The allies, even when they had been, as it were, skinned alive by their governor, were constrained to send their deputations.
Deputations were got up in Sicily from Messana and Syracuse, and with the others from Messana came this man Heius.

Heius did not wish to tell about his statues; but he was asked questions, and was forced to answer.
Cicero informs us how it all took place.

"He was a man," he said--this is what Cicero tells us that Heius said--"who was well esteemed in his own country, and would wish you"-- you judges--"to think well of his religious spirit and of his personal dignity.

He had come here to praise Verres because he had been required to do so by his fellow-citizens.

He, however, had never kept things for sale in his own house; and had he been left to himself, nothing would have induced him to part with the sacred images which had been left to him by his ancestors as the ornaments of his own chapel.[127] Nevertheless, he had come to praise Verres, and would have held his tongue had it been possible." Cicero finishes his catalogue by telling us of the manifold robberies committed by Verres in Syracuse, especially from the temples of the gods; and he begins his account of the Syracusan iniquities by drawing a parallel between two Romans whose names were well known in that city: Marcellus, who had besieged it as an enemy and taken it, and Verres, who had been sent to govern it in peace.