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.