Historian

According to Cicero, Diodorus was a distinguished and well-to-do Malta-born individual with powerful friends in Rome, who had emigrated to Lilybaeum (modern Marsala), where he was very popular.

He got involved with Caius Verres, ex-procurator of Sicily, who had tried to confiscate some artistic silver cups that he owned. When Verres found that he was outwitted by Diodorus and that the owner of the silverware was not found in Sicily, he spread the story that the cups belonged to him, and that Diodorus was a thief; then he commissioned one of his men to spread the story that he wanted to bring Diodorus to trial on a criminal charge. Verres did not hestitate to have the charge laid against Diodorus in absentia.

In 70 BC Diodorus went to Rome and visited several influential persons and told them his story. Verres’s friends and his own father brought pressure to bear on the proprietor and urged him to drop the case. Verres finally gave into their protests. Diodorus was again back in Rome, this time to turn the tables on his former persecutor: to testify in the trial of Verres for his crimes against the Sicilians.

(This is the story of Diodorus as told by Cicero in the fourth Book of his Verrine Orations: 11, iv, 36-42)

This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.