What will you do when he begins to pity his client, to complain, and to take off some
 of his unpopularity from him and transfer it to you? to speak of the close connection
 necessarily subsisting between the quaestor and the praetor? of the custom of the
 ancients? of the holy nature of the connection between those to whom the same province
 was by lot appointed? Will you be able to encounter the odium such a speech will excite
 against you? Think a moment; consider again and again. For there seems to me to be
 danger of his overwhelming you not with words only, but of his blunting the edge of your
 genius by the mere gestures and motions of his body, and so distracting you and leading
 you away from every previous thought and purpose. And I see that the trial of this will be immediate; for if you are able today to answer
 me and these things which I am saying; if you even depart one word from that book which
 some elocution-master or other has given you, made up of other men's speeches; I shall
 think that you are able to speak, and that you are not unequal to that trial also, and
 that you will be able to do justice to the cause and to the duty you undertake. But if
 in this preliminary skirmish with me you turn out nothing, what can we suppose you will
 be in the contest itself against a most active adversary? 
 Be it so; he is nothing himself, he has no ability; but he comes
 prepared with well-trained and eloquent supporters. And this too is something, though it
 is not enough; for in all things he who is the chief person to act, ought to be the most
 accomplished and the best prepared. But I see that Lucius Appuleius is the next counsel
 on the list, a mere beginner, not as to his age indeed, but as to his practice and
 training in forensic contests. Next to him he has, as I think, Allienus; he indeed does belong to the bar, but
 however, I never took any particular notice of what he could do in speaking; in raising
 an outcry, indeed, I see that he is very vigorous and practiced. In this man all your
 hopes are placed; he, if you are appointed prosecutor, will sustain the whole trial. But
 even he will not put forth his whole strength in speaking, but will consult your credit
 and reputation; and will abstain from putting forth the whole power of eloquence which
 he himself possesses, in order that you may still appear of some importance As we see is
 done by the Greek pleaders; that he to whom the second or third part belongs, though he
 may be able to speak somewhat better than his leader, often restrains himself a good
 deal, in order that the chief may appear to the greatest possible advantage, so will
 Allienus act; he will be subservient to you, he will pander to your interest, he will
 put forth somewhat less strength than he might. Now consider this, O judges, what sort of accusers we shall have in this most important
 trial; when Allienus himself will somewhat abstain from displaying all his abilities, if
 he has any, and Caecilius will only be able to think himself of any use, because
 Allienus is not so vigorous as he might be, and voluntarily allows him the chief share
 in the display. What fourth counsel he is to have with him I do not know, unless it be
 one of that crowd of losers of time who have entreated to be allowed an inferior part in
 this prosecution, whoever he might be to whom you gave the lead. And you are to appear in just this state of preparation, that you have to make friends
 of those men who are utter strangers to you, for the purpose of obtaining their
 assistance. But I will not do these men so much honour as to answer what they have said
 in any regular order, or to give a separate answer to each; but since I have come to
 mention them not intentionally, but by chance, I will briefly, as I pass, satisfy them
 all in a few words. 
 Do I seem to you to be in such
 exceeding want of friends that I must have an assistant given me, chosen not out of the
 men whom I have brought down to court with me, but out of the people at large? And are
 you suffering under such a dearth of defendants, that you endeavour to filch this cause
 from me rather than look for some defendants of your own class at the pillar of Maenius?
 Maenius had sold his house to Cato and Valerius Flaccus when
 they were censors, and they had built the Porcian Piazza on the spot, but he had
 reserved for himself one pillar for him and his heirs to have a view of the
 gladiatorial contests from it; and near this column the triumviricapitates held their court, before whose tribunal it was chiefly
 the lower sort of criminals who were brought, and as a general rule the advocates who
 practised in these courts were of a lower class than those who confined themselves to
 more respectable clients, and to civil actions.