If any one of you, O judges, or of these who are present here, marvels perhaps at me,
 that I, who have for so many years been occupied in public causes and trials in such a
 manner that I have defended many men but have prosecuted no one could now on a sudden
 change my usual purpose, and descend to act as accuser;—he, if he becomes acquainted
 with the cause and reason of my present intention, will both approve of what I am doing,
 and will think, I am sure, that no one ought to be preferred to me as manager of this
 cause.

As I had been quaestor in Sicily , O judges,
 and had departed for that province so as to leave among all the Sicilians a pleasing and
 lasting recollection of my quaestorship and of my name, it happened, that while they
 thought their chief protection lay in many of their ancient patrons, they thought there
 was also some support for their fortunes secured in me, who, being now plundered and
 harassed, have all frequently come to me by the public authority, entreating me to
 undertake the cause and the defence of all their fortunes. They say that I repeatedly
 promised and repeatedly assured them, that, if any time should arrive when they wanted
 anything of me, I would not be wanting to their service.

They said that the time had come for me to defend not only the advantages they enjoyed,
 but even the life and safety of the whole province, that they had now not even any gods
 in their cities to whom they could flee, because Caius Verres had carried off their most
 sacred images from the very holiest temples. That whatever luxury could accomplish in
 the way of vice, cruelty in the way of punishment, avarice in the way of plunder, or
 arrogance in the way of insult, had all been borne by them for the last three years,
 while this one man was praetor. That they begged and entreated that I would not reject
 them as suppliants, who, while I was in safety, ought to be suppliants to no one.

I was vexed and distressed, O judges, at being brought into such a strait, as to be
 forced either to let those men's hopes deceive them who had entreated succour and
 assistance of me, or else, when I had from my very earliest youth devoted myself
 entirely to defending men, to be now, under the compulsion of the occasion and of my
 duty, transferred to the part of an accuser. I told them that they had an advocate in
 Quintus Caecilius, who had been quaestor in the same province after I was quaestor
 there. But the very thing which I thought would have been an assistance to me in getting
 rid of this difficulty, was above all things a hindrance to me; for they would have much
 more easily excused me if they had not known him, or if he had never been among them as
 quaestor.

I was induced, O judges, by the considerations of duty, good faith, and pity; by the
 example of many good men; by the ancient customs and habits of our ancestors, to think
 that I ought to take upon myself this burden of labour and duty, not for any purpose of
 my own, but in the time of need to my friends. In which business, however, this fact
 consoles me, O judges, that this pleading of mine which seems to be an accusation is not
 to be considered an accusation, but rather a defence. For I am defending many men, many
 cities, the whole province of Sicily . So that,
 if one person is to be accused by me, I still almost appear to remain firm in my
 original purpose, and not entirely to have given up defending and assisting men.

But if I had this cause so deserving, so illustrious, and so important; if either the
 Sicilians had not demanded this of me, or I had not had such an intimate connection with
 the Sicilians; and if I were to profess that what I am doing I am doing for the sake of
 the republic, in order that a man endowed with unprecedented covetousness, audacity, and
 wickedness,—whose thefts and crimes we have known to be most enormous and most infamous,
 not in Sicily alone, but in Achaia , in Asia , in Cilicia , in Pamphylia , and even at Rome , before the eyes of all men,—should be brought to trial by my
 instrumentality, still, who would there be who could find fault with my act or my
 intention?

What is there, in the name of gods and men! by which I can at the present moment confer
 a greater benefit on the republic? What is there which either ought to be more pleasing
 to the Roman people, or which can be more desirable in the eves of the allies and of
 foreign nations, or more adapted to secure the safety and fortunes of all men? The
 provinces depopulated, harassed, and utterly overturned; the allies and tributaries of
 the Roman people afflicted and miserable, are seeking now not for any hope of safety,
 but for comfort in their destruction.

They who wish the administration of justice still to remain in the hands of the
 senatorial body, complain that they cannot procure proper accusers; those who are able
 to act as accusers, complain of the want of impartiality in the decisions. In the
 meantime the Roman people, although it suffers under many disadvantages and
 difficulties, yet desires nothing in the republic so much as the restoration of the
 ancient authority and importance to the courts of law. It is from a regret at the state
 of our courts of law that the restoration of the power of the tribunes is so eagerly demanded again. It is in consequence of
 the uncertainty of the courts of law, that another class is demanded to
 determine law-suits; owing to the crimes and infamy of the judges, even the office of
 censor, which formerly was used to be accounted too severe by the people, is now again
 demanded, and has become popular and praiseworthy.

In a time of such licentiousness on the part of the wicked, of daily complaint on the
 part of the Roman people, of dishonour in the courts of law, of unpopularity of the
 whole senate, as I thought that this was the only remedy for these numerous evils, for
 men who were both capable and upright to undertake the cause of the republic and the
 laws, I confess that I, for the sake of promoting the universal safety, devoted myself
 to upholding that part of the republic which was in the greatest danger.

Now that I have shown the motives by which I was influenced to undertake the cause, I
 must necessarily speak of our contention, that, in appointing an accuser, you may have
 some certain line of conduct to follow. I understand the matter thus, O judges:—when any
 man is accused of extortion, if there be a contest between any parties as to who may
 best be entrusted with the prosecution, these two points ought to be regarded most
 especially; first, whom they, to whom the injury is said to have been done, wish most to
 be their counsel; and secondly, whom he, who is accused of having done those injuries,
 would least wish to be so.

