Even Cicero boasted that in a time of great scarcity, he, being then Quaestor in Sicily, had sent extraordinary store of corn over to the city.[124] But he had so done it as to satisfy all who were concerned.
Verres, in his corn dealings with the Sicilians, had a certain friend, companion, and minister--one of his favorite dogs, perhaps we may call him--named Apronius, whom Cicero specially describes.

The description I must give, because it is so powerful; because it shows us how one man could in those days speak of another in open court before all the world; because it affords us an instance of the intensity of hatred which the orator could throw into his words; but I must hide it in the original language, as I could not translate it without offence.[125] Then we have a book devoted to the special pillage of statues and other ornaments, which, for the genius displayed in story-telling, is perhaps of all the Verrine orations the most amusing.

The Greek people had become in a peculiar way devoted to what we generally call Art.

We are much given to the collecting of pictures, china, bronze, and marbles, partly from love of such things, partly from pride in ornamenting our houses so as to excite the admiration of others, partly from a feeling that money so invested is not badly placed with a view to future returns.

All these feelings operated with the Greeks to a much greater extent.