Whether Cæcilius 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. Cæcilius 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 Quæstor 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 Quæstor 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 Quæstor. 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 Quæstor; and, therefore, so said Cæcilius, 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 them should be declared so loudly that the judges would not dare to betray the Sicilians, and to liberate the accused, by choosing the incompetent man. When Cicero rose to speak, there was probably not one of them of his own party, not a Consul, a Prætor, an Ædile, or a Quæstor, not a judge, not a Senator, not a hanger-on about the courts, but was anxious that Verres with his plunder should escape. Their hope of living upon the wealth of the provinces hung upon it. But if he could speak winged words--words that should fly all over Rome, that might fly also among subject nations--then would the judges not dare to carry out this portion of the scheme.