In this cause, O judges, although I think both these points plain, yet I will dilate
 upon each, and first on that which ought to have the greatest influence with you, that
 is to say, on the inclination of those to whom the injuries have been done; of those for
 whose sake this trial for extortion has been instituted. Caius Verres is said for three
 years to have depopulated the province of Sicily , to have desolated the cities of the Sicilians, to have made the
 houses empty, to have plundered the temples. The whole nation of the Sicilians is
 present, and complains of this. They fly for protection to my good faith, which they
 have proved and long known; they entreat assistance for themselves from you and from the
 laws of the Roman people through my instrumentality; they desire me to be their defender
 in these their calamities; they desire me to be the avenger of their injuries, the
 advocate of their rights, and the pleader of their whole cause.

Will you, O Quintus Caecilius, say this, that I have not approached the cause at the
 request of the Sicilians? or that the desire of those most excellent and most faithful
 allies ought not to be of great influence with these judges? If you dare to say that
 which Caius Verres, whose enemy you are pretending to be, wishes especially to be
 believed,—that the Sicilians did not make this request to me,—you will in the first
 place be supporting the cause of your enemy, against whom it is considered that no vague
 presumption, but that an actual decision has been come to, in the fact that has become
 notorious, that all the Sicilians have begged for me as their advocate against his
 injuries.

If you, his enemy, deny that this is the case, which he himself to whom the fact is
 most injurious does not dare to deny, take care lest you seem to carry on your enmity in
 too friendly a manner. In the second place, there are witnesses, the most illustrious
 men of our state, all of whom it is not necessary that I should name, those who are
 present I will appeal to; while, if I were speaking falsely, they are the men whom I
 should least wish to be witnesses of my impudence. He, who is one of the assessors on
 this bid, Caius Marcellus, knows it; he, whom I see here present, Cnaeus Lentulus
 Marcellinus, knows it; on whose good faith and protection the Sicilians principally
 depend, because the whole of that province is inalienably connected with the name of the
 Marcelli.

These men know that this request was not only made to me, but that it was made so
 frequently and with such earnestness, that I had no alternative except either to
 undertake the cause, or to repudiate the duty of friendship. But why do I cite these men
 as witnesses, as if the matter were doubtful or unknown? Most noble men are present here
 from the whole province, who being present, beg and entreat you, O judges, not to let
 your judgment differ from their judgment in selecting an advocate for their cause.
 Deputations from every city in the whole of Sicily , except two, are present; and if deputations from
 those two were present also, two of the very most serious of the crimes would be
 lessened in which these cities are implicated with Caius Verres.

But why have they entreated this protection from me above all men? If it were doubtful
 whether they had entreated it from me or not, I could tell why they had entreated it;
 but now, when it is so evident that you can see it with your eyes, I know not why it
 should be any injury to me to have it imputed to me that I was selected above all
 men.

But I do not arrogate any such thing to myself, and I not only do not say it, but I do
 not wish even to leave any one to believe that I have been preferred to every possible
 advocate. That is not the fact but a consideration of the opportunities of each
 individual and of his health, and of his aptitude for conducting this cause, has been
 taken into account. My desire and sentiments on this matter have always been these, that
 I would rather that any one of those who are fit for it should undertake it than I; but
 I had rather that I should undertake it myself than that no one should.

The next thing is, since it is evident that the Sicilians have demanded this of me, for
 us to inquire whether it is right that this fact should have any influence on you and on
 your judgments; whether the allies of the Roman people, your suppliants, ought to have
 any weight with you in a matter of extortion committed on themselves. And why need I say
 much on such a point as this? as if there were any doubt that the whole law about
 extortion was established for the sake of the allies.

For when citizens have been robbed of their money, it is usually sought to be recovered
 by civil action and by a private suit. This is a law affecting the allies,—this is a
 right of foreign nations. They have this fortress somewhat less strongly fortified now
 than it was formerly, but still if there be any hope left which can console the minds of
 the allies, it is all placed in this law. And strict guardians of this law have long
 since been required, not only by the Roman people, but by the most distant nations.

Who then is there who can deny that it is right that the trial should be conducted
 according to the wish of those men for whose sake the law has been established? All
 Sicily , if it could speak with one voice,
 would say this:—“All the gold, all the silver, all the ornaments which were in my
 cities, in my private houses, or in my temples,—all the rights which I had in any single
 thing by the kindness of the senate and Roman people,—all that you, O Caius Verres, have
 taken away and robbed me of, on which account I demand of you a hundred million of
 sesterces according to the law.” If the whole
 province, as I have said, could speak, it would say this, and as it could not speak, it
 has of its own accord chosen an advocate to urge these points, whom it has thought
 suitable.

In a matter of this sort, will any one be found so impudent as to dare to approach or
 to aspire to the conduct of the cause of others against the will of those very people
 whose affairs are involved in it? 
 If, O Quintus
 Caecilius, the Sicilians were to say this to you,—we do not know you—we know not who you
 are, we never saw you before; allow us to defend our fortunes through the
 instrumentality of that man whose good faith is known to us; would they not be saying
 what would appear reasonable to every one? But now they say this—that they know both the
 men, that they wish one of them to be the defender of their cause, that they are wholly
 unwilling that the other should be.

