With Hortensius and the two Metelluses in power, Verres would be as good as acquitted.

Cicero, therefore, had to be on the alert, so that in this unexpected way, by sacrificing his own grand opportunity for a speech, he might conquer the schemers.

We hear how he went to Sicily in a little boat from an unknown port, so as to escape the dangers contrived for him by the friends of Verres.[109] If it could be arranged that the clever advocate should be kidnapped by a pirate, what a pleasant way would that be of putting an end to these abominable reforms! Let them get rid of Cicero, if only for a time, and the plunder might still be divided.

Against all this he had to provide.
When in Sicily he travelled sometimes on foot, for the sake of caution--never with the retinue to which he was entitled as a Roman senator.

As a Roman senator he might have demanded free entertainment at any town he entered, at great cost to the town.