[95]
No one in Agrigentum was either so advanced in age, or so
infirm in strength, as not to rise up on that night, awakened by that news, and to
seize whatever weapon chance put into his hands. So in a very short time men are
assembled at the temple from every part of the city. Already, for more than an hour,
numbers of men had been labouring at pulling down that statue; and all that time it
gave no sign of being shaken in any part; while some, putting levers under it, were
endeavouring to throw it down, and others, having bound cords to all its limbs, were
trying to pull it towards them. On a sudden all the Agrigentines collect together at
the place; stones are thrown in numbers; the nocturnal soldiers of that illustrious
commander run away—but they take with them two very small statues, in
order not to return to that robber of all holy things entirely empty-handed. The
Sicilians are never in such distress as not to be able to say something facetious
and neat; as they did on this occasion. And so they said that this enormous boar had
a right to be accounted one of the labours of Hercules, no less than the other boar
of Erymanthus.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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