If it were confidence in my own talents,
erudition, art, reading, memory, that led me to challenge all the
skill that could be brought against me, then were I the vainest
and proudest of mortals, not having considered either myself or
my opponents. But if, with my cause before my eyes, I thought
myself competent to show that the sun here shines at noon-day,
you ought to allow in me that heat which the honour of Jesus
Christ, my King, and the unconquered force of truth have put upon
me. You know how in Marcus Tullius's speech for Publius Quintius,
when Roscius promised that he should win the case if he could
make out by arguments that a journey of 700 miles had not been
accomplished in two days, Cicero not only had no fear of all the
force of the pleading of the opposing counsel, Hortensius, but
could not have been afraid even of greater orators than
Hortensius, men of the stamp of Cotta and Antonius and Crassus,
whose reputation for speaking he set higher than that of all
other men: for truth does sometimes stand out in so clear a light
that no artifice of word or deed can hide it. Now the case on our
side is clearer even than that position of Roscius.
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