CHAPTER 1. _Claudius Maximus_, proconsul of Africa, is spoken of as

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THE APOLOGIA AND FLORIDA

OF APULEIUS OF MADAURA

TRANSLATED

BY H.E. BUTLER

FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1909

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK

TORONTO AND MELBOURNE

PREFACE

For the purposes of this translation I have used Helm's text of the

_Apologia_, and Van der Vliet's text of the _Florida_. Both texts are

published by the firm of Teubner, to whom I am indebted for permission

to use their publications as the basis of this work. Divergences from

the text are indicated in the footnotes, and I have made a few,

perhaps unnecessary, expurgations. For the elucidation of the magical

portions of the _Apologia_ I am specially indebted to Abt's commentary

(_Apologie des Apuleius_, Giessen, 1906). I also owe much to the

articles on Apuleius in Schanz's _Geschichte der roemischen

Litteratur_, and in Pauly-Wissowa's _Real-Encyclopaedie_, and to

Hildebrand's commentary on the works of Apuleius (Leipzig, 1842).

H.E. BUTLER.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 5

THE APOLOGIA 19

THE FLORIDA 159

NOTES ON THE APOLOGIA 219

NOTES ON THE FLORIDA 235

INTRODUCTION

Our authorities for the life of Apuleius are in the main the

_Apologia_, the _Florida_, and the last book of the _Metamorphoses_.

He has a passion for taking his audience into his confidence, and as a

result it is not hard to reconstruct a considerable portion of his

life. He was a native of Madaura, the modern Mdaurusch, a Numidian

town loftily situated above the valley of the Medjerda. The town was a

flourishing Roman colony (_Apol._ 24), and the family of Apuleius was

among the wealthiest and most important of the town. His father

attained to the position of _duumvir_, the highest municipal office

(_Apol._ loc. cit.), and left his son the considerable fortune of

2,000,000 sesterces (L20,000). As to the date of Apuleius' birth there

is some uncertainty. But as he was the fellow student (_Florida_ 16)

at Rome of Aemilianus Strabo (consul 156 A.D.), and was considerably

younger than his wife Pudentilla, whom he married about 155 A.D., when

she had 'barely passed the age of forty' (_Apol._ 89), the estimate

which places his birth about 125 A.D. cannot be far wrong. His name is

generally given as Lucius Apuleius, though the only authority for the

_praenomen_ is the evidence of late MSS., and it is not improbable

that the origin of the name is to be found in the curious

identification of himself with Lucius, the hero of the _Metamorphoses_

(xi. 27). At an early age the young Apuleius was sent to school at

Carthage (_Florida_ 18), whence on attaining to manhood he proceeded

to complete his education at Athens (_Florida_ loc. cit.). There he

studied philosophy, rhetoric, geometry, music, and poetry (_Florida_

20), and laid the foundations of that encyclopaedic, if superficial

knowledge, which in after years he so delighted to parade. On leaving

Athens he set forth on lengthy travels, in the course of which he

spent a large portion of his patrimony (_Apol._ 23). He speaks of the

temple of Hera at Samos as an eyewitness (_Florida_ 15), and elsewhere

mentions a visit to Hierapolis in Phrygia (_de mundo_ 17). Returning

from the East he came to Corinth, where--if we may accept his

identification of himself with the Lucius of the _Metamorphoses_--he

fell into the clutches of the priests of Isis, who played upon his

emotional and superstitious temperament to their hearts' content. He

was first initiated into the mysteries of Isis (_Metamorph._ xi. 23,

24). A few days after this auspicious event the goddess appeared to

him in a vision and bade him set forth homewards. He therefore took

ship for Rome, where for the space of a year he dwelt, a fervent

worshipper at the temple of Isis on the Campus Martius. Once more

visions of the night began to afflict him; he consulted the priests

and discovered the cause; he required yet to be initiated into the

mysteries of Osiris. The priests of Corinth had worked upon his

credulity to such good effect, that he found himself in serious

financial difficulties, but by practising as a lawyer he succeeded in

making a sufficient income to provide more than adequately for the

expenses of this fresh initiation (_Metamorph._ xi. 28, 30). While at

Rome he made the acquaintance of Aemilianus Strabo and Scipio Orfitus,

men of distinguished position, whom he was to meet again when their

official career brought them to Africa as proconsuls of that province

(_Florida_ 16, 17).

At last he returned home, and it was probably at this period of his

career that he wrote his famous novel, the _Metamorphoses_ or _Golden

Ass_.[1] It is based on the lost work of a certain Lucius of Patras,

of which we have another version in the [Greek: Loukios e onos],

falsely attributed to Lucian. He enlarged the original by the free

insertion of sensational or humorous stories of the kind popularized

later by the _Decameron_ of Boccaccio, above all by the insertion of

the beautiful fairy-tale of Cupid and Psyche. And then at the end

comes the curious personal note, where Lucius, a Greek at the outset

of the romance, becomes strangely transformed into a native of

Madaura.

[Footnote 1: See Introd. to my translation of _Metamorphoses_.]

But he did not settle down in his native town. After a time he visited

Alexandria, and it was in the course of his return from the capital of

Egypt that the crisis in his life occurred, to which we owe that

remarkable human document, the _Apologia_. For on his homeward journey

he fell sick at Oea, the modern Tripoli.[2] In this town there dwelt a

wealthy lady, named Aemilia Pudentilla, the widow of Sicinius Amicus,

by whom she had two sons, Sicinius Pontianus and his younger brother,

Sicinius Pudens. Pontianus was already the friend of Apuleius; he had

made his acquaintance at Athens; an intimacy had sprung up between

them, and they had lived together in the same lodgings. Hearing,

therefore, of Apuleius' sickness, he called on him at the house of

their mutual friends the Appii, where he was lodging. The reasons for

Pontianus' visit were somewhat remarkable. His grandfather had been

anxious that Pudentilla should take a second husband in the person of

his son and her brother-in-law, Sicinius Clarus, and with this end in

view threatened to exclude her sons, whose guardian he was, from the

possession of any of their father's property, if she married

elsewhere. She therefore suffered herself to be betrothed to Sicinius

Clarus, 'a boorish and decrepit old man,' but put off the marriage,

until her father-in-law's death released her from all embarrassment.

Pontianus and Pudens succeeded to the property, and Pudentilla felt

herself free to take a husband of her own choice. She informed her

sons of her intentions. Pontianus approved, but since the property

left to himself and Pudens by their grandfather was small, and all his

expectations of wealth depended on the ultimate inheritance of his

mother's fortune (4,000,000 sesterces = L40,000), he was most anxious

that his mother should marry an honest man who might reasonably be

expected to treat his step-sons fairly. At this point, in the very

nick of time, Apuleius was detained at Oea. Pontianus saw in him a

heaven-sent step-father, and it was with this in his mind that he

called upon Apuleius. He did not declare his intentions at once. He

contented himself at first with dissuading Apuleius from pursuing his

journey homeward till the next winter came round, and persuaded him to

come and stay in his mother's house. Apuleius accepted his offer and

their old intimacy revived. At last a suitable occasion offered for

the declaration of Pontianus' wishes. Apuleius had given a public

lecture at Oea. His audience broke into frenzied applause and begged

Apuleius to become a citizen of their town.

[Footnote 2: See _Apol._ 68 sqq.]

When the audience were gone, Pontianus took Apuleius aside and, saying

that the popular enthusiasm was a sign from heaven, begged Apuleius to

marry Pudentilla. After much deliberation Apuleius consented, though

the lady was neither fair to view nor young. She had been a widow for

more than thirteen years, and was now over forty. Soon, however, he

began to love Pudentilla for her own sake; her virtues and

intelligence won his heart and overcame his desire for further travel.

The marriage was duly solemnized. But it brought Apuleius no peace.

Sicinius Aemilianus, another brother of her first husband, and

Herennius Rufinus, the disreputable father-in-law of Pontianus, were

both up in arms. Rufinus had hoped, through his son-in-law, to reap a

rich harvest from Pudentilla's fortune; Aemilianus resented the

treatment of his brother, Sicinius Clarus. They sought, therefore,

how they might have their revenge. Their first step was to win

Pontianus and Pudens to their side. This they succeeded in doing, in

spite of the generous treatment accorded by Apuleius to his step-sons.

Pontianus fell sick and died before they could carry out their

designs. He had, moreover, repented of his baseness to his former

friend, though death prevented him from showing what his repentance

was worth. Pudens, however, was completely under the thumb of

Aemilianus and Rufinus, and a number of more or less serious charges

were brought against Apuleius in his name.

He was accused of having won the heart of Pudentilla by sorcery, of

being a man of immoral life, and of having married his elderly bride

solely for the sake of her money. The trial took place at Sabrata

(_Apol._ 59), the modern Zowara, lying on the coast some sixty miles

west of Oea. The case was tried by the proconsul himself, Claudius

Maximus. The date cannot be precisely fixed. But Claudius Maximus was

probably proconsul at some time between the years 155-158 A.D. (see

note on _Apol._ 1), at any rate not later than 161 A.D., since

Antoninus Pius is mentioned as the reigning princeps (died March 161

A.D.). Apuleius had no difficulty in disposing of the charges brought

against him, and incidentally found an opportunity for a flamboyant

display of the learning of which he was so proud. He may well on

occasion have practised magic: his insatiable curiosity must assuredly

have led him to experiment in this direction, and his subsequent

reputation confirms these suspicions. But the specific charges of

magic on this occasion were frivolous and absurd. In the first portion

of the speech Apuleius plays with his accusers, mocking them from the

heights of his superior learning. In the second portion, where he

defends his marriage with Pudentilla and justifies his dealings with

his step-sons, he clears himself in good earnest, nay does more than

clear himself. For he unveils in the most merciless fashion the

villany of his accusers--the base ingratitude of Pudens, and the

unspeakable turpitude of Rufinus.

That Apuleius was acquitted cannot be doubted. His case speaks for

itself. But it is noteworthy that we hear of him no more at Oea, where

he had resided for three years at the time of the trial. This

distressing family quarrel must have caused some bitterness of

feeling, and Augustine (_Ep._ 138. 19) mentions a quarrel with the

inhabitants of Oea on the question of the erection of a statue in his

honour. These facts may not improbably have led him to seek residence

elsewhere. Be this as it may, when we next hear of him he is in

Carthage, enjoying the highest renown as philosopher, poet, and

rhetorician. It was during this residence at Carthage that he

delivered the flamboyant orations of which fragments have been

preserved to us in the _Florida_. A few of these excerpts can be

dated. The seventeenth is written during the proconsulate of Scipio

Orfitus in 163-164 A.D. The ninth contains a panegyric of the

proconsul Severianus, who must have held office some time during the

joint reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, 161-169 A.D. (see

note, p. 236). The sixteenth refers to Aemilianus Strabo, who was

consul in 156 A.D. and had not yet become proconsul of Africa. As the

interval between holding the consulate and the proconsulate was from

ten to thirteen years, this fragment may be dated, if not before 166,

at any rate before 169 A.D.

