"Thus Cicero's tota Italia 'the whole of Italy', a highly emotive phrase as it is invoked as a witness to the trial of Verres in 70 BC, all in town for the elections, games and census"
Marin - corruption
"Lingering over Verres' illegal actions, a dramatic portrait of corruption at its most extreme and damning was presented to the people"
Marin - success of the speech
"Hortensius urged his client to plead no contest and to seek voluntary exile"
Tempest - publication of the speeches
"Cicero's publication of the speeches enabled him to lay claim to the glory that his hard work had earned"
Tempest - Cicero as a politican
"The prosecution of Verres ... demonstrated that he (Cicero) was the kind of politician that the people could admire, yet whom the senate did not need to fear"
Beard - exaggeration in In Verrem
"As prosecutors are almost bound to do, Cicero certainly exaggerated the wickedness of Verres, in a memorable but sometimes misleading combination of moral outrage, half-truths, self-promotion and jokes"
Beard - not a perfect speech
"There are all kinds of cracks in his argument that any decent defence might well have exploited"
Steel
Presents as if he’s defending the Sicilians against Verres
Steel
Cicero sees an opprotunity to caputre something in the public mood, to make Verres a scapegoat
