There is no greater safety for a republic, than for those who accuse another to be no
 less alarmed for their own credit, and honour, and reputation, than they who are accused
 are for their lives and fortunes. And therefore, those men have always conducted
 prosecutions with the greatest care and with the greatest pains, who have considered
 that they themselves had their reputations at stake. 

 You, therefore, O judges ought to come to this decision, that Quintus Caecilius of whom
 no one has ever had any opinion, and from whom even in this very trial nothing could be
 expected—who takes no trouble either to preserve a reputation previously acquired, or to
 give grounds for hope of himself in future times—will not be likely to conduct this
 cause with too much severity, with too much accuracy, or with too much diligence. For he
 has nothing which he can lose by disappointing public expectation; even if he were to
 come off ever so shamefully, or ever so infamously, he will lose no credit which he at
 present enjoys. From us the Roman people has many hostages which we must labour with all our might and
 by every possible means to preserve uninjured, to defend, to keep in safety, and to
 redeem; it has honour which we are desirous of; it has hope, which we constantly keep
 before our eyes; it has reputation, acquired with much sweat and labour day and night;
 so that if we prove our duty and industry in this cause, we may be able to preserve all
 those things which I have mentioned safe and unimpaired by the favour of the Roman
 people; but if we trip and stumble ever so little, we may at one moment lose the whole
 of those things which have been collected one by one and by slow degrees. On which account it is your business, O judges, to select him who you think can most
 easily sustain this great cause and trial with integrity, with diligence, with wisdom,
 and with authority. If you prefer Quintus Caecilius to me, I shall not think that I am
 surpassed in dignity; but take you care that the Roman people do not think that a
 prosecution as honest, as severe, as diligent as this would have been in my hands, was
 neither pleasing to yourselves nor to your body.