The Mountain Goats — Song for Cleomenes

[Verse 1] 73 years before the advent of the Christian era As Rome was taking over any land within reach Setting up proxy governments in the conquered lands There lived one such man given just such a job Gaius Verres, go [Verse 2] A praetor held a position which operated on trust He was to govern instead of the emperor himself It was an easy, easy privilege to abuse And Verres did so [Verse 3] He was the governor of Agrigentum Which we now know as Sicily And he stole everything that wasn't nailed down Took improper advantage of other men's wives The list goes on, trust me Cicero wrote it all down [Verse 4] At Syracuse, Verres welcomed a band of pirates They all drank and danced and sang on the shore And when the husband of one of Verres's paramours came Bringing a fleet of boats with him Verres, clever, if diabolical, gave him a job And enlisted the pirates to burn the whole fleet down [Outro] The boats burned in the Sicilian harbor The flames rose hundreds of feet into the air We stood on the shore, watching them burn We stood on the shore, we heard the old songs Hey