Apuleius won more than mere applause. Carthage decreed a statue in his

honour (_Florida_ 16), and conferred on him the chief-priesthood of

the province. This office entitled its holder to the first place in

the provincial council, and was the highest honour that the province

could bestow (_Florida_ 16). Civil office he never held (Augustine,

_Ep._ 138. 19), perhaps never sought. His genius, it may be said with

confidence, was far from fitting him for judicial or administrative

functions. If we may trust Apollinaris Sidonius (_Ep._ II. 10. 5),

Pudentilla showed herself a model wife by the passionate interest she

took in her husband's work. 'Pudentilla was for Apuleius what Marcia

was for Hortensius, Terentia for Cicero, Calpurnia for Piso,

Rusticiana for Symmachus: these noble women held the lamp while their

husbands read and meditated!' It is even possible that she bore him a

son, as the second book of the _de Platone_ is dedicated to 'my son

Faustinus'. Of his death we know nothing. Testimony as to his

appearance is conflicting. His accusers (_Apol._ 4) charge him with

being a 'handsome philosopher'. He replies that his body is worn by

the fatigues of study and his hair as tangled as a lump of tow!

His works were astonishingly numerous. Beside those already mentioned

there have come down to us two books on the life and philosophy of

Plato,[3] a highly rhetorical treatise on the 'Demon of Socrates', and

a free translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise 'on the

Universe', though Apuleius is regrettably far from making due

acknowledgement of his debt to the original. None of these works can

be described as interesting, though the treatise on the 'Demon of

Socrates' contains some characteristic purple passages.

[Footnote 3: He regarded Plato as his master above all others. We find

_Platonicus_ attached to him as an honorific title in the MSS.]

It would, however, scarcely be an exaggeration to say that more of

Apuleius' works have perished than survived. He has told us in the

_Florida_ (20) that he has written dialogues, hymns, music, history,

and satire. And we have copious references to works from his pen,

that, perhaps fortunately, no longer exist. Beside the three poems

which survive in the _Apologia_ and a translation of a passage of

Menander, preserved in a manuscript once at Beauvais, but now lost

(Baehrens, _Poet. Lat. Min._ 4, p. 104), he mentions a hymn to

Aesculapius, written both in Latin and Greek (_Florida_ 18), and a

panegyric in verse on the virtues of Scipio Orfitus (_Florida_ 17). He

wrote also another novel entitled _Hermagoras_, a collection of famous

love-stories of the past, sundry 'histories', a translation of the

_Phaedo_, and numerous scientific works, dealing with problems of

mathematics, music, astronomy, medicine, botany, and zoology.

The glory won by Apuleius during his lifetime survived after his

death. Augustine knows his works well. He recognizes his importance as

a writer, but abhors him as a magician. Apuleius is a thaumaturge

against whom the faithful need to be warned. 'The enemies of

Christianity,' says Augustine (_Ep._ 138), 'venture to place Apuleius

and Apollonius of Tyana on the same or even a higher level than

Christ.' But in the same letter he speaks of him as a 'great orator'

whose fame still lives among his fellow countrymen of Africa. Above

all the _Golden Ass_ has kept his name alive to our own day. Even

those who know nothing of the work as a whole, or who would relegate

it to obscurity for its occasional gross indecency, know and love the

story of Cupid and Psyche, if not in the original at least in many a

work of art, and in the pages of La Fontaine, Walter Pater, or William

Morris.

As might be expected from one who left so few themes untouched,

Apuleius is one of the most superficial of ancient writers. It has

been well said of him by M. Paul Monceaux, 'Apulee est un de ces

esprits encyclopediques, apres a la curee de toutes les connaissances,

qui se rencontrent au commencement et a la fin des civilisations.' For

the acquisition of his extraordinary reputation he needed an age and

an audience in which learning and literature alike were decadent,

though far from forgotten. He has none of the scientific spirit. He

does not really understand the authors he quotes; he has no critical

spirit, and his own investigations are prompted by indiscriminate

curiosity. But he has vast stores of miscellaneous knowledge such as

might delight the half-educated, and as a rhetorician he possesses a

strange and debased brilliance, fired by an astonishing if disorderly

imagination. The verve, the humour, and above all the welter of warmth

and colour that characterize the _Golden Ass_ make us forgive the

palpable degradation of the Latin language. Not less remarkable is the

_Apologia_. There are few speeches of antiquity that give such a vivid

impression of the character of the author and of the life of the

society in which he moved. The style, it is true, is often bombastic

and affected, many of the arguments are almost more puerile and absurd

than the accusations, while the intense conceit and complacency of the

author often make him ridiculous. A man of wide and varied knowledge,

he has no depth of intellect. He is always half charlatan, and the

reader is rarely free from the impression that he is taking liberties

with the uncertain taste and ignorance of his provincial audience. But

even the weaknesses of style and argument have their charm for the

modern reader. For, if he never entirely fails to laugh with Apuleius,

he certainly indulges in many a hearty laugh at him.

The _Florida_ are no less superficial and bombastic, and the vanity of

Apuleius is revealed even more remarkably than in the _Apologia_. But

they are never long enough to be tedious, and contain much that is

amusing, be the humour unconscious or intentional; and even if we can

rarely give whole-hearted admiration to the style, we cannot but

marvel at its dexterity, while its very _bizarrerie_ is not without

its charm.

This is hardly the place for a disquisition upon African Latin. It is

sufficient here to say that the two main features of the style of

Apuleius are its archaism and its extreme floridity. It has been

asserted that this strange style is of purely African growth,[4] and

that it owes much of its oriental wealth of colour to the Semitic

element that must still have formed so large a proportion of the

population of Africa. But there seems little really to support this

view; it is probable that, allowing for the personal factor, in this

case exceptionally important, and the eccentricities to which

Apuleius' erudition may have led him, we are confronted with no more

than an exaggerated revival of the Asiatic style of oratory. No doubt

the seed fell on good ground, but it is impossible to set one's finger

on any definitely African element.[5]

[Footnote 4: For a vivacious exposition of this view cf. Monceaux,

_Les Africains_. Paris, 1894.]

[Footnote 5: See the chapter on Apuleius in Norden's admirable work,

_Die antike Kunstprosa_, Leipzig, 1898.]

The style presents grave difficulties to the translator. The English

language will not carry the requisite amount of bombast; the

assonances and the puns are generally incapable of reproduction. Even

when this allowance has been made, it is in many cases impossible to

give anything approximating to a translation in natural English. I

can only trust that the English of this translation has not wholly

lost the colour to which Apuleius owes so much of his charm. The

sacrifice is not so great in these works as it must necessarily be in

any English translation of the more exotic and more brilliant-hued

_Metamorphoses_, better known as _The Golden Ass_. But in any case the

cooler tints and sobriety of our native language must--even in hands

less unskilled than mine--fail to do justice to the fantastic Latin of

the original. The vivacity of French coupled with the richness and

warmth of Italian would need to be combined to produce anything

approaching a really good translation, even of the least fantastic

works of Apuleius.

THE APOLOGIA

1. For my part, Maximus Claudius, and you, gentlemen who sit beside

him on the bench, I regarded it as a foregone conclusion that Sicinius

Aemilianus would for sheer lack of any real ground for accusation cram

his indictment with mere vulgar abuse; for the old rascal is notorious

for his unscrupulous audacity, and, further, launched forth on his

task of bringing me to trial in your court before he had given a

thought to the line his prosecution should pursue. Now while the most

innocent of men may be the victim of false accusation, only the

criminal can have his guilt brought home to him. It is this thought

that gives me special confidence, but I have further ground for

self-congratulation in the fact that I have you for my judge on an

occasion when it is my privilege to have the opportunity of clearing

philosophy of the aspersions cast upon her by the uninstructed and of

proving my own innocence. Nevertheless these false charges are on the

face of them serious enough, and the suddenness with which they have

been improvised makes them the more difficult to refute. For you will

remember that it is only four or five days since his advocates of

malice prepense attacked me with slanderous accusations, and began to

charge me with practice of the black art and with the murder of my

step-son Pontianus. I was at the moment totally unprepared for such a

charge, and was occupied in defending an action brought by the

brothers Granius against my wife, Pudentilla. I perceived that these

charges were brought forward not so much in a serious spirit as to

gratify my opponents' taste for wanton slander. I therefore

straightway challenged them, not once only, but frequently and

emphatically, to proceed with their accusation. The result was that

Aemilianus, perceiving that you, Maximus, not to speak of others, were

strongly moved by what had occurred, and that his words had created a

serious scandal, began to be alarmed and to seek for some safe refuge

from the consequences of his rashness.

2. Therefore as soon as he was compelled to set his name to the

indictment, he conveniently forgot Pontianus, his own brother's son,

of whose death he had been continually accusing me only a few days

previously. He made absolutely no mention of the death of his young

kinsman[6]; he abandoned this most serious charge, but--to avoid the

appearance of having totally abandoned his mendacious accusations--he

selected, as the sole support of his indictment, the charge of

magic--a charge with which it is easy to create a prejudice against

the accused, but which it is hard to prove. Even that he had not the

courage to do openly in his own person, but a day later presented the

indictment in the name of my step-son, Sicinius Pudens, a mere boy,

adding that he appeared as his representative. This is a new method.

He attacks me through the agency of a third person, whose tender age

he employs to shield his unworthy self against a charge of false

accusation. You, Maximus, with great acuteness saw through his designs

and ordered him to renew his original accusation in person. In spite

of his promise to comply, he cannot be induced to come to close

quarters, but actually defies your authority and continues to skirmish

at long range with his false accusations. He persistently shirks the

perilous task of a direct attack, and perseveres in his assumption of

the safe role of the accuser's legal representative. As a result, even

before the case came into court, the real nature of the accusation

became obvious to the meanest understanding. The man who invented the

charge and was the first to utter it had not the courage to take the

responsibility for it. Moreover the man in question is Sicinius

Aemilianus, who, if he had discovered any true charge against me,

would scarcely have been so backward in accusing a stranger of so many

serious crimes, seeing that he falsely asserted his own uncle's will

to be a forgery although he knew it to be genuine: indeed he

maintained this assertion with such obstinate violence, that even

after that distinguished senator, Lollius Urbicus, in accordance with

the decision of the distinguished consulars, his assessors, had

declared the will to be genuine and duly proven, he continued--such

was his mad fury--in defiance of the award given by the voice of that

most distinguished citizen, to assert with oaths that the will was a

forgery. It was only with difficulty that Lollius Urbicus refrained

from making him suffer for it.