Even if they were silent they would say plainly enough why they are unwilling. But they
 are not silent; and yet will you offer yourself, when they are most unwilling to accept
 you! Will you still persist in speaking in the cause of others? Will you still defend
 those men who would rather be deserted by every one than defended by you? Will you still
 promise your assistance to those men who do neither believe that you wish to give it for
 their sake, nor that, if you did wish it, you could do it? Why do you endeavour to take
 away from them by force the little hope for the remainder of their fortunes which they
 still retain, built upon the impartiality of the law and of this tribunal? Why do you
 interpose yourself expressly against the will of those whom the law directs to be
 especially consulted? Why do you now openly attempt to ruin the whole fortunes of those
 of whom you did not deserve very well when in the province? Why do you take away from
 them, not only the power of prosecuting their rights, but even of bewailing their
 calamities?

If you are their counsel, whom do you expect to come forward of those men who are now
 striving, not to punish some one else by your means, but to avenge themselves on you
 yourself, through the instrumentality of some one or other? 
 But this is a well established fact, that the Sicilians especially
 desire to have me for their counsel; the other point, no doubt, is less clear,—namely,
 by whom Verres would least like to be prosecuted! Did any one ever strive so openly for
 any honour, or so earnestly for his own safety, as that man and his friends have striven
 to prevent this prosecution from being entrusted to me? There are many qualities which
 Verres believes to be in me, and which he knows, O Quintus Caecilius, do not exist in
 you: and what qualities each of us have I will mention presently;

at this moment I will only say this, which you must silently agree to, that there is no
 quality in me which he can despise, and none in you which he can fear. Therefore, that
 great defender and friend of his votes for
 you and opposes me; he openly solicits the judges to have you preferred to me; and he
 says that he does this honestly, without any envy of me, and without any dislike to me.
 “For,” says he, “I am now asking for that which I usually obtain when I strive for it
 earnestly. I am not asking to have the defendant acquitted; but I am asking this, that
 he may be accused by the one man rather than by the other. Grant me this; grant that
 which is easy to grant, and honourable, and by no means invidious; and when you have
 granted that, you will, without any risk to yourself, and without any discredit, have
 granted that he shall be acquitted in whose cause I am labouring.”

He says also, in order that some alarm may be mingled with the exertion of his
 influence, that there are certain men on the bench to whom he wishes their tablets to be
 shown, and that that is very easy, for that they do not give their votes separately, but
 that all vote together; and that a tablet, covered with the
 proper wax, and not with that illegal wax which has given so much scandal, is given to
 every one. And he does not give himself all this trouble so much for the sake of Verres,
 as because he disapproves of the whole affair. For he sees that, if the power of
 prosecuting is taken away from the high-born boys whom he has hitherto played with, and
 from the public informers, whom he has always despised and thought insignificant (not
 without good reason), and to be transferred to fearless men of well-proved constancy, he
 will no longer be able to domineer over the courts of law as he pleases.

I now beforehand give this man notice, that if you determine that this cause shall be
 conducted by me, his whole plan of defence must be altered, and must be altered in such
 a manner as to be carried on in a more honest and honourable way than he likes; that he
 must imitate those most illustrious men whom he himself has seen, Lucius Crassus and
 Marcus Antonius; who thought that they had no right to bring anything to the trials and
 causes in which their friends were concerned, except good faith and ability. He shall
 have no room for thinking, if I conduct the case, that the tribunal can be corrupted
 without great danger to many.

In this trial I think that the cause of the Sicilian nation,—that the cause of the
 whole Roman people, is undertaken by me; so that I have not to crush one worthless man
 alone, which is what the Sicilians have requested, but to extinguish and extirpate every
 sort of iniquity, which is what the Roman people has been long demanding. And how far I
 labour in this cause, or what I may be able to effect, I would rather leave to the
 expectations of others, than set forth in my own oration.

But as for you, O Caecilius, what can you do? On what occasion, or in what affair, have
 you, I will not say given proof to others of your powers! but even made trial of
 yourself to yourself? Has it never occurred to you how important a business it is to
 uphold a public cause? to lay bare the whole life of another? and to bring it palpably
 before, not only the minds of the judges, but before the very eyes and sight of all men;
 to defend the safety of the allies, the interests of the provinces, the authority of the
 laws, and the dignity of the judgment-seat? 
 Judge by
 me, since this is the first opportunity of learning it that you have ever had, how many
 qualities must meet in that man who is the accuser of another: and if you recognise any
 one of these in yourself, I will, of my own accord, yield up to you that which you are
 desirous of. First of all, he must have a singular integrity and innocence. For there is
 nothing which is less tolerable than for him to demand an account of his life from
 another who cannot give an account of his own. Here I will not say any more of yourself.

This one thing, I think, all may observe, that up to this time you had no opportunity
 of becoming known to any people except to the Sicilians; and that the Sicilians say
 this, that even though they are exasperated against the same man, whose enemy you say
 that you are, still, if you are the advocate, they will not appear on the trial. Why
 they refuse to, you will not hear from me. Allow these judges to suspect what it is
 inevitable that they must. The Sicilians, indeed, being a race of men over-acute, and
 too much inclined to suspiciousness, suspect that you do not wish to bring documents
 from Sicily against Verres; but, as both his
 praetorship and your quaestorship are recorded in the same documents, they suspect that
 you wish to remove them out of Sicily .

