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 vate influence, but by their fear of the consul, and by the power of two pretors? What could you do for an innocent man or for a relation, when for the sake of a most guilty man, entirely unconnected with you, you depart from your duty and your dignity, and allow what he is constantly saying to appear true to any one who is not acquainted with you? For they said that Verres said, that you had not been made consul by destiny, as the rest of your family had been, but by his assistance. Two consuls, therefore, and the judge are to be such because of his will. We shall not only, says he, avoid having a man too scrupulous in investigating, too subservient to the opinion of the people, Marcus Glabrio, but we shall have this advantage also: Marcus Cæsonius is the judge, the colleag of your accuser, a man of tried and proved experience in the decision of actions. It will never do for us to have such a man as that on the bench, which we are endeavoring to corrupt by some means or other; for before, when he was one of the judges on the tribunal of which Junius was president, he was not only very indignant at that shameful transaction, but he even betrayed and denounced it.

But as for what I had begun to say—namely, that the contest is between you and me, this is it—I, when I had undertaken this cause at the request of the Sicilians, and had thought it a very honorable and glorious thing for me that they were willing to make experiment of my 63