[Footnote 6: I conjecture: _de morte cognati adolescentis subito

tacens tanti criminis descriptione destitit, ne tamen omnino desistere

calumnia magiam, &c._]

3. I rely, Maximus, on your sense of justice and on my own innocence,

but I hope that in this trial also we shall hear the voice of Lollius

raised impulsively in my defence; for Aemilianus is deliberately

accusing a man whom he knows to be innocent, a course which comes the

more easy to him, since, as I have told you, he has already been

convicted of lying in a most important case, heard before the Prefect

of the city. Just as a good man studiously avoids the repetition of a

sin once committed, so men of depraved character repeat their past

offence with increased confidence, and, I may add, the more often they

do so, the more openly they display their impudence. For honour is

like a garment; the older it gets, the more carelessly it is worn. I

think it my duty, therefore, in the interest of my own honour, to

refute all my opponent's slanders before I come to the actual

indictment itself. For I am pleading not merely my own cause, but that

of philosophy as well, philosophy, whose grandeur is such that she

resents even the slightest slur cast upon her perfection as though it

were the most serious accusation. Knowing this, Aemilianus' advocates,

only a short time ago, poured forth with all their usual loquacity a

flood of drivelling accusations, many of which were specially invented

for the purpose of blackening my character, while the remainder were

such general charges as the uninstructed are in the habit of levelling

at philosophers. It is true that we may regard these accusations as

mere interested vapourings, bought at a price and uttered to prove

their shamelessness worthy of its hire. It is a recognized practice on

the part of professional accusers to let out the venom of their

tongues to another's hurt; nevertheless, if only in my own interest, I

must briefly refute these slanders, lest I, whose most earnest

endeavour it is to avoid incurring the slightest spot or blemish to my

fair fame, should seem, by passing over some of their more ridiculous

charges, to have tacitly admitted their truth, rather than to have

treated them with silent contempt. For a man who has any sense of

honour or self-respect must needs--such at least is my opinion--feel

annoyed when he is thus abused, however falsely. Even those whose

conscience reproaches them with some crime, are strongly moved to

anger, when men speak ill of them, although they have been accustomed

to such ill report ever since they became evildoers. And even though

others say naught of their crimes, they are conscious enough that such

charges may at any time deservedly be brought against them. It is

therefore doubly vexatious to the good and innocent man when charges

are undeservedly brought against him which he might with justice bring

against others. For his ears are unused and strange to ill report, and

he is so accustomed to hear himself praised that insult is more than

he can bear. If, however, I seem to be anxious to rebut charges which

are merely frivolous and foolish, the blame must be laid at the door

of those, to whom such accusations, in spite of their triviality, can

only bring disgrace. I am not to blame. Ridiculous as these charges

may be, their refutation cannot but do me honour.

4. To begin then, only a short while ago, at the commencement of the

indictment, you heard them say, 'He, whom we accuse in your court, is

a philosopher of the most elegant appearance and a master of eloquence

not merely in Latin but also in Greek!' What a damning insinuation!

Unless I am mistaken, those were the very words with which Tannonius

Pudens, whom no one could accuse of being a master of eloquence, began

the indictment. I wish that these serious reproaches of beauty and

eloquence had been true. It would have been easy to answer in the

words, with which Homer makes Paris reply to Hector:--

[Greek: ou toi apoblet' esti theon erikudea dora.

hossa ken autoi dosin, hekon d' ouk an tis heloito].--

which I may interpret thus: 'The most glorious gifts of the gods are

in no wise to be despised; but the things which they are wont to give

are withheld from many that would gladly possess them.' Such would

have been my reply. I should have added that philosophers are not

forbidden to possess a handsome face. Pythagoras, the first to take

the name of 'philosopher', was the handsomest man of his day. Zeno

also, the ancient philosopher of Velia, who was the first to discover

that most ingenious device of refuting hypotheses by the method of

self-inconsistency, that same Zeno was--so Plato asserts--by far the

most striking in appearance of all the men of his generation. It is

further recorded of many other philosophers that they were comely of

countenance and added fresh charm to their personal beauty by their

beauty of character. But such a defence is, as I have already said,

far from me. Not only has nature given me but a commonplace

appearance, but continued literary labour has swept away such charm as

my person ever possessed, has reduced me to a lean habit of body,

sucked away all the freshness of life, destroyed my complexion and

impaired my vigour. As to my hair, which they with unblushing

mendacity declare I have allowed to grow long as an enhancement to my

personal attractions, you can judge of its elegance and beauty. As you

see, it is tangled, twisted and unkempt like a lump of tow, shaggy and

irregular in length, so knotted and matted that the tangle is past the

art of man to unravel. This is due not to mere carelessness in the

tiring of my hair, but to the fact that I never so much as comb or

part it. I think this is a sufficient refutation of the accusations

concerning my hair which they hurl against me as though it were a

capital charge.

5. As to my eloquence--if only eloquence were mine--it would be small

matter either for wonder or envy if I, who from my earliest years to

the present moment have devoted myself with all my powers to the sole

study of literature and for this spurned all other pleasures, had

sought to win eloquence to be mine with toil such as few or none have

ever expended, ceasing neither night nor day, to the neglect and

impairment of my bodily health. But my opponents need fear nothing

from my eloquence. If I have made any real advance therein, it is my

aspirations rather than my attainments on which I must base my claim.

Certainly if the aphorism said to occur in the poems of Statius

Caecilius be true, that innocence is eloquence itself, to that extent

I may lay claim to eloquence and boast that I yield to none. For on

that assumption what living man could be more eloquent than myself? I

have never even harboured in my thoughts anything to which I should

fear to give utterance. Nay, my eloquence is consummate, for I have

ever held all sin in abomination; I have the highest oratory at my

command, for I have uttered no word, I have done no deed, of which I

need fear to discourse in public. I will begin therefore to discourse

of those verses of mine, which they have produced as though they were

something of which I ought to be ashamed. You must have noticed the

laughter with which I showed my annoyance at the absurd and illiterate

manner in which they recited them.

6. They began by reading one of my _jeux d'esprit_, a brief letter in

verse, addressed to a certain Calpurnianus on the subject of a

tooth-powder. When Calpurnianus produced my letter as evidence against

me, his desire to do me a hurt blinded him to the fact that if

anything in the letter could be urged as a reproach against me, he

shared in that reproach. For the verses testify to the fact that he

had asked me to send him the wherewithal to clean his teeth:

_Good morrow! friend Calpurnianus, take

The salutation these swift verses make.

Wherewith I send, responsive to thy call,

A powder rare to cleanse thy teeth withal.

This delicate dust of Arab spices fine

With ivory sheen shall make thy mouth to shine,

Shall smooth the swollen gums and sweep away

The relics of the feast of yesterday.

So shall no foulness, no dark smirch be seen,

If laughter show thy teeth their lips between._

I ask you, what is there in these verses that is disgusting in point

either of matter or of manner? What is there that a philosopher should

be ashamed to own? Unless indeed I am to blame for sending a powder

made of Arabian spices to Calpurnianus, for whom it would be more

suitable that he should

_Polish his teeth and ruddy gums_,

as Catullus says, after the filthy fashion in vogue among the

Iberians.

7. I saw a short while back that some of you could scarcely restrain

your laughter, when our orator treated these views of mine on the

cleansing of the teeth as a matter for savage denunciation, and

condemned my administration of a tooth-powder with fiercer indignation

than has ever been shown in condemning the administration of a poison.

Of course it is a serious charge, and one that no philosopher can

afford to despise, to say of a man that he will not allow a speck of

dirt to be seen upon his person, that he will not allow any visible

portion of his body to be offensive or unclean, least of all the

mouth, the organ used most frequently, openly and conspicuously by

man, whether to kiss a friend, to conduct a conversation, to speak in

public, or to offer up prayer in some temple. Indeed speech is the

prelude to every kind of action and, as the greatest of poets says,

proceeds from 'the barrier of our teeth'. If there were any one

present here to-day with like command of the grand style, he might say

after his fashion that those above all men who have any care for their

manner of speaking, should pay closer attention to their mouth than to

any other portion of their body, for it is the soul's antechamber, the

portal of speech, and the gathering place where thoughts assemble. I

myself should say that in my poor judgement there is nothing less

seemly for a free-born man with the education of a gentleman than an

unwashen mouth. For man's mouth is in position exalted, to the eye

conspicuous, in use eloquent. True, in wild beasts and cattle the

mouth is placed low and looks downward to the feet, is in close

proximity to their food and to the path they tread, and is hardly

ever conspicuous save when its owner is dead or infuriated with a

desire to bite. But there is no part of man that sooner catches the

eye when he is silent, or more often when he speaks.

8. I should be obliged, therefore, if my critic Aemilianus would

answer me and tell me whether he is ever in the habit of washing his

feet, or, if he admits that he is in the habit of so doing, whether he

is prepared to argue that a man should pay more attention to the

cleanliness of his feet than to that of his teeth. Certainly, if like

you, Aemilianus, he never opens his mouth save to utter slander and

abuse, I should advise him to pay no attention to the state of his

mouth nor to attempt to remove the stains from his teeth with oriental

powders: he would be better employed in rubbing them with charcoal

from some funeral pyre. Least of all should he wash them with common

water; rather let his guilty tongue, the chosen servant of lies and

bitter words, rot in the filth and ordure that it loves! Is it

reasonable, wretch, that your tongue should be fresh and clean, when

your voice is foul and loathsome, or that, like the viper, you should

employ snow-white teeth for the emission of dark, deadly poison? On

the other hand it is only right that, just as we wash a vessel that is

to hold good liquor, he who knows that his words will be at once

useful and agreeable should cleanse his mouth as a prelude to speech.

But why should I speak further of man? Even the crocodile, the monster

of the Nile--so they tell me--opens his jaws in all innocence, that

his teeth may be cleaned. For his mouth being large, tongueless, and

continually open in the water, multitudes of leeches become entangled

in his teeth: these, when the crocodile emerges from the river and

opens his mouth, are removed by a friendly waterbird, which is allowed

to insert its beak without any risk to itself.