In the second place, an accuser must be trustworthy and veracious. Even if I were to
 think that you were desirous of being so, I easily see that you are not able to be so.
 Nor do I speak of these things, which, if I were to mention, you would not be able to
 invalidate, namely that you, before you departed from Sicily , had become reconciled to Verres; that Potamo, your secretary and
 intimate friend, was retained by Verres in the province when you left it; that Marcus
 Caecilius, your brother, a most exemplary and accomplished young man, is not only not
 present here and does not stand by you while prosecuting your alleged injuries, but that
 he is with Verres, and is living on terms of the closest friendship and intimacy with
 him. These, and other things belonging to you, are many signs of a false accuser; but
 these I do not now avail myself of. I say this, that you, if you were to wish it ever so
 much, still cannot be a faithful accuser.

For I see that there are many charges in which you are so implicated with Verres, that
 in accusing him, you would not dare to touch upon them. 
 
 All Sicily complains that Caius Verres, when he had ordered corn to be brought into
 his granary for him, and when a bushel of wheat was two sesterces , demanded of the farmers twelve sesterces a bushel for wheat. It was a
 great crime, an immense sum, an impudent theft, an intolerable injustice. I must
 inevitably convict him of this charge; what will you do, O Caecilius?

Will you pass over this serious accusation, or will you bring it forward? If you bring
 it forward, will you charge that as a crime against another, which you did yourself at
 the same time in the same province? Will you dare so to accuse another, that you cannot
 avoid at the same time condemning yourself? If you omit the charge, what sort of a
 prosecution will yours be, which from fear of danger to yourself, is afraid not only to
 create a suspicion of a most certain and enormous crime, but even to make the least
 mention of it? Corn was bought, on the authority of a decree of the senate, of the
 Sicilians while Verres was praetor;

for which corn all the money was not paid. This is a grave charge against Verres; a
 grave one if I plead the cause, but, if you are the prosecutor, no charge at all. For
 you were the quaestor, you had the handling of the public money; and, even if the
 praetor desired it ever so much, yet it was to a great extent in your power to prevent
 anything being taken from it. Of this crime, therefore, if you are the prosecutor, no
 mention will be made. And so during the whole trial nothing will be said of his most
 enormous and most notorious thefts and injuries. Believe me, O Caecilius, he who is
 connected with the criminal in a partnership of iniquity, cannot really defend his
 associates while accusing him.

The contractors exacted money from the cities instead of corn. Well! was this never
 done except in the praetorship of Verres? I do not say that, but it was done while
 Caecilius was quaestor. What then will you do? Will you urge against this man as a
 charge, what you both could and ought to have prevented from being done? or will you
 leave out the whole of it? Verres, then, at his trial will absolutely never hear at all
 of those things, which, when he was doing them, he did not know how he should be able to
 defend. 
 And I am mentioning those matters which lie
 on the surface. There are other acts of plunder more secret, which he, in order, I
 suppose, to check the courage and delay the attack of Caecilius, has very kindly
 participated in with his quaestor.

You know that information of these matters has been given to me; and if I were to
 choose to mention them, all men would easily perceive that there was not only a perfect
 harmony of will subsisting between you both, but that you did not pursue even your
 plunder separately. So that if you demand to be allowed to give information of the
 crimes which Verres has committed in conjunction with you, I have no objection, if it is
 allowed by the law. But if we are speaking of conducting the prosecution, that you must
 yield ta those who are hindered by no crimes of their own from being able to prove the
 offences of another.

And see how much difference there will be between my accusation and yours. I intend to
 charge Verres with all the crimes that you committed, though he had no share in them,
 because he did not prevent you from committing them, though he had the supreme power;
 you, on the other hand, will not allege against him even the crimes which he committed
 himself, lest you should be found to be in any particular connected with him. What shall
 I say of these other points, O Caecilius? Do these things appear contemptible to you,
 without which no cause, especially no cause of such importance, can by any means be
 supported? Have you any talent for pleading? any practice in speaking? Have you paid any
 attention or acquired any acquaintance with the forum, the courts, and the laws?

I know in what a rocky and difficult path I am now treading; for as all arrogance is
 odious, so a conceit of one's abilities and eloquence is by far the most disagreeable of
 all. On which account I say nothing of my own abilities; for I have none worth speaking
 of, and if I had I would not speak of them. For either the opinion formed of me is quite
 sufficient for me, such as it is; or if it be too low an opinion to please me, still I
 cannot make it higher by talking about them.

I will just, O Caecilius, say this much familiarly to you about yourself, forgetting
 for a moment this rivalry and contest of ours. Consider again and again what your own
 sentiments are, and recollect yourself; and consider who you are, and what you are able
 to effect. Do you think that, when you have taken upon yourself the cause of the allies,
 and the fortunes of the province, and the rights of the Roman people, and the dignity of
 the judgment-seat and of the law, in a discussion of the most important and serious
 matters, you are able to support so many affairs and those so weighty and so various
 with your voice, your memory, your counsel, and your ability?

Do you think that you are able to distinguish in separate charges, and in a
 well-arranged speech, all that Caius Verres has done in his quaestorship, and in his
 lieutenancy, and in his praetorship, at Rome ,
 or in Italy , or in Achaia , or in Asia Minor , or in
 Pamphylia , as the actions themselves are
 divided by place and time? Do you think that you are able (and this is especially
 necessary against a defendant of this sort) to cause the things which he has done
 licentiously, or wickedly, or tyrannically, to appear just as bitter and scandalous to
 those who hear of them, as they did appear to those who felt them?

