In Verrem

During the civil war between the government and the outlaw Sulla (83–82 BC), Verres had been a junior officer in a Marian legion under Gaius Papirius Carbo.

[1] Afterwards, he was protected to a degree by Sulla, and allowed to indulge a skill for gubernatorial extortion in Cilicia under the province's governor, Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella in 81 BC.

In Sicily, Verres was alleged to have despoiled temples and used a number of national emergencies, including the Third Servile War, as cover for elaborate extortion plots.

After defending Sextus Roscius of Ameria in 80 BC on a highly politically charged case of parricide, Cicero left for a voyage to Greece and Rhodes.

In fact a large amount of his clientele at the time came from Sicily, a link that would prove invaluable in 70 BC, when a deputation of Sicilians asked Cicero to level a prosecution against Verres for his alleged crimes on the island.

Immediately, both Verres and Hortensius realized that the court as composed under Glabrio was inhospitable to the defence, and began to try to derail the prosecution by procedural tricks that had the effect of delaying or prolonging the trial.

In addition, Hortensius himself, along with Quintus Metellus, Marcus's older brother, had been elected consuls for the same year, and would thus be in prime position to intimidate the witnesses when the case resumed after the expected lull.

Indeed, Cicero remarked that, immediately after the election of Hortensius and Metellus, one of his friends had heard the former consul Gaius Scribonius Curio publicly congratulate Verres, declaring that he was now as good as acquitted.

Cicero realized that this would inevitably drag out the proceedings past the new year, and so he requested that he be allowed to call witnesses immediately to buttress his charges, before the speeches were made.

To camouflage the fact that this was going on, Cicero further accuses Verres of administratively shuffling around the pirates to cities that had no knowledge of them and substituting others in their place on the execution block.

This gave Cicero's career a boost, in a large part because this allowed him a freedom to speak not usually granted to a newly enrolled member of the Senate.