[133]
He comes himself into the temple of Castor; he looks all over the temple; he sees
the roof adorned all over with a most splendid ceiling, and all the rest of the
building as good as new and quite sound. He ponders; he considers what he can do.
Some one of those dogs, of whom he himself had said to Ligur that there were a great
number about him, said to him—“You, O Verres, have nothing which
you can do here, unless you like to try the pillars by a plumb-line.” The
man, utterly ignorant of everything, asks what is the meaning of the expression,
“by a plumb-line.” They tell him that there is hardly any pillar
which is exactly perpendicular when tried by a plumb-line. “By my
truth,” says he, “that is what we must do; let the pillars be
tested by a plumb-line.”
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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