As Verres is all that is bad, so must he, as accuser, be all that is good; which is more, we should say, than any man would choose to declare of himself! But he is equal to the occasion.

"In regard to this man, O judges, I lay down for myself the law as I have stated it.

I must so live that I must clearly seem to be, and always have been, the very opposite of this man, not only in my words and deeds, but as to that arrogance and impudence which you see in him." Then he shows how opposite he is to Verres at any rate, in impudence! "I am not sorry to see," he goes on to say, "that that life which has always been the life of my own choosing, has now been made a necessity to me by the law which I have laid down for myself."[122] Mr.Pecksniff spoke of himself in the same way, but no one, I think, believed him.

Cicero probably was believed.

But the most wonderful thing is, that his manner of life justified what he said of himself.