cial desire for success, then the little scheme could be carried
through in that way. So Caecilius was put forward as Cicero's competitor,
and our first speech is that made by Cicero to prove his own superiority
to that of his rival.

Whether Caecilius was or was not hired to break down in his assumed duty
as accuser, we do not know. The biographers have agreed to say that such
was the case,[99] grounding their assertion, no doubt, on extreme
probability. But I doubt whether there is any evidence as to this.
Cicero himself brings this accusation, but not in that direct manner
which he would have used had he been able to prove it. The Sicilians, at
any rate, said that it was so. As to the incompetency of the man, there
was probably no doubt, and it might be quite as serviceable to have an
incompetent as a dishonest accuser. Caecilius himself had declared that
no one could be so fit as himself for the work. He knew Sicily well,
having been born there. He had been Quaestor there with Verres, and had
been able to watch the governor's doings. No doubt there was--or had
been in more pious days--a feeling that a Quaestor should never turn
against the Proconsul under whom he had served, and to whom he had held
the position almost of a son.[100] But there was less of that feeling
now than heretofore. Verres had quarrelled with his Quaestor. Oppius was
called on to defend himself against the Proconsul with whom he had
served. No one could know the doings of the governor of a province as
well as his own Quaestor; and, therefore, so said Caecilius, he would be
the preferable accuser. As to his hatred of the man, there could be no
doubt as to that. Everybody knew that they had quarrelled. The purpose,
no doubt, was to give some colorable excuse to the judges for rescuing
Verres, the great paymaster, from the fangs of Cicero.

Cicero's speech on the occasion--which, as speeches went in those days,
was very short--is a model of sagacity and courage. He had to plead his
own fitness, the unfitness of his adversary, and the wishes in the
matter of the Sicilians. This had to be done with no halting phrases. It
was not simply his object to convince a body of honest men that, with
the view of getting at the truth, he would be the better advocate of the
two. We may imagine that there was not a judge there, not a Roman
present, who was not well aware of that before the orator began. It was
needed that the absurdity of the comparison between t