9. But enough of this! I now come to certain other of my verses, which

according to them are amatory; but so vilely and coarsely did they

read them as to leave no impression save one of disgust. Now what has

it to do with the malpractices of the black art, if I write poems in

praise of the boys of my friend Scribonius Laetus? Does the mere fact

of my being a poet make me a wizard? Who ever heard any orator produce

such likely ground for suspicion, such apt conjectures, such

close-reasoned argument? 'Apuleius has written verses!' If they are

bad, that is something against him _qua_ poet, but not _qua_

philosopher. If they be good, why do you accuse him? 'But they were

frivolous verses of an erotic character.' So that is the charge you

bring against me? and it was a mere slip of the tongue when you

indicted me for practising the black art? And yet many others have

written such verse, although you may be ignorant of the fact. Among

the Greeks, for instance, there was a certain Teian, there was a

Lacedaemonian, a Cean, and countless others; there was even a woman, a

Lesbian, who wrote with such grace and such passion that the sweetness

of her song makes us forgive the impropriety of her words; among our

own poets there were Aedituus, Porcius, and Catulus, with countless

others. 'But they were not philosophers.' Will you then deny that

Solon was a serious man and a philosopher? Yet he is the author of

that most wanton verse:

_Longing for thy body and the kiss of thy sweet lips._

What is there so lascivious in all my verses compared with that one

line? I will say nothing of the writings of Diogenes the Cynic, of

Zeno the founder of Stoicism, and many other similar instances. Let me

recite my own verses afresh, that my opponents may realize that I am

not ashamed of them:

_Critias my treasure is and you,

Light of my life, Charinus, too

Hold in my love-tormented heart

Your own inalienable part.

Ah! doubt not! with redoubled spite

Though fire on fire consume me quite,

The flames ye kindle, boys divine,

I can endure, so ye be mine.

Only to each may I be dear

As your own selves are, and as near;

Grant only this and you shall be

Dear as mine own two eyes to me._

Now let me read you the others also which they read last as being the

most intemperate in expression.

_I lay these garlands, Critias sweet,

And this my song before thy feet;

Song to thyself I dedicate,

Wreaths to the Angel of thy fate.

The song I send to hymn the praise

Of this, the best of all glad days,

Whereon the circling seasons bring

The glory of thy fourteenth spring;

The garlands, that thy brows may shine

With splendour worthy spring's and thine,

That thou in boyhood's golden hours

Mayst deck the flower of life with flowers.

Wherefore for these bright blooms of spring

Thy springtide sweet surrendering,

The tribute of my love repay

And all my gifts with thine outweigh.

Surpass the twined garland's grace

With arms entwined in soft embrace;

The crimson of the rose eclipse

With kisses from thy rosy lips.

Or if thou wilt, be this my meed

And breathe thy soul into the reed;

Then shall my songs be shamed and mute

Before the music of thy flute._

10. These are the verses, Maximus, which they throw in my teeth, as

though they were the work of an infamous rake and had lover's garlands

and serenades for their theme. You must have noticed also that in this

connexion they further attack me for calling these boys Charinus and

Critias, which are not their true names. On this principle they may as

well accuse Caius Catullus for calling Clodia Lesbia, Ticidas for

substituting the name Perilla for that of Metella, Propertius for

concealing the name Hostia beneath the pseudonym of Cynthia, and

Tibullus for singing of Delia in his verse, when it was Plania who

ruled his heart. For my part I should rather blame Caius Lucilius,

even allowing him all the license of a satiric poet, for prostituting

to the public gaze the boys Gentius and Macedo, whose real names he

mentions in his verse without any attempt at concealment. How much

more reserved is Mantua's poet, who, when like myself he praised the

slave-boy of his friend Pollio in one of his light pastoral poems,

shrinks from mentioning real names and calls himself Corydon and the

boy Alexis. But Aemilianus, whose rusticity far surpasses that of the

shepherds and cowherds of Vergil, who is, in fact, and always has been

a boor and a barbarian, though he thinks himself far more austere than

Serranus, Curius, or Fabricius, those heroes of the days of old,

denies that such verses are worthy of a philosopher who is a follower

of Plato. Will you persist in this attitude, Aemilianus, if I can show

that my verses were modelled upon Plato? For the only verses of Plato

now extant are love-elegies, the reason, I imagine, being that he

burned all his other poems because they were inferior in charm and

finish. Listen then to the verses written by Plato in honour of the

boy Aster, though I doubt if at your age it is possible for you to

learn to appreciate literature:

_Thou wert the morning star among the living

Ere thy fair light had fled;--

Now having died, thou art as Hesperus giving

New light unto the dead._[7]

[Footnote 7: Shelley's translation.]

There is another poem by Plato dealing conjointly with the boys Alexis

and Phaedrus:

_I did but breathe the words 'Alexis fair',

And all men gazed on him with wondering eyes,

My soul, why point to questing beasts their prize?

'Twas thus we lost our Phaedrus; ah! beware!_

Without citing any further examples I will conclude by quoting a line

addressed by Plato to Dion of Syracuse:

_Dion, with love thou hast distraught my soul._

11. Which of us is most to blame? I who am fool enough to speak

seriously of such things in a law-court? or you who are slanderous

enough to include such charges in your indictment? For sportive

effusions in verse are valueless as evidence of a poet's morals. Have

you not read Catullus, who replies thus to those who wish him ill:

_A virtuous poet must be chaste. Agreed.

But for his verses there is no such need._

The divine Hadrian, when he honoured the tomb of his friend the poet

Voconius with an inscription in verse from his own pen, wrote thus:

_Thy verse was wanton, but thy soul was chaste_,

words which he would never have written had he regarded verse of

somewhat too lively a wit as proving their author to be a man of

immoral life. I remember that I have read not a few poems by the

divine Hadrian himself which were of the same type. Come now,

Aemilianus, I dare you to say that that was ill done which was done by

an emperor and censor, the divine Hadrian, and once done was recorded

for subsequent generations. But, apart from that, do you imagine that

Maximus will censure anything that has Plato for its model, Plato

whose verses, which I have just read, are all the purer for being

frank, all the more modest for being outspoken? For in these matters

and the like, dissimulation and concealment is the mark of the sinner,

open acknowledgement and publication a sign that the writer is but

exercising his wit. For nature has bestowed on innocence a voice

wherewith to speak, but to guilt she has given silence to veil its

sin.

12. I say nothing of those lofty and divine Platonic doctrines, that

are familiar to but few of the elect and wholly unknown to all the

uninitiate, such for instance as that which teaches us that Venus is

not one goddess, but two, each being strong in her own type of love

and several types of lovers. The one is the goddess of the common

herd, who is fired by base and vulgar passion and commands not only

the hearts of men, but cattle and wild beasts also, to give themselves

over to the gratification of their desires: she strikes down these

creatures with fierce intolerable force and fetters their servile

bodies in the embraces of lust. The other is a celestial power endued

with lofty and generous passion: she cares for none save men, and of

them but few; she neither stings nor lures her followers to foul

deeds. Her love is neither wanton nor voluptuous, but serious and

unadorned, and wins her lovers to the pursuit of virtue by revealing

to them how fair a thing is nobility of soul. Or, if ever she commends

beautiful persons to their admiration, she puts a bar upon all

indecorous conduct. For the only claim that physical beauty has upon

the admiration is that it reminds those whose souls have soared above

things human to things divine, of that beauty which once they beheld

in all its truth and purity enthroned among the gods in heaven.

Wherefore let us admit that Afranius shows his usual beauty of

expression when he says:

_Only the sage can love, only desire

Is known to others_;

although if you would know the real truth, Aemilianus, or if you are

capable of ever comprehending such high matters, the sage does not

love, but only remembers.

13. I would therefore beg you to pardon the philosopher Plato for his

amatory verse, and relieve me of the necessity of offending against

the precepts put by Ennius into the mouth of Neoptolemus by

philosophizing at undue length; on the other hand if you refuse to

pardon Plato, I am quite ready to suffer blame on this count in his

company. I must express my deep gratitude to you, Maximus, for

listening with such close attention to these side issues, which are

necessary to my defence inasmuch as I am paying back my accusers in

their own coin. Your kindness emboldens me to make this further

request, that you will listen to all that I have to say by way of

prelude to my answer to the main charge with the same courtesy and

attention that you have hitherto shown.

I beg this, since I have next to deal with that long oration, austere

as any censor's, which Pudens delivered on the subject of my mirror.

He nearly exploded, so violently did he declaim against the horrid

nature of my offence. 'The philosopher owns a mirror, the philosopher

actually possesses a mirror.' Grant that I possess it: if I denied it,

you might really think that your accusation had gone home: still it is

by no means a necessary inference that I am in the habit of adorning

myself before a mirror. Why! suppose I possessed a theatrical

wardrobe, would you venture to argue from that that I am in the

frequent habit of wearing the trailing robes of tragedy, the saffron

cloak of the mimic dance, or the patchwork suit of the harlequinade? I

think not. On the contrary there are plenty of things of which I enjoy

the use without the possession. But if possession is no proof of use

nor non-possession of non-use, and if you complain of the fact that I

look into the mirror rather than that I possess it, you must go on to

show when and in whose presence I have ever looked into it; for as

things stand, you make it a greater crime for a philosopher to look

upon a mirror than for the uninitiated to gaze upon the mystic emblems

of Ceres.

14. Come now, let me admit that I _have_ looked into it. Is it a crime

to be acquainted with one's own likeness and to carry it with one

wherever one goes ready to hand within the compass of a small mirror,

instead of keeping it hidden away in some one place? Are you ignorant

of the fact that there is nothing more pleasing for a man to look upon

than his own image? At any rate I know that fathers love those sons

most who most resemble themselves, and that public statues are decreed

as a reward for merit that the original may gladden his heart by

looking on them. What else is the significance of statues and

portraits produced by the various arts? You will scarcely maintain the

paradox that what is worthy of admiration when produced by art is

blameworthy when produced by nature; for nature has an even greater

facility and truth than art. Long labour is expended over all the

portraits wrought by the hand of man, yet they never attain to such

truth as is revealed by a mirror. Clay is lacking in life, marble in

colour, painting in solidity, and all three in motion, which is the

most convincing element in a likeness: whereas in a mirror the

reflection of the image is marvellous, for it is not only like its

original, but moves and follows every nod of the man to whom it

belongs; its age always corresponds to that of those who look into the

mirror, from their earliest childhood to their expiring age: it puts

on all the changes brought by the advance of years, shares all the

varying habits of the body, and imitates the shifting expressions of

joy and sorrow that may be seen on the face of one and the same man.

For all we mould in clay or cast in bronze or carve in stone or tint

with encaustic pigments or colour with paint, in a word, every attempt

at artistic representation by the hand of man after a brief lapse of

time loses its truth and becomes motionless and impassive like the

face of a corpse. So far superior to all pictorial art in respect of

truthful representation is the craftsmanship of the smooth mirror and

the splendour of its art.

