accused.[2] Verres secured Hortensius.  He too was a great orator; Cicero had chosen him as the model which he would imitate, and speaks of him as having been a splendid and energetic speaker, full of life both in diction and action.  At that time, perhaps, his reputation stood higher than that of Cicero himself.  It was something to have retained so powerful an advocate; it would be still more if it could be contrived that the prosecutor should be a less formidable person.  And there was a chance of contriving this.  A certain Caecilius was induced to come forward, and claim for himself, against Cicero, the duty of prosecuting the late governor of Sicily.  He too had been a quaestor in the province, and he had quarreled, or he pretended that he had quarreled, with Verres.  The first thing there had to be argued before the court, which, like our own, consisted of a presiding judge and a jury, was the question, who was to prosecute, Cicero or Caecilius, or the two together.  Cicero made a great speech, in which he established his own claim.  He was the choice of the provincials; the honesty of his rival was doubtful, while it was quite certain that he was incompetent.  The court decided in his favor, and he was allowed one hundred and ten days to collect evidence.  Verres had another device in store.  This time a member of the Senate came forward and claimed to prosecute Verres for misdoings in the province of Achaia in Greece.  He wanted one hundred and eight days only for collecting evidence.  If this claim should be allowed, the second prosecution would be taken first; of course it was not intended to be serious, and would end in an acquittal.  Meanwhile all the available time would have been spent, and the Sicilian affair would have to be postponed till the next year.  It was on postponement indeed that Verres rested his hopes.  In July Hortensius was elected consul for the following year, and if the trial could only be put off till he had entered upon office, nothing was to be feared.  Verres was openly congratulated in the streets of Rome on his good fortune.  “I have good news for you,” cried a friend; “the election has taken place and you are acquitted.”  Another friend had been chosen praetor, and would be the new presiding judge.  Consul and praetor between them would have the appointment of the new jurors, and would take care that they should be such as the accused desired.  At the same time the new governor of Sicily would be also a friend, and he would throw judicious obstacles in the way of the attendance of witnesses.  The sham prosecution came to nothing.  The prosecutor never left Italy.  Cicero, on the other hand, employed the greatest diligence.  Accompanied by his cousin Lucius he visited all the chief cities of Sicily, and collected from them an enormous mass of evidence.  In this work he only spent fifty out of the hundred and ten days allotted to him, and was ready to begin long before he was expected.

[Footnote 2:  So Horace compliments a friend on being “the illustrious safeguard of the sad accused.”]