces having acquired a taste for works of art, began to appropriate to themselves those masterpieces of Greece, which they had formerly neither known nor esteemed. Some contrived plausible pretexts for borrowing valuable works of art from cities and private persons, without any intention of restoring them; while others, less cautious, or more shameless, seized whatever pleased them, whether public or private property, without excuse or remuneration. But though this passion was common to most provincial governors, none of them ever came up to the full measure of the rapacity of Verres, who, allowing much for the high colouring of the counsel and orator, appears to have been infected with a sort of disease, or mania, which gave him an irresistible propensity to seize whatever he saw or heard of, which was precious either in materials or workmanship. For this purpose he retained in his service two brothers from Asia Minor, on whose judgment he relied for the choice of statues and pictures, and who were employed to search out everything of this sort which was valuable in the island. Aided by their suggestions, he seized tapestry, pictures, gold and silver plate, vases, gems, and Corinthian bronzes, till he literally did not leave a single article of value of these descriptions in the whole island. The chief objects of this pillage were the statues and pictures of the gods, which the Romans regarded with religious veneration; and they, accordingly, viewed such rapine as sacrilege. Hence the frequent adjurations and apostrophes to the deities who had been insulted, which are introduced in the oration. The circumstances of violence and circumvention, under which the depredations were committed, are detailed with much vehemence, and at considerable length. Some description is given of the works of sculpture; and the names of the statuaries by whom they were executed, are also frequently recorded. Thus, we are told that Verres took away from a private gentleman of Messina the marble Cupid, by Praxiteles: He sacrilegiously tore a figure of Victory from the temple of Ceres—he deprived the city Tyndaris of an image of Mercury, which had been restored to it from Carthage, by Scipio, and was worshipped by the people with singular devotion and an annual festival. Some of the works of art were openly carried off—some borrowed under plausible pretences, but never restored, and others forcibly purchased at an inadequate value. If the speech _De Signis_ be the most curious, that _De Suppliciis_ is incomparably the finest of the series of _Verrine_ orations. The subject afforded a wider field than the former for the display of eloquence, and it presents us with topics of more general and permanent interest. Such, indeed, is the vehement pathos, and such the resources employed to excite pity in favour of the oppressed, and indignation against the guilty, that the genius of the orator is