15. Two alternatives then are before us. We must either follow the

precept of the Lacedaemonian Agesilaus, who had no confidence in his

personal appearance and refused to allow his portrait to be painted or

carved; or we must accept the universal custom of the rest of mankind

which welcomes portraiture both in sculpture and painting. In the

latter case, is there any reason for preferring to see one's portrait

moulded in marble rather than reflected in silver, in a painting

rather than in a mirror? Or do you regard it as disgraceful to pay

continual attention to one's own appearance? Is not Socrates said

actually to have urged his followers frequently to consider their

image in a glass, that so those of them that prided themselves on

their appearance might above all else take care that they did no

dishonour to the splendour of their body by the blackness of their

hearts; while those who regarded themselves as less than handsome in

personal appearance might take especial pains to conceal the meanness

of their body by the glory of their virtue? You see; the wisest man of

his day actually went so far as to use the mirror as an instrument of

moral discipline. Again, who is ignorant of the fact that Demosthenes,

the greatest master of the art of speaking, always practised pleading

before a mirror as though before a professor of rhetoric? When that

supreme orator had drained deep draughts of eloquence in the study of

Plato the philosopher, and had learned all that could be learned of

argumentation from the dialectician Eubulides, last of all he betook

himself to a mirror to learn perfection of delivery. Which do you

think should pay greatest attention to the decorousness of his

appearance in the delivery of a speech? The orator when he wrangles

with his opponent or the philosopher when he rebukes the vices of

mankind? The man who harangues for a brief space before an audience of

jurymen drawn by the chance of the lot, or he who is continually

discoursing with all mankind for audience? The man who is quarrelling

over the boundaries of lands, or he whose theme is the boundaries of

good and evil? Moreover there are other reasons why a philosopher

should look into a mirror. He is not always concerned with the

contemplation of his own likeness, he contemplates also the causes

which produce that likeness. Is Epicurus right when he asserts that

images proceed forth from us, as it were a kind of slough that

continually streams from our bodies? These images when they strike

anything smooth and solid are reflected by the shock and reversed in

such wise as to give back an image turned to face its original. Or

should we accept the view maintained by other philosophers that rays

are emitted from our body? According to Plato these rays are filtered

forth from the centre of our eyes and mingle and blend with the light

of the world without us; according to Archytas they issue forth from

us without any external support; according to the Stoics these rays

are called into action[8] by the tension of the air: all agree that,

when these emanations strike any dense, smooth, and shining surface,

they return to the surface from which they proceeded in such manner

that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection, and

as a result that which they approach and touch without the mirror is

imaged within the mirror.

[Footnote 8: _facti_ MSS.]

16. What think you? Should not philosophers make all these problems

subjects of research and inquiry and in solitary study look into

mirrors of every kind, solid and liquid? There is also over and above

these questions further matter for discussion. For instance, why is

it that in flat mirrors all images and objects reflected are shown in

almost precisely their original dimensions, whereas in convex and

spherical mirrors everything is seen smaller, in concave mirrors on

the other hand larger than nature? Why again and under what

circumstances are left and right reversed? When does one and the same

mirror seem now to withdraw the image into its depths, now to extrude

it forth to view? Why do concave mirrors when held at right angles to

the rays of the sun kindle tinder set opposite them? What is the cause

of the prismatic colours of the rainbow, or of the appearance in

heaven of two rival images of the sun, with sundry other phenomena

treated in a monumental volume by Archimedes of Syracuse, a man who

showed extraordinary and unique subtlety in all branches of geometry,

but was perhaps particularly remarkable for his frequent and attentive

inspection of mirrors. If you had only read this book, Aemilianus,

and, instead of devoting yourself to the study of your fields and

their dull clods, had studied the mathematician's slate and

blackboard, believe me, although your face is hideous enough for a

tragic mask of Thyestes, you would assuredly, in your desire for the

acquisition of knowledge, look into the glass and sometimes leave your

plough to marvel at the numberless furrows with which wrinkles have

scored your face.

But I should not be surprised if you prefer me to speak of your ugly

deformity of a face and to be silent about your morals, which are

infinitely more repulsive than your features. I will say nothing of

them. In the first place I am not naturally of a quarrelsome

disposition, and secondly I am glad to say that until quite recently

you might have been white or black for all I knew. Even now my

knowledge of you is inadequate. The reason for this is that your

rustic occupations have kept you in obscurity, while _I_ have been

occupied by my studies, and so the shadow cast about you by your

insignificance has shielded your character from scrutiny, while I for

my part take no interest in others' ill deeds, but have always thought

it more important to conceal my own faults than to track out those of

others. As a result you have the advantage of one who, while he is

himself shrouded in darkness, surveys another who chances to have

taken his stand in the full light of day. You from your darkness can

with ease form an opinion as to what I am doing in my not

undistinguished position before all the world; but your position is so

abject, so obscure, and so withdrawn from the light of publicity that

you are by no means so conspicuous.

17. I neither know nor care to know whether you have slaves to till

your fields or whether you do so by interchange of service with your

neighbours. But _you_ know that at Oea I gave three slaves their

freedom on the same day, and your advocate has cast it in my teeth

together with other actions of mine of which you have given him

information. And yet but a few minutes earlier he had declared that I

came to Oea accompanied by no more than one slave. I challenge you to

tell me how I could have made one slave into three free men. But

perhaps this is one of my feats of magic. Has lying made you blind, or

shall I rather say that from force of habit you are incapable of

speaking the truth? 'Apuleius,' you say, 'came to Oea with one slave,'

and then only a very few words later you blurt out, 'Apuleius on one

and the same day at Oea gave three slaves their freedom.' Not even the

assertion that I had come with three slaves and had given them all

their freedom would have been credible: but suppose I had done so,

what reason have you for regarding three slaves as a mark of my

poverty, rather than for considering three freed men as a proof of my

wealth? Poor Aemilianus, you have not the least idea how to accuse a

philosopher: you reproach me for the scantiness of my household,

whereas it would really have been my duty to have laid claim, however

falsely, to such poverty. It would have redounded to my credit, for I

know that not only philosophers of whom I boast myself a follower, but

also generals of the Roman people have gloried in the small number of

their slaves. Have your advocates really never read that Marcus

Antonius, a man who had filled the office of consul, had but eight

slaves in his house? That that very Carbo who obtained supreme control

of Rome had fewer by one? That Manius Curius, famous beyond all men

for the crowns of victory that he had won, Manius Curius who thrice

led the triumphal procession through the same gate of Rome, had but

two servants to attend him in camp, so that in good truth that same

man who triumphed over the Sabines, the Samnites, and Pyrrhus had

fewer slaves than triumphs? Marcus Cato did not wait for others to

tell it of him, but himself records the fact in one of his speeches

that when he set out as consul for Spain he took but three slaves from

the city with him. When, however, he came to stay at a state

residence, the number seemed insufficient, and he ordered two slaves

to be bought in the market to wait on him at table, so that he took

five in all to Spain. Had Pudens come across these facts in his

reading, he would, I think, either have omitted this particular

slander or would have preferred to reproach me on the ground that

three slaves were too large rather than too small an establishment for

a philosopher.

18. Pudens actually reproached me with being poor, a charge which is

welcome to a philosopher and one that he may glory in. For poverty has

long been the handmaid of philosophy; frugal and sober, she is strong

in her weakness and is greedy for naught save honour; the possession

of her is a prophylactic against wealth, her mien is free from care,

and her adornment simple; her counsels are beneficent, she puffs no

man up with pride, she corrupts no man with passions beyond his

control, she maddens no man with the lust for power, she neither

desires nor can indulge in the pleasures of feasting and of love.

These sins and their like are usually the nurslings of wealth. Count

over all the greatest crimes recorded in the history of mankind, you

will find no poor man among their guilty authors. On the other hand,

it is rare to find wealthy men among the great figures of history. All

those at whom we marvel for their great deeds were the nurslings of

poverty from their very cradles, poverty that founded all cities in

the days of old, poverty mother of all arts, witless of all sin,

bestower of all glory, crowned with all honour among all the peoples

of the world. Take the history of Greece: the justice of poverty is

seen in Aristides, her benignity in Phocion, her force in Epaminondas,

her wisdom in Socrates, her eloquence in Homer. It was this same

poverty that established the empire of the Roman people in its first

beginnings, and even to this day Rome offers up thanksgivings for it

to the immortal gods with libations poured from a wooden ladle and

offerings borne in an earthen platter. If the judges sitting to try

this case were Caius Fabricius, Cnaeus Scipio, Manius Curius, whose

daughters on account of their poverty were given dowries from the

public treasury and so went to their husbands bringing with them the

honour of their houses and the wealth of the state; if Publicola, who

drove out the Kings, or Agrippa, the healer of the people's strife,

men whose funerals were on account of their poverty enriched by the

gift of a few farthings per man from the whole Roman people; if

Atilius Regulus, whose lands on account of his own poverty were

cultivated at the public expense; if, in a word, all the heroes of the

old Roman stock, consuls and censors and triumphant generals, were

given a brief renewal of life and sent back to earth to give hearing

to this case, would you dare in the presence of so many poor consuls

to reproach a philosopher with poverty?

19. Perhaps Claudius Maximus seems to you to be a suitable person

before whom to deride poverty, because he himself is in enjoyment of

great wealth and enormous opulence. You are wrong, Aemilianus, you are

wholly mistaken in your estimate of his character, if you take the

bounty of his fortune rather than the sternness of his philosophy as

the standard for your judgement and fail to realize that one, who

holds so austere a creed and has so long endured military service, is

more likely to befriend a moderate fortune with all its limitations

than opulence with all its luxury, and holds that fortunes, like

tunics, should be comfortable, not long. For even a tunic, if it be

not carried high, but is allowed to drag, will entangle and trip the

feet as badly as a cloak that hangs down in front. In everything that

we employ for the needs of daily life, whatever exceeds the mean is

superfluous and a burden rather than a help. So it is that excessive

riches, like steering oars of too great weight and bulk, serve to sink

the ship rather than to guide it; for their bulk is unprofitable and

their superfluity a curse. I have noticed that of the wealthy

themselves those win most praise who live quietly and in moderate

comfort, concealing their actual resources, administering their great

possessions without ostentation or pride and showing like poor folk

under the disguise of their moderation. Now, if even the rich to some

extent affect the outward form and semblance of poverty to give

evidence of their moderation, why should we of slenderer means be

ashamed of being poor not in appearance only but in reality?

