This manner of paying honor to the gods, and especially to Venus, was
common in Sicily. Two sons[115] received a fortune from their father,
with a condition that, if some special thing were not done, a fine
should be paid to Venus. The man had been dead twenty years ago. But
"the dogs" which the Praetor kept were very sharp, and, distant as was
the time, found out the clause. Action is taken against the two sons,
who indeed gain their case; but they gain it by a bribe so enormous
that they are ruined men. There was one Heraclius,[116] the son of
Hiero, a nobleman of Syracuse, who received a legacy amounting to
3,000,000 sesterces--we will say L24,000--from a relative, also a
Heraclius. He had, too, a house full of handsome silver plate, silk
and hangings, and valuable slaves. A man, "Dives equom, dives pictai
vestis et auri." Verres heard, of course. He had by this time taken
some Sicilian dogs into his service, men of Syracuse, and had learned
from them that there was a clause in the will of the elder Heraclius
that certain statues should be put up in the gymnasium of the city.
They undertake to bring forward servants of the gymnasium who should
say that the statues were never properly erected. Cicero tells us how
Verres went to work, now in this court, now in that, breaking all
the laws as to Sicilian jurisdiction, but still proceeding under the
pretence of law, till he got everything out of the wretch--not only
all the legacies from Heraclius, but every shilling, and every article
left to the man by his father. There is a pretence of giving some of
the money to the town of Syracuse; but for himself he takes all the
valuables, the Corinthian vases, the purple hangings, what slaves he
chooses. Then everything else is sold by auction. How he divided the
spoil with the Syracusans, and then quarrelled with them, and how he
lied as to the share taken by himself, will all be found in Cicero's
narrative. Heraclius was of course ruined. For the stories of