M. Tullius Cicero, Against Verres
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

He has been long boasting of this transaction with Calidius, and telling every one that he bought the things. Did you also buy that censer of Lucius Papilius, a man of the highest reputation, wealth, and honour, and a Roman knight? who stated in his evidence that, when you had begged for it to look at, you returned it with the emblems torn off; so that you may understand that it is all taste in that man, not avarice; that it is the fine work that he covets, not the silver. Nor was this abstinence exercised only in the case of Papirius; he practiced exactly the same conduct with respect to every censer in Sicily; and it is quite incredible how many beautifully wrought censers there were. I imagine that, when Sicily was at the height of its power and opulence, there were extensive workshops in that island; for before that man went thither as praetor there was no house tolerably rich, in which there were not these things, even if there was no other silver plate besides; namely, a large dish with figures and images of the gods embossed on it, a goblet which the women used for sacred purposes, and a censer. And all these were antique, and executed with the most admirable skill, so that one may suspect everything else in Sicily was on a similar scale of magnificence; but that though fortune had deprived them of much, those things were still preserved among them which were retained for purposes of religion.