Those things which I am speaking of are very important, believe me. Do not you despise
 this either; everything must be related, and demonstrated, and explained; the cause must
 be not merely stated, but it must also be gravely and copiously dilated on. You must
 cause, if you wish really to do and to effect anything, men not only to hear you, but
 also to hear you willingly and eagerly. And if nature kind been bountiful to you in such
 qualities, and if from your childhood you had studied the best arts and systems, and
 worked hard at them;—if you had learnt Greek literature at Athens , not at Lilybaeum , and Latin literature at Rome , and not in Sicily ; still
 it would be a great undertaking to approach so important a cause, and one about which
 there is such great expectation, and having approached it, to follow it up with the
 requisite diligence; to have all the particulars always fresh in your memory; to discuss
 it properly in your speech, and to support it adequately with your voice and your
 faculties.

Perhaps you may say, What then? Are you then endowed with all these qualifications?—I
 wish indeed that I were; but at all events I have laboured with great industry from my
 very childhood to attain them. And if I, on account of the importance and difficulty of
 such a study have not been able to attain them, who have done nothing else all my life,
 how far do you think that you must be distant from these qualities, which you have not
 only never thought of before, but which even now, when you are entering on a stage that
 requires them all, you can form no proper idea of, either as for their nature or as to
 their importance?

I, who as all men know, am so much concerned in the forum and the courts of justice,
 that there is no one of the same age, or very few, who have defended more causes, and
 who spend all my time which can be spared from the business of my friends in these
 studies and labours, in order that I may be more prepared for forensic practice and more
 ready at it, yet, (may the gods be favourable to me as I am saying what is true!)
 whenever the thought occurs to me of the day when the defendant having been summoned, I
 have to speak, I am not only agitated in my mind, but a shudder runs over my whole
 body.

Even now I am surveying in my mind and thoughts what party spirit will be shown by men;
 what throngs of men will meet; how great an expectation the importance of the trial will
 excite; how greet a multitude of hearers the infamy of Caius Verres will collect; how
 great an audience for my speech his wickedness will draw together And when I think of
 these things, even now I am afraid as to what I shall be able to say suitable to the
 hatred men bear him who are inimical and hostile to him, and worthy of the expectation
 which all men will form, and of the importance of the case.

Do you fear nothing, do you think of nothing are you anxious about nothing of all this?
 Or if from some old speech you have been able to learn, “I entreat the mighty and
 beneficent Jupiter ,” or, “I wish it were
 possible, O judges,” or something of the sort, do you think that you shall come before
 the court in an admirable state of preparation?

And, even if no one were to answer you, yet you would not, as I think, be able to state
 and prove even the cause itself. Do you now never give it a thought, that you will have
 a contest with a most eloquent man, and one in a perfect state of preparation for
 speaking, with whom you will at one time have to argue, and at another time to strive
 and contend against him with all your might? Whose abilities indeed I praise greatly,
 but not so as to be afraid of them, and think highly of, thinking however at the same
 time that I am more easily to be pleased by them than cajoled by them. 
 He will never put me down by his acuteness; he will never put me out
 of countenance by any artifice; he will never attempt to upset and dispirit me by
 displays of his genius. I know all the modes of attack and every system of speaking the
 man has. We have often been employed on the same, often on opposite sides. Ingenious as
 he is, he will plead against me as if he were aware that his own ability is to same
 extent put on its trial.

But as for you, O Caecilius, I think that I see already how he will play with you, how
 he will bandy you about; how often he will give you power and option of choosing which
 alternative you please,—whether a thing were done or not, whether a thing be true or
 false; and whichever side you take will be contrary to your interest. What a heat you
 will be in, what bewilderment! what darkness, O ye immortal gods! will overwhelm the
 man, free from malice as he is. What will you do when he begins to divide the different
 counts of your accusation, and to arrange on his fingers each separate division of the
 cause? What will you do when he begins to deal with each argument, to disentangle it, to
 get rid of it? You yourself in truth will begin to be afraid lest you have brought an
 innocent man into danger.

What will you do when he begins to pity his client, to complain, and to take off some
 of his unpopularity from him and transfer it to you? to speak of the close connection
 necessarily subsisting between the quaestor and the praetor? of the custom of the
 ancients? of the holy nature of the connection between those to whom the same province
 was by lot appointed? Will you be able to encounter the odium such a speech will excite
 against you? Think a moment; consider again and again. For there seems to me to be
 danger of his overwhelming you not with words only, but of his blunting the edge of your
 genius by the mere gestures and motions of his body, and so distracting you and leading
 you away from every previous thought and purpose.

And I see that the trial of this will be immediate; for if you are able today to answer
 me and these things which I am saying; if you even depart one word from that book which
 some elocution-master or other has given you, made up of other men's speeches; I shall
 think that you are able to speak, and that you are not unequal to that trial also, and
 that you will be able to do justice to the cause and to the duty you undertake. But if
 in this preliminary skirmish with me you turn out nothing, what can we suppose you will
 be in the contest itself against a most active adversary? 
 Be it so; he is nothing himself, he has no ability; but he comes
 prepared with well-trained and eloquent supporters. And this too is something, though it
 is not enough; for in all things he who is the chief person to act, ought to be the most
 accomplished and the best prepared. But I see that Lucius Appuleius is the next counsel
 on the list, a mere beginner, not as to his age indeed, but as to his practice and
 training in forensic contests.

