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id … ut … relinqueret: a so-called epexegetical ut-clause, in apposition to id, which it explains further.

ut exercitum, provinciam, bellum relinqueret: an *asyndetic *tricolon, designed to emphasize the irresponsible haste with which Dolabella let drop all of his official responsibilities to help out his rogue legate. Ver. 2.1.154 suggests that Dolabella was at the moment involved in warfare against the pirates who had strongholds at the costal border of Cilicia.

hominis nequissimi … aequissimus iudex … improbissimi cuiusque legati: three superlatives, paired, respectively, with the generic homo, followed by two nouns (‘judge’ and ‘legate’) that designate official roles, which require a high level of ethics and sense of responsibility. Nequissimus and improbissimus heighten the bitter sarcasm of aequissimus. The fourth superlative in the paragraph, plurimum, integrates the Roman creditors into the corrupt economy of services that Roman magistrates and businessmen maintained for the exploitation of provincials.

causam cognosceret: cognoscere is a technical term of Roman criminal procedure and, when used of magistrates, refers generally speaking to those cases in which the magistrate personally oversees the taking of evidence of the case and the passing of a verdict.⁸⁴ Elsewhere in the Verrines, Cicero portrays how Verres, when presiding over a case, makes a mockery of proper procedure, including cognitio (2.2.75): Tum iste aliquando ‘Age dic!’ inquit. Reus orare atque obsecrare ut cum consilio cognosceret. Tum repente iste testis citari iubet; dicit unus et alter breviter; nihil interrogatur; praeco dixisse pronuntiat. Iste, quasi metueret ne Petilius … cum ceteris in consilium reverteretur, ita properans de sella exsilit, hominem innocentem a C. Sacerdote absolutum indicta causa de sententia scribae medici haruspicisque condemnat. (Then this man here finally said: ‘Go on, speak!’ The accused begged and beseeched him to investigate the matter in the presence of his advisory council. Then this man here suddenly orders the witnesses to be called in; one or the other speaks briefly; there is no cross-examination; the herald announces that each party has spoken. This man here jumped up from his seat with such haste, as if he feared that Petilius … could come back with the others into the advisory council, and, without the case having been properly pleaded,⁸⁵ sentences the innocent man, who had been freed by C. Sacerdos, on the basis of the opinion of his scribe, his doctor, and his soothsayer.)

Venerat ipse qui esset in consilio et primus sententiam diceret: a relative clause of purpose (hence the subjunctive).

praefectos et tribunos militaris suos: praefecti were officers in the Roman army in charge of a military unit; military tribunes were partly elected by the Roman people, partly appointed by the commanding officer, and were in charge of important military business. Put differently, Cicero suggests that Dolabella ridiculously overreacted in bringing along half of his staff of command (and leaving his own province exposed in the process) just to do Verres’ bidding.

quos Nero omnis in consilium vocavit: a reminder that Nero stayed nominally in charge of proceedings.

togati creditores: creditors ‘clad in the toga’, i.e. Roman.⁸⁶ Pseudo-Asconius spots the euphemism: noluit dicere equites Romanos (‘he [sc. Cicero] did not want to say “Roman knights”’). These moneylenders played a key role in the Roman system of provincial exploitation. Routinely charging outrageous interest rates, they often relied on the help of magistrates to enforce repayment. At the time, many were active in Asia, ‘aiding’ communities to meet indemnity obligations imposed upon them by Sulla, in the wake of the first war against Mithradates. As Steel (2004) 249 points out, ‘given the extent to which the cities were in debt in this period, it would probably have been difficult for Nero to find any Romans of suitable standing who were not creditors of the Greeks.’ See Plutarch, Lucullus 7.6 and 20 and Appian, Roman History 12, 62–63, two sources that describe the unholy alliance between Roman tax farmers (publicani) and Roman money-lenders (creditores) and the misery that Sulla’s punitive sanctions brought to the cities of Asia.

improbissimi cuiusque legati plurimum prodest gratia: Cicero presents legates as more or less useful to creditors in direct proportion to the degree of their wickedness. Verres tops this scale: he is the most (plurimum) useful since he is the most wicked (improbissimus).