Therefore, when this cause was first commenced, that law had not been proposed; when Verres, alarmed at your impartiality, had given many indications that he was not likely to make any reply at all, still no mention was made of that law; when he seemed to pick up a little courage and to fortify himself with some little hope, immediately this law was proposed. And as your dignity is exceedingly inconsistent with this law, so his false hopes and preeminent impudence are strongly in favour of it. In this case, if anything blameworthy be done by any of you, either the Roman people itself will judge that man whom it has already pronounced unworthy of any trial at all; or else those men will judge, who, because of the unpopularity of the existing tribunals, will be appointed as new judges by a new law made respecting the old judges.
For myself, even though I were not to say it myself, who is there who is not aware how far it is necessary for me to proceed? Will it be possible for me to be silent, O Hortensius? Will it be possible for me to dissemble, when the republic has received so severe a wound, that, though I pleaded the cause, our provinces will appear to have been pillaged, our allies oppressed, the immortal gods plundered, Roman citizens tortured and murdered with impunity? Will it be possible for me either to lay this burden on the shoulders of this tribunal, or any longer to endure it in silence? Must not the matter be agitated? must it not be brought publicly forward? Must not the good faith of the Roman people be implored? Must not all who have implicated themselves in such wickedness as to allow their good faith to be tampered with, or to give a corrupt decision, be summoned before the court, and made to encounter a public trial?
Perhaps some one will ask, Are you then going to take upon yourself such a labour, and such violent enmity from so many quarters? Not, of a truth, from any desire of mine, or of my own free will. But I have not the same liberty allowed me that they have who are born of noble family; on whom even when they are asleep all the honours of the Roman people are showered. I must live in this city on far other terms and other conditions. For the case of Marcus Cato, a most wise and active man, occurs to me; who, as he thought that it was better to be recommended to the Roman people by virtue than by high birth, and as he wished that the foundation of his race and name should be hid and extended by himself, voluntarily encountered the enmity of most influential men, and lived in the discharge of the greatest labours to an extreme old age with great credit.
After that, did not Quintus Pompeius, a man born in a low and obscure rank of life,
gain the very highest honours by encountering the enmity of many, and great personal
danger, and by undertaking great labour? And lately we have seen Caius Fimbria,
Caius Marcius, and Caius Caelius, striving with no slight toil, and in spite of no
insignificant opposition, to arrive at those honours which you nobles arrive at
while devoted to amusement or absorbed in indifference. This is the system, this is
the path for our adoption. These are the men whose conduct and principles we follow.
In truth, silent and secret enmities are more to be dreaded than war openly declared and waged against us. There's scarcely one man of noble birth who looks favourably on our industry; there are no services of ours by which we can secure their good-will; they differ from us in disposition and inclination, as if they were of a different race and a different nature. What danger then is there to us in their enmity, when their dispositions are already averse and inimical to us before we have at all provoked their enmity?
Wherefore, O judges, I earnestly wish that I may appear for the last time in the character of an accuser, in the case of this criminal, when I shall have given satisfaction to the Roman people, and discharged the duty due to the Sicilians my client, and which I have voluntarily undertaken. But it is my deliberate resolution, if the event should deceive the expectation which I cherish of you, to prosecute not only those who are particularly implicated in the guilt of corrupting the tribunal, but those also who have in any way been accomplices in it. Moreover, if there be any persons, who in the case of the criminal have any inclination to show themselves powerful, or audacious, or ingenious in corrupting the tribunal, let them hold themselves ready, seeing that they will have to fight a battle with us, while the Roman people will be the judges of the contest. And if they know that, in the case of this criminal, whom the Sicilian nation has given me for my enemy, I have been sufficiently energetic, sufficiently persevering, and sufficiently vigilant, they may conceive that I shall be a much more formidable and active enemy to those men whose enmity I have encountered of my own accord, for the sake of the Roman people.