9.
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.
[28]
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 1 them out of Sicily.
[29]
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.
[30]
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.
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