Epicrates and Sopater I must refer the reader to the oration. In that
of Sopater there is the peculiarity that Verres managed to get paid by
everybody all round.

The story of Sthenius is so interesting that I cannot pass it by.
Sthenius was a man of wealth and high standing, living at Therma in
Sicily, with whom Verres often took up his abode; for, as governor,
he travelled much about the island, always in pursuit of plunder.
Sthenius had had his house full of beautiful things. Of all these
Verres possessed himself--some by begging, some by demanding, and
some by absolute robbery. Sthenius, grieved as he was to find himself
pillaged, bore all this. The man was Roman Praetor, and injuries such
as these had to be endured. At Therma, however, in the public place of
the city, there were some beautiful statues. For these Verres longed,
and desired his host to get them for him.

Sthenius declared that this was impossible. The statues had, under
peculiar circumstances, been recovered by Scipio Africanus from
Carthage, and been restored by the Roman General to the Sicilians,
from whom they had been taken, and had been erected at Therma. There
was a peculiarly beautiful figure of Stesichorus, the poet, as an old
man bent double, with a book in his hand--a very glorious work of art;
and there was a goat--in bronze probably--as to which Cicero is at the
pains of telling us that even he, unskilled as he was in such matters,
could see its charms. No one had sharper eyes for such pretty
ornaments than Cicero, or a more decided taste for them. But as
Hortensius, his rival and opponent in this case, had taken a marble
sphinx from Verres, he thought it expedient to show how superior he
was to such matters. There was probably something of joke in this,
as his predilections would no doubt be known to those he was