Imperial Ethics: Cicero Against Verres, Secondary Oration, Book 4

Cicero takes a unique approach to his first case and spends much of his time convincing his audience of Verrus’ “evil” nature, but also tries to make him look ridiculous. Cicero begins by reviewing Verrus’ history before being named governor of Sicily, avoiding the main charges of extortion against him. Cicero focuses much of his attention on the theft of statues, paintings, and other art. Though odd at the time, this gives us the basis for ethical acquisition of art and what should be considered unethical.

Cicero’s fourth oration against Verres is of specific interest as he digs into Verres’ nature of greed and theft. Cicero points out that Verres had not only stolen from the likes of individuals, but he had even stolen artifacts from temples, valuable statues which would today be considered historically and culturally important, and other works of art. In particular, Cicero comments on several of Verres’ best known plunders including that of Heius, a Messanian, Philarchus, Centuripa, Antiocus the king, and of the temples of Diana, Mercury, and Ceres. The sacking of temples carries significant importance as the act can be seen as disregard for the gods.

As part of his defense, Verres often “plays dumb” and tries to portray his ignorance with respect to painting and sculpture, even to the point of seeming to take pride in his ignorance. He also suggests that a taste for art is a taste unworthy of a Roman.

Cicero takes a strategy of not dwelling on how horrible Verres’ actions were and instead focuses on trying to convince the audience of Verrus’ ridiculousness. He has no problem with making fun of Verrus and plays with his name which means boar, likening him to “the boar of Erymanthus”. At one point Cicero refers to him as “the dragnet of Sicily” due to the resemblance of his name with the word everriculum referring to a dragnet.

Cicero shines a spotlight upon the greed of Verres and in doing so he gives us a detailed look at how greed actually played a role in the Roman Empire. Although Verres’ case may seem extreme, we are able to see just how ridiculous greed became in certain instances throughout Rome. A passage from this oration captures the extent of this greed.

“I will speak even more plainly; I will say that he has left nothing in any one's house, nothing even in the towns, nothing in public places, not even in the temples, nothing in the possession of any Sicilian, nothing in the possession of any Roman citizen; that he has left nothing, in short, which either came before his eyes or was suggested to his mind, whether private property or public, or profane or sacred, in all Sicily.” (Oration 4, Ch. 1)

I felt this quote was a good representation of Verres’ greed and how his greed in turn affected the lives of those living in Sicily.