In the advanced ages of the republic, extortion and violence almost universally prevailed among those magistrates who were exalted abroad to the temptations of regal power, and whose predecessors, by their moderation, had called forth in earlier times the applause of the world. Exhausted in fortune by excess of luxury, they now entered on their governments only to enrich themselves with the spoils of the provinces intrusted to their administration, and to plunder the inhabitants by every species of exaction. The first laws against extortion were promulgated in the beginning of the seventh century. But they afforded little relief to the oppressed nations, who in vain sought redress at Rome; for the decisions there depending on judges generally implicated in similar crimes, were more calculated to afford impunity to the guilty, than redress to the aggrieved. This undue influence received additional weight in the case of Verres, from the high quality and connections of the culprit.
Such were the difficulties with which Cicero had to struggle, in entering on the accusation of this great public delinquent. This arduous task he was earnestly solicited to undertake, by a petition from all the towns of Sicily, except Syracuse and Messina, both which cities had been occasionally allowed by the plunderer to share the spoils of the province. Having accepted this trust, so important in his eyes to the honour of the republic, neither the far distant evidence, nor irritating delays of all those guards of guilt with which Verres was environed, could deter or slacken his exertions. The first device on the part of the criminal, or rather of his counsel, Hortensius, to defeat the ends of justice, was an attempt to wrest the conduct of the trial from the hands of Cicero, by placing it in those of Cæcilius(317), who was a creature of Verres, and who now claimed a preference to Cicero, on the ground of personal injuries received from the accused, and a particular knowledge of the crimes of his pretended enemy. The judicial claims of these competitors had therefore to be first decided in that kind of process called _Divinatio_, in which Cicero delivered his oration, entitled _Contra Cæcilium_, and shewed, with much power of argument and sarcasm, that he himself was in every way best fitted to act as the impeacher of Verres.