Note 158 — LIFE OF CICERO.

Verres during his prætorship in Sicily, B.C. 73-71, had greatly misconducted himself. He was prosecuted in B.C. 70, in which year Pompeius Magnus and M. Licinius Crassus were consuls (Life of Crassus, c. 12). Hortensius, the orator, defended Verres. The object of Hortensius and of these praetors was to prolong or defer the trial to the next year, for which Hortensius was elected consul.

There are extant seven orations of Cicero on the matter of Verres, of which two only were delivered; that against Cæcilius (De Divinatione), who claimed to conduct the prosecution, his object being to get Verres off, and the Actio Prima, which is an opening of the whole case. Before the other speeches were delivered, Verres gave up his defence and went into exile. Cicero, however, published the speeches, or probably even wrote them entire after the affair was over.

This Cæcilius was Q. Cæcilius Metellus, a Sicilian by birth, and probably the descendant of a freedman of one of the Metelli. It seems that he was suspected of being of Jewish origin. Cicero’s allusion to the hog, and many other passages in the Roman writers, show that the Jews were well known in Rome at this time.