2.
[4]
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.
[5]
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.
[6]
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?
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