[16]
Though I was aware of and had given weight to these
considerations, still, O judges, I trusted myself to Heius. I produced him at the
first pleading; and indeed I did it without any danger, for what answer could Heius
give even if he turned out a dishonest man, and unlike himself? Could he say that
these statues were at his house, and not with Verres? How could he say anything of
that sort? If he were the basest of men, and were inclined to lie most shamelessly,
he would say this; that he had had them for sale, and that he had sold them at the
price he wanted for them. The man the most noble in all his city, who was especially
anxious that you should have a high opinion of his conscientiousness and of his
worth, says first, that he spoke in Verres's praise by the public authority of his
city, because that commission had been given to him; secondly; that he had not had
these things for sale, and that, if he had been allowed to do what he wished, he
could never have been induced by any terms to sell those things which were in his
private chapel, having been left to him and handed down to him from his ancestors.
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