The Verrines are works of Cicéron written in 70 av. J.C

Cicéron was Questeur of Lilybée in Sicily, he was appreciated population which, 5 years later, called upon him to defend its interests vis-a-vis their former governor, the Préteur Verres, which was governor of Sicily from 73 to 71 and which briskly plundered the works of art of the temples and the sicilian private individuals. the Glass casings, preserved completely, constitute the whole of the speeches of Cicéron made against Verrès.

It was not an easy lawsuit, indeed the partisans of Glasses were powerful. They tried to make push back the lawsuit so that the defender of Glasses, Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, is consul at the time of this one. But Cicéron was skilful and succeeds in pushing back the operation. At the beginning of the judgment Cicéron produced evidence overpowering against its adversary which did not await the sentence to flee in exile in Marseilles.

We have 6 of the speeches of Cicéron on this business, but actually only the first (“ PRIMA actio ”) was pronounced, the 5 others (" actio secunda ") were published thereafter (in particular the De Signis which treats flights of works of art by Verrès). De Signis watch the rapacity of Glasses, all occupied making of its mandate a source of enrichment. Cicéron wants to make pass Verrès for a ignoramus but it was probably not it.

The first speech, Divinatio in Q. Caecilium reveals the traps tended by the praetor to destabilize his adversary. Then, in a PRIMA actio , supported by a thousand of testimonys, Cicéron launches its first charges. Its eloquence was such as Verrès left in exile at the first day the debates without pleading its cause. Cicéron exploited nevertheless its legal victory by publishing its indictments in its Actio secunda . Composed in five parts, it is as many lampoons recalling the career of the praetor. He develops by a precise argumentation and relentless the scandalous embezzlements, negociations and the crimes of Glasses as of the beginnings of his urban préture in Rome ( Of will praetura urbana ), then in Sicily, in the administration of justice ( Of iurisdictione siciliensi ), the perception of the taxes and said in kind ( Re frumentaria ), continues by his flights of works of art ( Of signis ) and his cruel abuses of power ( Of suppliciis ). Beyond this indictment, all the oligarchical mode was called into question. For Cicéron, it was a question of denouncing the abuses the senatorial nobility and of fixing the ideal of freedom of Roman colonization.

The popular success of the Glass casings establishes the notoriety of Cicéron. He saw especially how much, by the word alone, he represented a force in the city. If the Glass casings do not have the force of works of maturity, they remain, on the lifestyle of the governors and the plundering of the works of art at the time of the republican period, a historical and archaeological source invaluable.