20. I might even engage with you in controversy over the word poverty,

urging that no man is poor who rejects the superfluous and has at his

command all the necessities of life, which nature has ordained should

be exceedingly small. For he who desires least will possess most,

inasmuch as he who wants but little will have all he wants. The

measure of wealth ought therefore not to be the possession of lands

and investments, but the very soul of man. For if avarice make him

continually in need of some fresh acquisition and insatiable in his

lust for gain, not even mountains of gold will bring him satisfaction,

but he will always be begging for more that he may increase what he

already possesses. That is _the_ genuine admission of poverty. For

every desire for fresh acquisition springs from the consciousness of

want, and it matters little how large your possessions are if they are

too small for _you_. Philus had a far smaller household than Laelius,

Laelius than Scipio, Scipio than Crassus the Rich, and yet not even

Crassus had as much as he wanted; and so, though he surpassed all

others in wealth, he was himself surpassed by his own avarice and

seemed rich to all save himself. On the other hand, the philosophers

of whom I have spoken wanted nothing beyond what was at their

disposal, and, thanks to the harmony existing between their desires

and their resources, they were deservedly rich and happy. For poverty

consists in the need for fresh acquisition, wealth in the satisfaction

springing from the absence of needs. For the badge of penury is

desire, the badge of wealth contempt. Therefore, Aemilianus, if you

wish me to be regarded as poor, you must first prove that I am

avaricious. But if my soul lacks nothing, I care little how much of

the goods of this world be lacking to me; for it is no honour to

possess them and no reproach to lack them.

21. But let us suppose it to be otherwise. Suppose that I am poor,

because fortune has grudged me riches, because my guardian, as often

happens, misappropriated my inheritance, some enemy robbed me, or my

father left me nothing. Is it just to reproach a man for that which is

regarded as no reproach to the animal kingdom, to the eagle, to the

bull, to the lion? If the horse be strong in the possession of his

peculiar excellences, if he is pleasant to ride and swift in his

paces, no one rebukes him for the poverty of his food. Must you then

reproach me, not for any scandalous word or deed, but simply because I

live in a small house, possess an unusually small number of slaves,

subsist on unusually light diet, wear unusually light clothing, and

make unusually small purchases of food? Yet however scanty my service,

food, and raiment may seem to you, I on the contrary regard them as

ample and even excessive. Indeed I am desirous of still further

reducing them, since the less I have to distract me the happier I

shall be. For the soul, like the body, goes lightly clad when in good

health; weakness wraps itself up, and it is a sure sign of infirmity

to have many wants. We live, just as we swim, all the better for being

but lightly burdened. For in this stormy life as on the stormy ocean

heavy things sink us and light things buoy us up. It is in this

respect, I find, that the gods more especially surpass men, namely

that they lack nothing: wherefore he of mankind whose needs are

smallest is most like unto the gods.

22. I therefore regarded it as a compliment when to insult me you

asserted that my whole household consisted of a wallet and a staff.

Would that my spirit were made of such stern stuff as to permit me to

dispense with all this furniture and worthily to carry that equipment

for which Crates sacrificed all his wealth! Crates, I tell you, though

I doubt if you will believe me, Aemilianus, was a man of great wealth

and honour among the nobility of Thebes; but for love of this habit,

which you cast in my face as a crime, he gave his large and luxurious

household to his fellow citizens, resigned his troops of slaves for

solitude, so contemned the countless trees of his rich orchards as to

be content with one staff, exchanged his elegant villas for one small

wallet, which, when he had fully appreciated its utility, he even

praised in song by diverting from their original meaning certain lines

of Homer in which he extols the island of Crete. I will quote the

first lines, that you may not think this a mere invention of mine

designed to meet the needs of my own case:

_There is a town named Wallet in the midst

Of smoke that's dark as wine._

The lines which follow are so wonderful, that had you read them you

would envy me my wallet even more than you envy me my marriage with

Pudentilla. You reproach philosophers for their staff and wallet. You

might as well reproach cavalry for their trappings, infantry for their

shields, standard-bearers for their banners, triumphant generals for

their chariots drawn by four white horses and their cloaks embroidered

with palm-leaves. The staff and wallet are not, it is true, carried by

the Platonic philosophers, but are the badges of the Cynic school. To

Diogenes and Antisthenes they were what the crown is to the king, the

cloak of purple to the general, the cowl to the priest, the trumpet to

the augur. Indeed the Cynic Diogenes, when he disputed with Alexander

the Great, as to which of the two was the true king, boasted of his

staff as the true sceptre. The unconquered Hercules himself, since you

despise my instances as drawn from mere mendicancy, Hercules that

roamed the whole world, exterminated monsters, and conquered races,

god though he was, had but a skin for raiment and a staff for company

in the days when he wandered through the earth. And yet but a brief

while afterwards he was admitted to heaven as a reward for his virtue.

23. But if you despise these examples and challenge me, not to plead

my case, but to enter into a discussion of the amount of my fortune,

to put an end to your ignorance on this point, if it exists, I

acknowledge that my father left my brother and myself a little under

2,000,000 sesterces--a sum on which my lengthy travels, continual

studies, and frequent generosity have made considerable inroads. For I

have often assisted my friends and have shown substantial gratitude to

many of my instructors, on more than one occasion going so far as to

provide dowries for their daughters. Nay, I should not have hesitated

to expend every farthing of my patrimony, if so I might acquire, what

is far better, a contempt for it. But as for you, Aemilianus, and

ignorant boors of your kidney, in your case the fortune makes the man.

You are like barren and blasted trees that produce no fruit, but are

valued only for the timber that their trunks contain. But I beg you,

Aemilianus, in future to abstain from reviling any one for their

poverty, since you yourself used, after waiting for some seasonable

shower to soften the ground, to expend three days in ploughing

single-handed, with the aid of one wretched ass, that miserable farm

at Zarath, which was all your father left you. It is only recently

that fortune has smiled on you in the shape of wholly undeserved

inheritances which have fallen to you by the frequent deaths of

relatives, deaths to which, far more than to your hideous face, you

owe your nickname of Charon.

24. As to my birthplace, you assert that my writings prove it to lie

right on the marches of Numidia and Gaetulia, for I publicly

described myself as half Numidian, half Gaetulian in a discourse

delivered in the presence of that most distinguished citizen Lollianus

Avitus. I do not see that I have any more reason to be ashamed of that

than had the elder Cyrus for being of mixed descent, half Mede, half

Persian. A man's birthplace is of no importance, it is his character

that matters. We must consider not in what part of the world, but with

what purpose he set out to live his life. Vendors of wine and cabbages

are permitted to enhance the value of their wares by advertising the

excellence of the soil whence they spring, as for instance with the

wine of Thasos and the cabbages of Phlius. For those products of the

soil are wonderfully improved in flavour by the fertility of the

district which produces them, the moistness of the climate, the

mildness of the winds, the warmth of the sun, and the richness of the

soil. But in the case of man, the soul enters the tenement of the body

from without. What, then, can such circumstances as these add to or

take away from his virtues or his vices? Has there ever been a time or

place in which a race has not produced a variety of intellects,

although some races seem stupider and some wiser than others? The

Scythians are the stupidest of men, and yet the wise Anacharsis was a

Scyth. The Athenians are shrewd, and yet the Athenian Meletides was a

fool. I say this not because I am ashamed of my country, since even in

the time of Syphax we were a township. When he was conquered we were

transferred by the gift of the Roman people to the dominion of King

Masinissa, and finally as the result of a settlement of veteran

soldiers, our second founders, we have become a colony of the highest

distinction. In this same colony my father attained to the post of

_duumvir_ and became the foremost citizen of the place, after filling

all the municipal offices of honour. I myself, immediately after my

first entry into the municipal senate, succeeded to my father's

position in the community, and, as I hope, am in no ways a degenerate

successor, but receive like honour and esteem for my maintenance of

the dignity of my position. Why do I mention this? That you,

Aemilianus, may be less angry with me in future and may more readily

pardon me for having been negligent enough not to select your 'Attic'

Zarath for my birthplace.

25. Are you not ashamed to produce such accusations with such violence

before such a judge, to bring forward frivolous and self-contradictory

accusations, and then in the same breath to blame me on both charges

at once? Is it not a sheer contradiction to object to my wallet and

staff on the ground of austerity, to my poems and mirror on the ground

of undue levity; to accuse me of parsimony for having only one slave,

and of extravagance in having three; to denounce me for my Greek

eloquence and my barbarian birth? Awake from your slumber and remember

that you are speaking before Claudius Maximus, a man of stern

character, burdened with the business of the whole province. Cease, I

say, to bring forward these empty slanders. Prove your indictment,

prove that I am guilty of ghastly crimes, detestable sorceries, and

black art-magic. Why is it that the strength of your speech lies in

mere noise, while it is weak and flabby in point of facts?

I will now deal with the actual charge of magic. You spared no

violence in fanning the flame of hatred against me. But you have

disappointed all men's expectations by your old wives' fables, and the

fire kindled by your accusations has burned itself away. I ask you,

Maximus, have you ever seen fire spring up among the stubble,

crackling sharply, blazing wide and spreading fast, but soon

exhausting its flimsy fuel, dying fast away, leaving not a wrack

behind? So they have kindled their accusation with abuse and fanned it

with words, but it lacks the fuel of facts and, your verdict once

given, is destined to leave not a wrack of calumny behind. The whole

of Aemilianus' calumnious accusation was centred in the charge of

magic. I should therefore like to ask his most learned advocates how,

precisely, they would define a magician. If what I read in a large

number of authors be true, namely, that magician is the Persian word

for priest, what is there criminal in being a priest and having due

knowledge, science, and skill in all ceremonial law, sacrificial

duties, and the binding rules of religion, at least if magic consists

in that which Plato sets forth in his description of the methods

employed by the Persians in the education of their young princes? I

remember the very words of that divine philosopher. Let me recall them

to your memory, Maximus: 'When the boy has reached the age of

fourteen he is handed over to the care of men known as the Royal

Masters. They are four in number, and are chosen as being the best of

the elders of Persia, one the wisest, another the justest, a third the

most temperate, a fourth the bravest. And one of these teaches the boy

the magic of Zoroaster the son of Oromazes; and this magic is no other

than the worship of the gods. He also teaches him the arts of

kingship.'

