In a matter of this sort, will any one be found so impudent as to dare to approach or
 to aspire to the conduct of the cause of others against the will of those very people
 whose affairs are involved in it? 
 If, O Quintus
 Caecilius, the Sicilians were to say this to you,—we do not know you—we know not who you
 are, we never saw you before; allow us to defend our fortunes through the
 instrumentality of that man whose good faith is known to us; would they not be saying
 what would appear reasonable to every one? But now they say this—that they know both the
 men, that they wish one of them to be the defender of their cause, that they are wholly
 unwilling that the other should be. Even if they were silent they would say plainly enough why they are unwilling. But they
 are not silent; and yet will you offer yourself, when they are most unwilling to accept
 you! Will you still persist in speaking in the cause of others? Will you still defend
 those men who would rather be deserted by every one than defended by you? Will you still
 promise your assistance to those men who do neither believe that you wish to give it for
 their sake, nor that, if you did wish it, you could do it? Why do you endeavour to take
 away from them by force the little hope for the remainder of their fortunes which they
 still retain, built upon the impartiality of the law and of this tribunal? Why do you
 interpose yourself expressly against the will of those whom the law directs to be
 especially consulted? Why do you now openly attempt to ruin the whole fortunes of those
 of whom you did not deserve very well when in the province? Why do you take away from
 them, not only the power of prosecuting their rights, but even of bewailing their
 calamities? If you are their counsel, whom do you expect to come forward of those men who are now
 striving, not to punish some one else by your means, but to avenge themselves on you
 yourself, through the instrumentality of some one or other? 
 But this is a well established fact, that the Sicilians especially
 desire to have me for their counsel; the other point, no doubt, is less clear,—namely,
 by whom Verres would least like to be prosecuted! Did any one ever strive so openly for
 any honour, or so earnestly for his own safety, as that man and his friends have striven
 to prevent this prosecution from being entrusted to me? There are many qualities which
 Verres believes to be in me, and which he knows, O Quintus Caecilius, do not exist in
 you: and what qualities each of us have I will mention presently;