When Verres was Prætor at Rome--the year before he was sent to Sicily--it became his duty, or rather privilege, as he found it, to see that a certain temple of Castor in the city was given up in proper condition by the executors of a defunct citizen who had taken a contract for keeping it in repair. This man, whose name had been Junius, left a son, who was a Junius also under age, with a large fortune in charge of various trustees, tutors, as they were called, whose duty it was to protect the heir's interests. Verres, knowing of old that no property was so easily preyed on as that of a minor, sees at once that something may be done with the temple of Castor. The heir took oath, and to the extent of his property he was bound to keep the edifice in good repair. But Verres, when he made an inspection, finds everything to be in more than usually good order. There is not a scratch on the roof of which he can make use. Nothing has been allowed to go astray. Then "one of his dogs"--for he had boasted to his friend Ligur that he always went about with dogs to search out his game for him--suggested that some of the columns were out of the perpendicular. Verres does not know what this means; but the dog explains. All columns are, in fact, by strict measurement, more or less out of the perpendicular, as we are told that all eyes squint a little, though we do not see that they squint. But as columns ought to be perpendicular, here was a matter on which he might go to work. He does go to work. The trustees knowing their man--knowing also that in the present condition of Rome it was impossible to escape from an unjust Prætor without paying largely--went to his mistress and endeavored to settle the matter with her. Here we have an amusing picture of the way in which the affairs of the city were carried on in that lady's establishment; how she had her levee, took her bribes, and drove a lucrative trade. Doing, however, no good with her, the trustees settled with an agent to pay Verres two hundred thousand sesterces to drop the affair. This was something under £2000. But Verres repudiated the arrangement with scorn. He could do much better than that with such a temple and such a minor. He puts the repairs up to auction; and refusing a bid from the trustees themselves--the very persons who are the most interested in getting the work done, if there were work to do--has it knocked down to himself for five hundred and sixty thousand sesterces, or about £5000.[113] Then we are told how he had the pretended work done by the putting up of a rough crane. No real work is done, no new stones are brought, no money is spent. That is the way in which Verres filled his office as Prætor Urbanus; but it does not seem that any public notice is taken of his iniquities as long as he confined himself to little jobs such as this.