[121]
In this division of the ornaments, the victory of Marcellus did
not covet more for the Roman people than his humanity reserved to the Syracusans.
The things which were transported to Rome
we see before the temples of Honour and of Virtue, and also in other places. He put
nothing in his own house, nothing in his gardens, nothing in his suburban villa; he
thought that his house could only be an ornament to the city if he abstained from
carrying the ornaments which belonged to the city to his own house. But he left many
things of extraordinary beauty at Syracuse; he violated not the respect due to any god; he laid hands
on none. Compare Verres with him; not to compare the man with the man,—no
such injury must be done to such a man as that, dead though he be; but to compare a
state of peace with one of war, a state of law and order, and regular jurisdiction,
with one of violence and martial law, and the supremacy of arms; to compare the
arrival and retinue of the one with the victory and army of the other.
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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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