In 70 BCE Cicero took on the prosecution of Gaius Verres, who had been the governor of the Roman province of Sicily from 73 to 71.
This was the orator's first big case. The defendant was officially charged with extortion, but the speeches against him cast a far wider net.1 The scale of Cicero's prosecution can best be seen at the very end of the Verrines, when the orator does not address the jury, but makes a short prayer in which he asks for his prosecution to be successful.[170] [171] [172] Jupiter, Juno, Hercules, and almost all the other gods invoked here have one thing in common: Verres has plundered their temples.
One by one Cicero reminds the gods of how the defendant has wronged them.[173] After a formidable catalog of crimes, the peroration ensures that Verres will be remembered as a cruel and greedy enemy of both humans and gods.The prayer may seem like an overly dramatic ending to an extortion trial, but offers an appropriate conclusion for a set of speeches in which Cicero tries to portray his opponent as the worst of the worst and a stranger to all conventions of civilized life.[174] Scholars have noted the important role that thefts of works of art play in the invective.[175] In particular, Margaret Miles (2008) has explored how the orator uses the non-Roman origins of these objects to portray Verres as a particularly immoderate Roman art collector and thereby prompts a wider cultural debate about the efficacy of acquiring and owning artifacts produced by foreign civilizations.
This paper, too, focuses on the origins of the objects that Verres is accused of stealing. I use observations about the cultural implications of art thefts in the Verrines to explore how the text treats works of art that also have a religious significance. Through an examination of three episodes from Verr. II 4, I show that—with at times dubious logic—Cicero fashions works of art into ritual objects.[176] Joannis Mylonopoulos (2010, 6-11) outlines three features that signify that an image is the recipient of religious ritual: it is placed in a prominent position within a sanctuary, it is the focus of religious activity, and its appearance is unusually striking.
If we apply these criteria to the Verrines, we see that Cicero uses them to highlight objects that any Greek or Roman should easily be able to recognize as sacred. That Verres is consistently unable to do so and treats these same objects as mere commodities is a powerful way of portraying him as an outsider to the norms of civilized society.The artifacts discussed in this paper, I argue, can all be seen in three ways: as religious objects implicated in daily rituals, as impressive and important works of art, and, finally, as things of high material value. The orator and those who condemn Verres's actions are aware of the visual appeal of the objects, but foreground their religious nature. The accused, however, claims to be interested in art, but is actually focused on material value. Where others see ritual objects, he sees beautiful and expensive piles of gems, precious metals, and marble. By not understanding that there is more to ritual objects than their materiality, Verres throughout the Verrines perverts their function.