26. Do you hear, you who so rashly accuse the art of magic? It is an

art acceptable to the immortal gods, full of all knowledge of worship

and of prayer, full of piety and wisdom in things divine, full of

honour and glory since the day when Zoroaster and Oromazes established

it, high-priestess of the powers of heaven. Nay, it is one of the

first elements of princely instruction, nor do they lightly admit any

chance person to be a magician, any more than they would admit him to

be a king. Plato--if I may quote him again--in another passage dealing

with a certain Zalmoxis, a Thracian and also a master of this art, has

written that 'magical charms are merely beautiful words'. If that is

so, why should I be forbidden to learn the fair words of Zalmoxis or

the priestly lore of Zoroaster? But if these accusers of mine, after

the fashion of the common herd, define a magician as one who by

communion of speech with the immortal gods has power to do all the

marvels that he will, through a strange power of incantation, I really

wonder that they are not afraid to attack one whom they acknowledge

to be so powerful. For it is impossible to guard against such a

mysterious and divine power. Against other dangers we may take

adequate precautions. He who summons a murderer before the judge comes

into court with an escort of friends; he who denounces a poisoner is

unusually careful as to what he eats; he who accuses a thief sets a

guard over his possessions. But for the man who exposes a magician,

credited with such awful powers, to the danger of a capital sentence,

how can escort or precaution or watchmen save him from unforeseen and

inevitable disaster? Nothing can save him, and therefore the man who

believes in the truth of such a charge as this is certainly the last

person in the world who should bring such an accusation.

27. But it is a common and general error of the uninitiated to bring

the following accusations against philosophers. Some of them think

that those who explore the origins and elements of material things are

irreligious, and assert that they deny the existence of the gods.

Take, for instance, the cases of Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Democritus,

and Epicurus, and other natural philosophers. Others call those

magicians who bestow unusual care on the investigation of the workings

of providence and unusual devotion on their worship of the gods, as

though, forsooth, they knew _how_ to perform everything that they know

actually to _be_ performed. So Epimenides, Orpheus, Pythagoras, and

Ostanes were regarded as magicians, while a similar suspicion attached

to the 'purifications' of Empedocles, the 'demon' of Socrates and the

'good' of Plato. I congratulate myself therefore on being admitted to

such distinguished company.

I fear, however, Maximus, that you may regard the empty, ridiculous

and childish[9] fictions which my opponents have advanced in support

of their case as serious charges merely because they have been put

forward. 'Why,' says my accuser, 'have you sought out particular kinds

of fish?' Why should not a philosopher be permitted to do for the

satisfaction of his desire for knowledge what the _gourmand_, is

permitted to do for the satisfaction of his gluttony? 'What,' he asks,

'induced a free woman to marry you after thirteen years of widowhood?'

'Surely,' I answer, 'it is more remarkable that she should have

remained a widow so long.' 'Why, before she married you, did she

express certain opinions in a letter?' 'Is it reasonable,' I ask, 'to

demand of any one the reasons of another person's private opinions?'

'But,' he goes on, 'although she was your senior in years, she did not

despise your youth.' Surely this simply serves to show that there was

no need of magic to induce a woman to marry a man, or a widow to wed a

bachelor some years her junior. There are more charges equally

frivolous. 'Apuleius,' he persists, 'keeps a mysterious object in his

house which he worships with veneration.' Surely it would be a worse

offence to have nothing to worship at all. 'A boy fell to the ground

in Apuleius' presence.' What if a young man or even an old man had

fallen in my presence through a sudden stroke of disease or merely

owing to the slipperiness of the ground? Do you really think to prove

your charge of magic by such arguments as these; the fall of a

wretched boy, my marriage to my wife, my purchases of fish?

[Footnote 9: _et simplicia_, vulgo.]

28. I should run but small risk if I were to content myself with what

I have already said and begin my peroration. But since as a result of

the length at which my accusers spoke, the water-clock still allows me

plenty of time, let us, if there is no objection, consider the charges

in detail. I will deny none of them, be they true or false. I will

assume their truth, that this great crowd, which has gathered from all

directions to hear this case, may clearly understand not only that no

true incrimination can be brought against philosophers, but that not

even any false charge can be fabricated against them, which--such is

their confidence in their innocence--they will not be prepared to

admit and to defend, even though it be in their power to deny it. I

will therefore begin by refuting their arguments, and will prove that

they have nothing to do with magic. Next I will show that even on the

assumption of my being the most consummate magician, I have never

given cause or occasion for conviction of any evil practice. I will

also deal with the lies with which they have endeavoured to arouse

hostility against me, with their misquotation and misinterpretation of

my wife's letters, and with my marriage with Pudentilla, whom, as I

will proceed to prove, I married for love and not for money. This

marriage of ours caused frightful annoyance and distress to

Aemilianus. Hence springs all the anger, frenzy, and raving madness

that he has shown in the conduct of this accusation. If I succeed in

making all these points abundantly clear and obvious, I shall then

appeal to you, Claudius Maximus, and to all here present to bear me

out, that the boy Sicinius Pudens, my step-son, through whom and with

whose consent his uncle now accuses me, was quite recently stolen from

my charge after the death of Pontianus his brother, who was as much

his superior in character as in years, and that he was fiercely

embittered against myself and his mother through no fault of mine:

that he abandoned his study of the liberal arts and cast off all

restraint, and--thanks to the education afforded him by this

villainous accusation--is more likely to resemble his uncle Aemilianus

than his brother Pontianus.

29. I will now, as I promised, take Aemilianus' ravings one by one,

beginning with that charge which you must have noticed was given the

place of honour in the accuser's speech, as his most effective method

of exciting suspicion against me as a sorcerer, the charge that I had

sought to purchase certain kinds of fish from some fishermen. Which of

these two points is of the slightest value as affording suspicion of

sorcery? That fishermen sought to procure me the fish? Would you have

me entrust such a task to gold-embroiderers or carpenters, and, to

avoid your calumnies, make them change their trades so that the

carpenter would net me the fish, and the fisherman take his place and

hew his timber? Or did you infer that the fish were wanted for evil

purposes because I paid to get them? I presume, if I had wanted them

for a dinner-party, I should have got them for nothing. Why do not you

go farther and accuse me on many similar grounds? I have often bought

wine and vegetables, fruit and bread. The principles laid down by you

would involve the starvation of all purveyors of dainties. Who will

ever venture to purchase food from them, if it be decided that all

provisions for which money is given are wanted not for food but for

sorcery? But if there is nothing in all this that can give rise to

suspicion, neither the payment of the fishermen to ply their usual

trade, to wit, the capture of fish--I may point out that the

prosecution never produced any of these fishermen, who are, as a

matter of fact, wholly creatures of their imagination--nor the

purchase of a common article of sale--the prosecution have never

stated the amount paid, for fear that if they mentioned a small sum,

it would be regarded as trivial, or if they mentioned a large sum it

would fail to win belief,--if, I say, there is no cause for suspicion

on any of these grounds, I would ask Aemilianus to tell me what,

failing these, induced them to accuse me of magic.

30. 'You seek to purchase fish,' says he. I will not deny it. But, I

ask you, is any one who does that a magician? No more, in my opinion,

than if I should seek to purchase hares or boar's flesh or fatted

capons. Or is there something mysterious in fish and fish alone,

hidden from all save sorcerers only? If you know what it is, clearly

you are a magician. If you do not know, you must confess that you are

bringing an accusation of the nature of which you are entirely

ignorant. To think that you should be so ignorant not only of all

literature, but even of popular tales, that you cannot even invent

charges that will have some show of plausibility! For of what use for

the kindling of love is an unfeeling chilly creature like a fish, or

indeed anything else drawn from the sea, unless indeed you propose to

bring forward in support of your lie the legend that Venus was born

from the sea? I beg you to listen to me, Tannonius Pudens, that you

may learn the extent of the ignorance which you have shown by

accepting the possession of a fish as a proof of sorcery. If you had

read your Vergil, you would certainly have known that very different

things are sought for this purpose. He, as far as I recollect,

mentions 'soft garlands' and 'rich herbs and 'male incense' and

'threads of diverse hues', and, in addition to these, 'brittle

laurel,' 'clay to be hardened,' and 'wax to be melted in the fire'.

There are also the objects mentioned by him in a more serious poem.

_Rank herbs are sought, with milky venom dark

By brazen sickles under moonlight mown;

Sought also is that wondrous talisman,

Torn from the forehead of the foal at birth

Ere yet its dam could snatch it._

But you who take such exception to fish attribute far different

instruments to magicians, charms not to be torn from new-born

foreheads, but to be cut from scaly backs; not to be plucked from the

fields of earth, but to be drawn up from the deep fields of ocean; not

to be mowed with sickles, but to be caught on hooks. Finally, when he

is speaking of the black art, Vergil mentions poison, you produce an

_entree_; he mentions herbs and young shoots, you talk of scales and

bones; he crops the meadow, you search the waves. I would also have

quoted for your benefit similar passages from Theocritus with many

others from Homer and Orpheus, from the comic and tragic poets and

from the historians, had I not noticed ere now that you were unable to

read Pudentilla's letter which was written in Greek. I will,

therefore, do no more than cite one Latin poet. Those who have read

Laevius[10] will recognize the lines.

[Footnote 10: MSS. _Laelius_.]

_Love-charms the warlocks seek through all the world:

The 'lover's knot' they try, the magic wheel,

Ribbons and, nails and roots and herbs and shoots,

The two-tailed lizard that draws on to love,[11]

And eke the charm that glads the whinnying mare._

[Footnote 11: _Saurae inlices bicodulae._ Helm, wrongly I think,

places a comma between _saurae_ and _inlices_.]

31. You would have made out a far more plausible case by pretending

that I made use of such things instead of fish, if only you had

possessed the slightest erudition. For the belief in the use of these

things is so widespread that you might have been believed. But of what

use are fish save to be cooked and eaten at meals? In magic they seem

to me to be absolutely useless. I will tell you why I think so. Many

hold Pythagoras to have been a pupil of Zoroaster, and, like him, to

have been skilled in magic. And yet it is recorded that once near

Metapontum, on the shores of Italy, his home, which his influence had

converted into a second Greece, he noticed certain fishermen draw up

their net. He offered to buy whatever it might contain, and after

depositing the price ordered all the fish caught in meshes of the net

to be released and thrown back into the sea. He would assuredly never

have allowed them to slip from his possession had he known them to

possess any valuable magical properties. For being a man of abnormal

learning, and a great admirer of the men of old, he remembered that

Homer, a poet of manifold or, rather I should say, absolute knowledge

of all that may be known, spoke of the power of all the drugs that

earth produces, but made no mention of the sea, when speaking of a

certain witch, he wrote the line:

_All drugs, that wide earth nourishes, she knew._

Similarly in another passage he says:

_Earth the grain-giver

Yields up to her its store of drugs, whereof

Many be healing, mingled in the cup,

And many baneful._

But never in the works of Homer did Proteus anoint his face nor

Ulysses his magic trench, nor Aeolus his windbags, nor Helen her

mixing bowl, nor Circe her cup, nor Venus her girdle, with any charm

drawn from the sea or its inhabitants. You alone within the memory of

man have been found to sweep as it were by some convulsion of nature

all the powers of herbs and roots and young shoots and small pebbles

from their hilltops into the sea, and there confine them in the

entrails of fish. And so whereas sorcerers at their rites used to call

on Mercury the giver of oracles, Venus that lures the soul, the moon

that knows the mystery of the night, and Trivia the mistress of the

shades, you will transfer Neptune, with Salacia and Portumnus and all

the company of Nereids from the cold tides of the sea to the burning

tides of love.