Next to him he has, as I think, Allienus; he indeed does belong to the bar, but
 however, I never took any particular notice of what he could do in speaking; in raising
 an outcry, indeed, I see that he is very vigorous and practiced. In this man all your
 hopes are placed; he, if you are appointed prosecutor, will sustain the whole trial. But
 even he will not put forth his whole strength in speaking, but will consult your credit
 and reputation; and will abstain from putting forth the whole power of eloquence which
 he himself possesses, in order that you may still appear of some importance As we see is
 done by the Greek pleaders; that he to whom the second or third part belongs, though he
 may be able to speak somewhat better than his leader, often restrains himself a good
 deal, in order that the chief may appear to the greatest possible advantage, so will
 Allienus act; he will be subservient to you, he will pander to your interest, he will
 put forth somewhat less strength than he might.

Now consider this, O judges, what sort of accusers we shall have in this most important
 trial; when Allienus himself will somewhat abstain from displaying all his abilities, if
 he has any, and Caecilius will only be able to think himself of any use, because
 Allienus is not so vigorous as he might be, and voluntarily allows him the chief share
 in the display. What fourth counsel he is to have with him I do not know, unless it be
 one of that crowd of losers of time who have entreated to be allowed an inferior part in
 this prosecution, whoever he might be to whom you gave the lead.

And you are to appear in just this state of preparation, that you have to make friends
 of those men who are utter strangers to you, for the purpose of obtaining their
 assistance. But I will not do these men so much honour as to answer what they have said
 in any regular order, or to give a separate answer to each; but since I have come to
 mention them not intentionally, but by chance, I will briefly, as I pass, satisfy them
 all in a few words. 
 Do I seem to you to be in such
 exceeding want of friends that I must have an assistant given me, chosen not out of the
 men whom I have brought down to court with me, but out of the people at large? And are
 you suffering under such a dearth of defendants, that you endeavour to filch this cause
 from me rather than look for some defendants of your own class at the pillar of Maenius?

Appoint me, says he, to watch Tullius. What? How many watchers shall I have need of, if
 I once allow you to meddle with my bag? as you will have to be watched not only to
 prevent your betraying anything, but to prevent your removing anything. But for the
 whole matter of that watchman I will answer you thus in the briefest manner possible;
 that these honest judges will never permit any assistant to force himself against my
 consent into so important a cause, when it has been undertaken by me, and is entrusted
 to me.

In truth, my integrity rejects an overlooker; my diligence is afraid of a spy. But to
 return to you, O Caecilius, you see how many qualities are wanting to you; how many
 belong to you which a guilty defendant would wish to belong to his prosecutor, you are
 well aware. What can be said to this? For I do not ask what you will say yourself, I see
 that it is not you who will answer me, but this book which your prompter has in his
 hand; who, if he be inclined to prompt you rightly, will advise you to depart from this
 place and not to answer me one word. For what can you say? That which you are constantly
 repeating, that Verres has done you an injury? I have no doubt he has, for it would not
 be probable, when he was doing injuries to all the Sicilians, that you alone should be
 so important in his eyes that he should take care of your interests.

But the rest of the Sicilians have found an avenger of their injuries; you, while you
 are endeavouring to exact vengeance for your injuries by your own means, (which you will
 not be able to effect,) are acting in a way to leave the injuries of all the rest
 unpunished and unavenged. And you do not see that it ought not alone to be considered
 who is a proper person to exact vengeance, but also who is a person capable of doing
 so,—that if there be a man in whom both these qualifications exist, he is the best man.

But if a man has only one of them, then the question usually asked is, not what he is
 inclined to do, but what he is able to do. And if you think that the office of
 prosecutor ought to be entrusted to him above all other men, to whom Caius Verres has
 done the greatest injury, which do you think the judges ought to be most indignant
 at,—at your having been injured by him, or at the whole province of Sicily having been harassed and ruined by him? I think
 you must grant that this both is the worst thing of the two, and that it ought to be
 considered the worst by every one. A flow, therefore, that the province ought to be
 preferred to you as the prosecutor. For the province is prosecuting when he is pleading
 the cause whom the province has adopted as the defender of her rights, the avenger of
 her injuries, and the pleader of the whole cause.

Oh, but Caius Verres has done you such an injury as might afflict the minds of all the
 rest of the Sicilians also, though the grievance was felt only by another. Nothing of
 the sort. For I think it is material also to this argument to consider what sort of
 injury is alleged and brought forward as the cause of your enmity. Allow me to relate
 it. For he indeed, unless he is wholly destitute of sense, will never say what it is.
 There is a woman of the name of Agonis, a Lilybaean, a freedwoman of Venus Erycina; a
 woman who before this man was quaestor was notoriously well off and rich. From her some
 prefect of Antonius's carried off
 some musical slaves whom he said he wished to use in his fleet. Then she, as is the
 custom in Sicily for all the slaves of
 Venus , and all those who have procured their
 emancipation from her, in order to hinder the designs of the prefect, by the scruples
 which the name of Venus would raise, said that
 she and all her property belonged to Venus.

When this was reported to Caecilius, that most excellent and upright man, he ordered
 Agonis to be summoned before him; he immediately orders a trial to ascertain “if it
 appeared that she had said that she and all her property belonged to Venus.” The
 recuperators decide all that
 was necessary, and indeed there was no doubt at all that she had said so. He sends men
 to take possession of the woman's property. He adjudges her herself to be again a slave
 of Venus; then he sells her property and confiscates the money. So while Agonis wishes
 to keep a few slaves under the name and religious protection of Venus, she loses all her
 fortunes and her own liberty by the wrong doing of that man. After that, Verres comes to
 Lilybaeum ; he takes cognisance of the affair;
 he disapproves of the act; he compels his quaestor to pay back and restore to its owner
 all the money which he had confiscated, having been received for the property of
 Agonis.

