[77]
See now with what religious reverence it is regarded. Know, O judges, that among
all the Segestans none was found, whether free man or slave, whether citizen or
foreigner, to dare to touch that statue. Know that some barbarian workmen were
brought from Lilybaeum; they at length,
ignorant of the whole business, and of the religious character of the image, agreed
to take it down for a sum of money, and took it down. And when it was being taken
out of the city, how great was the concourse of women! how great was the weeping of
the old men! some of whom even recollected that day when that same Diana being
brought back to Segesta from Carthage,
had announced to them, by its return, the victory of the Roman people. How different
from that time did this day seem! then the general of the Roman people, a most
illustrious man, was bringing back to the Segestans the gods of their fathers,
recovered from an enemy's city; now a most base and profligate praetor of the same
Roman people, was taking away, with the most nefarious wickedness, those very same
gods from a city of his allies. What is more notorious throughout all Sicily than that all the matrons and virgins of
Segesta came together when Diana was being taken out of their city? that they
anointed her with precious unguents? that they crowned her with chaplets and
flowers? that they attended her to the borders of their territory with frankincense
and burning perfumes?
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.