Kitap 4
12
“That may be, yet men are sometimes led away from their habits and principles by large sums of money.” Let us see, then, how great a sum this was which could turn Heius, a man of exceeding riches, by no means covetous, away from decency, from affection, and from religion. You ordered him, I suppose, to enter in his account books, “All these statues of Praxiteles, of Myron, of Polycletus, were sold to Verres for six thousand five hundred sesterces.” Read the extracts from his accounts— [The accounts of Heius are read.] I am delighted that the illustrious names of these workmen, whom those men extol to the skies, have fallen so low in the estimation of Verres—the Cupid of Praxiteles for sixteen hundred sesterces. From that forsooth has come the proverb “I had rather buy it than ask for it.”