He is here, and you may well admire it, no longer Verres, but Quintus Mucius. For what could he do more delicate to obtain a high
 character among men? what more just to relieve the distress of the women? what more
 severe to repress the licentiousness of his quaestor? All this appears to me most
 exceedingly praiseworthy. But at the very next step, in a moment, as if he had drank of
 some Circaean cup, having been a man, he becomes Verres again; he returns to himself and
 to his old habits. For of that money he appropriated a great share to himself, and
 restored to the woman only as much as he chose.

Here now if you say that you were offended with Verres, I will grant you that and allow
 it; if you complain that he did you any injury, I will defend him and deny it. Secondly,
 I say that of the injury which was done to you no one of us ought to be a more severe
 avenger than you yourself, to whom it is said to have been done. If you afterwards
 became reconciled to him, if you were often at his house, if he after that supped with
 you, do you prefer to be considered as acting with treachery or by collusion with him? I
 see that one of these alternatives is inevitable, but in this matter I will have no
 contention with you to prevent your adopting which you please.

What shall I say if even the pretext of that injury which was done to you by him no
 longer remains? What have you then to say why you should be preferred, I will not say to
 me, but to any one? except that which I hear you intend to say, that you were his
 quaestor: which indeed would be an important allegation if you were contending with me
 as to which of us ought to be the most friendly to him; but in a contention as to which
 is to take up a quarrel against him, it is ridiculous to suppose that an intimate
 connection with him can be a just reason for bringing him into danger.

In truth, if you had received ever so many injuries from your praetor, still you would
 deserve greater credit by bearing them than by revenging them; but when nothing in his
 life was ever done more rightly than that which you call an injury, shall these judges
 determine that this cause, which they would not even tolerate in any one else, shall
 appear in your case to be a reasonable one to justify the violation of your ancient
 connection? When even if you had received the greatest injury from him, still, since you
 have been his quaestor, you cannot accuse him and remain blameless yourself. But if no
 injury has been done you at all, you cannot accuse him without wickedness; and as it is
 very uncertain whether any injury has been done you, do you think that there is any one
 of these men who would not prefer that you should depart without incurring blame rather
 than after having committed wickedness?

And just think how great is the difference between my opinion and yours. You, though
 you are in every respect inferior to me, still think that you ought to be preferred to
 me for this one reason, because you were his quaestor. I think, that if you were my
 superior in every other qualification, still that for this one cause alone you ought to
 be rejected as the prosecutor. For this is the principle which has been handed down to
 us from our ancestors, that a praetor ought to be in the place of a parent to his
 quaestor; that no more reasonable nor more important cause of intimate friendship can be
 imagined than a connection arising from drawing the same lot, having the same province,
 and being associated in the discharge of the same public duty and office.

Wherefore, even if you could accuse him without violating strict right, still, as he
 had been in the place of a parent to you, you could not do so without violating every
 principle of piety. But as you have not received any injury, and would yet be creating
 danger for your praetor, you must admit that you are endeavouring to wage an unjust and
 impious war against him. In truth, your quaestorship is an argument of so strong a
 nature, that you would have to take a great deal of pains to find an excuse for accusing
 him to whom you had acted as quaestor, and can never be a reason why you should claim on
 that account to have the office of prosecuting him entrusted to you above all men. Nor
 indeed, did any one who had acted as quaestor to another, ever contest the point of
 being allowed to accuse him without being rejected.

And therefore, neither was permission given to Lucius Philo to bring forward an
 accusation against Caius Servilius, nor to Marcus Aurelius Scaurus to prosecute Lucius
 Flaccus, nor to Cnaeus Pompeius to accuse Titus Albucius; not one of whom was refused
 this, permission because of any personal unworthiness, but in order that the desire to
 violate such an intimate connection might not be sanctioned by the authority of the
 judges. And that great man Cnaeus Pompeius contended about that matter with Caius
 Julius , just as you are contending with me.
 For he had been the quaestor of Albucius, just as you were of Verres: Julius had on his
 side this reason for conducting the prosecution, that, just as we have now been
 entreated by the Sicilians, so he had then been entreated by the Sardinians, to espouse
 their cause. And this argument has always had the greatest influence; this has always
 been the most honourable cause for acting as accuser, that by so doing one is bringing
 enmity on oneself in behalf of allies, for the sake of the safety of a province, for the
 advantage of foreign nations—that one is for their sakes incurring danger, and spending
 much care and anxiety and labour.

Even if the cause of those men who wish to revenge their own injuries be ever so
 strong, in which matter they are only obeying their own feelings of indignation, not
 consulting the advantage of the republic: how much more honourable is that cause, which
 is not only reasonable, but which ought to be acceptable to all,—that a man, without
 having received any private injury to himself, should be influenced by the sufferings
 and injuries of the allies and friends of the Roman people! When lately that most brave
 and upright man Lucius Piso demanded to be
 allowed to prefer an accusation against Publius Gabinius, and when Quintus Caecilius
 claimed the same permission in opposition to
 Piso , and said that in so doing he was
 following up an old quarrel which he had long had with Gabinius; it was not only the
 authority and dignity of Piso which had great weight, but also the superior justice of
 his cause, because the Achaeans had adopted him as their patron.

