That which was above all things to be desired, O judges, and which above all things
 was calculated to have the greatest influence towards allaying the unpopularity of
 your order, and putting an end to the discredit into which your judicial decisions
 have fallen, appears to have been thrown in your way, and given to you not by any
 human contrivance, but almost by the interposition of the gods, at a most important
 crisis of the republic. For an opinion has now become established, pernicious to us,
 and pernicious to the republic, which has been the common talk of every one, not
 only at Rome , but among foreign nations
 also,—that in the courts of law as they exist at present, no wealthy man, however
 guilty he may be, can possibly be convicted. Now at this time of peril to your order and to your tribunals, when men are ready
 to attempt by harangues, and by the proposal of new laws, to increase the existing
 unpopularity of the senate, Caius Verres is brought to trial as a criminal, a man
 condemned in the opinion of every one by his life and actions, but acquitted by the
 enormousness of his wealth according to his own hope and boast. I, O judges, have
 undertaken this cause as prosecutor with the greatest good wishes and expectation on
 the part of the Roman people, not in order to increase the unpopularity of the
 senate, but to relieve it from the discredit which I share with it. For I have
 brought before you a man, by acting justly in whose case you have an opportunity of
 retrieving the lost credit of your judicial proceedings, of regaining your credit
 with the Roman people, and of giving satisfaction to foreign nations; a man, the
 embezzler of the public funds, the petty tyrant of Asia and Pamphylia , the
 robber who deprived the city of its rights, the disgrace and ruin of the province of
 Sicily . And if you come to a decision about this man with severity and a due regard to
 your oaths, that authority which ought to remain in you will cling to you still; but
 if that man's vast riches shall break down the sanctity and honesty of the courts of
 justice, at least I shall achieve this, that it shall be plain that it was rather
 honest judgment that was wanting to the republic, than a criminal to the judges, or
 an accuser to the criminal. I, indeed, that I may confess to you the truth about myself, O judges, though
 many snares were laid for me by Caius Verres, both by land and sea, which I partly
 avoided by my own vigilance, and partly warded off by the zeal and kindness of my
 friends, yet I never seemed to be incurring so much danger, and I never was in such
 a state of great apprehension, as I am now in this very court of law. Nor does the expectation which people have formed of my conduct of this
 prosecution, nor this concourse of so vast a multitude as is here assembled,
 influence me (though indeed I am greatly agitated by these circumstances) so much as
 his nefarious plots which he is endeavouring to lay at one and the same time against
 me, against you, against Marcus Gabrio the praetor, and against the allies, against
 foreign nations, against the senate, and even against the very name of senator;
 whose favourite saying it is that they have got to fear who have stolen only as much
 as is enough for themselves, but that he has stolen so much that it may easily be
 plenty for many; that nothing is so holy that it cannot be corrupted, or so strongly
 fortified that it cannot be stormed by money. But if he were as secret in acting as he is audacious in attempting, perhaps in
 some particular he might some time or other have escaped our notice. But it happens
 very fortunately that to his incredible audacity there is joined a most unexampled
 folly. For as he was unconcealed in committing his robberies of money, so in his
 hope of corrupting the judges he has made his intentions and endeavours visible to
 every one. He says that once only in his life has he felt fear: at the time when he
 was first impeached as a criminal by me; because he was only lately arrived from his
 province, and was branded with unpopularity and infamy, not modern but ancient and
 of long standing; and, besides that, the time was unlucky, being very ill-suited for
 corrupting the judges.