The article focuses on unnoticed tragic echoes from Roman republican drama in the first bookof Cicero’s Actio secunda in Verrem, called De praetura urbana. It argues that through the intertextual network with Roman tragedy, Cicero amplifies the extremity of Verres’ behaviourduring the two main episodes of the book, namely the thefts of paintings and statues in Greeceand the attempted rape of a noble girl in Lampsacus.