In truth, when the very law itself about extortion is the protectress of the allies
 and friends of the Roman people, it is an iniquitous thing that he should not, above all
 others, he thought the fittest advocate of the law and conductor of the trial, whom the
 allies wish, above all men, to be the pleader of their cause, and the defender of their
 fortunes. Or ought not that which is the more honourable to mention, to appear also far
 the most reasonable to approve of? Which then is the more splendid, which is the more
 honourable allegation—“I have prosecuted this man to whom I had acted as quaestor, with
 whom the lot cast for the provinces, and the custom of our ancestors, and the judgment
 of gods and men had connected me,” or, “I have prosecuted this man at the request of the
 allies and friends of the Roman people, I have been selected by the whole province to
 defend its rights and fortunes?” Can any one doubt that it is more honourable to act as
 prosecutor in behalf of those men among whom you have been quaestor, than as prosecutor
 of him whose quaestor you have been?

The most illustrious men of our state, in the best of times, used to think this most
 honourable and glorious for them to ward off injuries from their hereditary friends, and
 from their clients, and from foreign nations which were either friends or subjects of
 the Roman people, and to defend their fortunes. We learn from tradition that Marcus
 Cato, that wise man, that most illustrious and most prudent man, brought upon himself
 great enmity from many men, on account of the injuries of the Spaniards among whom he
 had been when consul.

We know that lately Cnaeus Domitius prosecuted Marcus Silanus on account of the
 injuries of one man, Egritomarus, his father's friend and comrade. 
 Nor indeed has anything ever had more influence over the minds of
 guilty men than this principle of our ancestors, now re-adopted and brought back among
 us after a long interval, namely, that the complaints of the allies should be brought to
 a man who is not very inactive, and their advocacy undertaken by him who appeared able
 to defend their fortunes with integrity and diligence.

Men are afraid of this; they endeavour to prevent this; they are disquieted at such a
 principle having ever been adopted, and after it has been adopted at its now being
 resuscitated and brought into play again. They think that, if this custom begins
 gradually to creep on and advance, the laws will be put in execution, and actions will
 be conducted by honourable and fearless men, and not by unskillful youths, or informers
 of this sort.

Of which custom and principle our fathers and ancestors did not repent when Publius
 Lentulus, he who was chief of the Senate, prosecuted Marcus Aquillius, having Caius
 Rutilius Rufus backing the accusation; or when Publius Africanus, a man most eminent for
 valour, for good fortune, for renown, and for exploits, after he had been twice consul
 and had been censor brought Lucius Cotta to trial Then the name of the Roman people was
 rightly held in high honour; rightly was the authority of this empire and the majesty of
 the state considered illustrious. Nobody marveled in the case of that great man
 Africanus, as they now pretend to marvel with respect to me, a man endowed with but
 moderate influence and moderate talents, just because they are annoyed at me;

“What can he be meaning? does he want to be considered a prosecutor who hitherto has
 been accustomed to defend people? and especially now at the age when he is seeking the
 aedileship?” But I think it becomes not my age only, but even a much greater age, and I
 think it an action consistent with the highest dignity to accuse the wicked, and to
 defend the miserable and distressed. And in truth, either this is a remedy for a
 republic diseased and in an almost desperate condition, and for tribunals corrupted and
 contaminated by the vices and baseness of a few, for men of the greatest possible honour
 and uprightness and modesty to undertake to uphold the stability of the laws, and the
 authority of the courts of justice; or else, if this is of no advantage, no medicine
 whatever will ever be found for such terrible and numerous evils as these.

There is no greater safety for a republic, than for those who accuse another to be no
 less alarmed for their own credit, and honour, and reputation, than they who are accused
 are for their lives and fortunes. And therefore, those men have always conducted
 prosecutions with the greatest care and with the greatest pains, who have considered
 that they themselves had their reputations at stake. 

 You, therefore, O judges ought to come to this decision, that Quintus Caecilius of whom
 no one has ever had any opinion, and from whom even in this very trial nothing could be
 expected—who takes no trouble either to preserve a reputation previously acquired, or to
 give grounds for hope of himself in future times—will not be likely to conduct this
 cause with too much severity, with too much accuracy, or with too much diligence. For he
 has nothing which he can lose by disappointing public expectation; even if he were to
 come off ever so shamefully, or ever so infamously, he will lose no credit which he at
 present enjoys.

From us the Roman people has many hostages which we must labour with all our might and
 by every possible means to preserve uninjured, to defend, to keep in safety, and to
 redeem; it has honour which we are desirous of; it has hope, which we constantly keep
 before our eyes; it has reputation, acquired with much sweat and labour day and night;
 so that if we prove our duty and industry in this cause, we may be able to preserve all
 those things which I have mentioned safe and unimpaired by the favour of the Roman
 people; but if we trip and stumble ever so little, we may at one moment lose the whole
 of those things which have been collected one by one and by slow degrees.

On which account it is your business, O judges, to select him who you think can most
 easily sustain this great cause and trial with integrity, with diligence, with wisdom,
 and with authority. If you prefer Quintus Caecilius to me, I shall not think that I am
 surpassed in dignity; but take you care that the Roman people do not think that a
 prosecution as honest, as severe, as diligent as this would have been in my hands, was
 neither pleasing to yourselves nor to your body.