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, Cicero means Syracuse and Messana , which did not join in the outcry against Verres, because
 Verres had resided at Syracuse , and had
 enriched that city with some of the plunder which he had taken from other cities; and
 he had treated Messana in the same way, which
 place he had made the repository of his plunder till he could export it to Italy . 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.