32. I have given my reasons for refusing to believe that magicians and

fish have anything to do with one another. But now, if it please you,

we will assume with Aemilianus that fish are useful for making magical

charms as well as for their usual purposes. But does that prove that

whoever acquires fish is _ipso facto_ a magician? On those lines it

might be urged that whoever acquires a sloop is a pirate, whoever

acquires a crowbar a burglar, whoever acquires a sword an assassin.

You will say that there is nothing in the world, however harmless,

that may not be put to some bad use, nothing so cheerful that it may

not be given a gloomy meaning. And yet we do not on that account put a

bad interpretation on everything, as though, for instance, you should

hold that incense, cassia, myrrh, and similar other scents are

purchased solely for the purpose of funerals; whereas they are also

used for sacrifice and medicine. But on the lines of your argument

you must believe that even the comrades of Menelaus were magicians;

for they, according to the great poet, averted starvation at the isle

of Pharos by their use of curved fish-hooks. Nay, you will class in

the same category of sorcerers seamews, dolphins, and the lobster;

_gourmands_ also, who sink whole fortunes[12] in the sums they pay to

fishermen; and fishermen themselves, who by their art capture all

manner of fish. 'But what do you want fish for?' you insist. I feel

myself under no necessity to tell you, and refuse to do so. But I

challenge you to prove unsupported that I bought them for the purpose

you assert; as though I had bought hellebore or hemlock or opium or

any other of those drugs, the moderate use of which is salutary,

although they are deadly when given with other substances or in too

large quantities. Who would endure it if you made this a ground for

accusing me of being a poisoner, merely because those drugs are

capable of killing a man?

[Footnote 12: _merguntur_ MSS.]

33. However, let us see what these fish were, fish so necessary for my

possession and so hard to find, that they were well worth the price I

paid for their acquisition. They have mentioned no more than three. To

one they gave a false name; as regards the other two they lied. The

name was false, for they asserted that the fish was a sea-hare,

whereas it was quite another fish, which Themison, my servant, who

knows something of medicine, as you heard from his own lips, bought of

his own suggestion for me to inspect. For, as a matter of fact, he has

not as yet ever come across a sea-hare. But I admit that I search for

other kinds of fish as well, and have commissioned not only fishermen

but private friends to search for all the rarest kinds of fish,

begging them either to describe the appearance of the fish or to send

it me, if possible, alive, or, failing that, dead. Why I do so I will

soon make clear. My accusers _lied_--and very cunning they thought

themselves--when they closed their false accusation by pretending that

I had sought for two sea-beasts known by gross names. That fellow

Tannonius wished to indicate the nature of the obscenity, but failed,

matchless pleader that he is, owing to his inability to speak. After

long hesitation he indicated the name of one of them by means of some

clumsy and disgusting circumlocution. The other he found impossible to

describe with decency, and evaded the difficulty by turning to my

works and quoting a certain passage from them in which I described the

attitude of a statue of Venus.

34. He also with that lofty puritanism which characterizes him,

reproached me for not being ashamed to describe foul things in noble

language. I might justly retort on him that, though he openly

professes the study of eloquence, that stammering voice of his often

gives utterance to noble things so basely as to defile them, and that

frequently, when what he has to say presents not the slightest

difficulty, he begins to stutter or even becomes utterly tongue-tied.

Come now! Suppose I had said nothing about the statue of Venus, nor

used the phrase which was of such service to you, what words would you

have found to frame a charge, which is as suited to your stupidity as

to your powers of speech? I ask you, is there anything more idiotic

than the inference that, because the names of two things resemble each

other, the things themselves are identical? Or did you think it a

particularly clever invention on your part to pretend that I had

sought out these two fish for the purpose of using them as magical

charms? Remember that it is as absurd an argument to say that these

sea-creatures with gross names were sought for gross purposes, as to

say that the sea-comb is sought for the adornment of the hair, the

fish named sea-hawk to catch birds, the fish named the little boar for

the hunting of boars, or the sea-skull to raise the dead. My reply to

these lying fabrications, which are as stupid as they are absurd, is

that I have never attempted to acquire these playthings of the sea,

these tiny trifles of the shore, either gratis or for money.

35. Further, I reply that you were quite ignorant of the nature of the

objects which you pretended that I sought to acquire. For these

worthless fish you mention can be found on any shore in heaps and

multitudes, and are cast up on dry land by the merest ripple without

any need for human agency. Why do you not say that at the same time I

commissioned large numbers of fishermen to secure for me at a price

striped sea-shells from the shore, smooth pebbles, crabs' claws,

sea-urchins' husks, the tentacles of cuttlefish, shingle, straws,

cordage, not to mention[13] worm-eaten oyster-shells, moss, and

seaweed, and all the flotsam of the sea that the winds drive, or the

salt wave casts up, or the storm sweeps back, or the calm leaves high

and dry all along our shores? For their names are no less suitable

than those I mentioned above for the purpose of awakening suspicions.

You have said that certain objects drawn from the sea have a certain

value for gross purposes on account of the similarity of their names.

On this analogy why should not a stone be good for diseases of the

bladder, a shell for the making of a will, a crab for a cancer,

seaweed for an ague? Really, Claudius Maximus, in listening to these

appallingly long-winded accusations to their very close you have shown

a patience that is excessive and a kindness which is too

long-suffering. For my part when they uttered these charges of theirs,

as though they were serious and cogent, while I laughed at their

stupidity, I marvelled at your patience.

[Footnote 13: _ne pergam_ (Helm).]

36. However, since he takes so much interest in my affairs, I will now

tell Aemilianus why I have examined so many fishes already and why I

am unwilling to remain in ignorance of some I have not yet seen.

Although he is in the decline of life and suffering from senile decay,

let him, if he will, acquire some learning even at the eleventh hour.

Let him read the works of the philosophers of old, that now at any

rate he may learn that I am not the first ichthyologist, but follow in

the steps of authors, centuries my seniors, such as Aristotle,

Theophrastus, Eudemus, Lycon, and the other successors of Plato, who

have left many books on the generation, life, parts and differences of

animals. It is a good thing, Maximus, that this case is being tried

before a scholar like yourself, who have read Aristotle's numerous

volumes 'on the generation, the anatomy, the history of animals',

together with his numberless 'Problems' and works by others of his

school, treating of various subjects of this kind. If it is an honour

and glory to them that they should have put on record the results of

their careful researches, why should it be disgraceful to me to

attempt the like task, especially since I shall attempt to write on

those subjects both in Greek and Latin and in a more concise and

systematic manner, and shall strive either to make good omissions or

remedy mistakes in all these authors? I beg of you, if you think it

worth while, to permit the reading of extracts from my 'magic' works,

that Aemilianus may learn that my sedulous researches and inquiries

have a wider range than he thinks. Bring a volume of my Greek

works--some of my friends who are interested in questions of natural

history may perhaps have them with them in court--take by preference

one of those dealing with problems of natural philosophy, and from

among those that volume in particular which treats of the race of

fish. While he is looking for the book, I will tell you a story which

has some relevance to this case.

37. The poet Sophocles, the rival and survivor of Euripides--for he

lived to extreme old age--on being accused by his own son of insanity

on the ground that the advance of age had destroyed his wits, is said

to have produced that matchless tragedy, his _Oedipus Coloneus_, on

which he happened to be engaged at the time, and to have read it aloud

to the jury without adding another word in his defence, except that he

bade them without hesitation to condemn him as insane if an old man's

poetry displeased them. At that point--so I have read--the jury rose

to their feet as one man to show their admiration of so great a poet,

and praised him marvellously both for the shrewdness of his argument

and for the eloquence of his tragic verse. And indeed they were not

far off unanimously condemning the accuser as the madman instead.

Have you found the book? Thank you. Let us try now whether what I

write may serve me in good stead in a law-court. Read a few lines at

the beginning, then some details concerning the fish. And do you while

he reads stop the water-clock. (_A passage from the book is read._)

38. You hear, Maximus. You have doubtless frequently read the like in

the works of ancient philosophers. Remember too that these volumes of

mine describe fishes only, distinguishing those that spring from the

union of the sexes from those which are spontaneously generated from

the mud, discussing how often and at what periods of the year the

males and females of each species come together, setting forth the

distinction established by nature between those of them who are

viviparous and those who are oviparous--for thus I translate the

Greek phrases [Greek: zootoka] and [Greek: ootoka]--together with the

causes of this distinction and the organic differences by which it is

characterized, in a word--for I would not weary you by discussing all

the different methods of generation in animals--treating of the

distinguishing marks of species, their various manners of life, the

difference of their members and ages, with many other points necessary

for the man of science but out of place in a law-court. I will ask

that a few of my Latin writings dealing with the same science may be

read, in which you will notice some rare pieces of knowledge and names

but little known to the Romans; indeed they have never been produced

before to-day, but yet, thanks to my toil and study they have been so

translated from the Greek, that in spite of their strangeness they are

none the less of Latin mintage. Do you deny this, Aemilianus? If so,

let your advocates tell me in what Latin author they have ever before

read such words as those which I will cause to be recited to you. I

will mention only aquatic animals, nor will I make any reference to

other animals save in connexion with the characteristics which

distinguish them from aquatic creatures. Listen then to what I say.

You will cry out at me saying that I am giving you a list of magic

names such as are used in Egyptian or Babylonian rites. [Greek:

Selacheia malacheia malakostraka chondrakantha ostrakoderma

karcharodonta amphibia lepidota pholidota dermoptera steganopoda

monere synagelastika]. I might continue the list, but it is not worth

wasting time over such trifles, and I need time to deal with other

charges. Meanwhile read out my translation into Latin of the few names

I have just given you. (_The translation is read. The Latin names are

lost._)

39. What think you? Is it disgraceful for a philosopher who is no rude

and unlearned person of the reckless Cynic type, but who remembers

that he is a disciple of Plato, is it disgraceful for such an one to

know and care for such learning or to be ignorant and indifferent? to

know how far such things reveal the workings of providence, or to

swallow all the tales his father and mother told him of the immortal

gods? Quintus Ennius wrote a poem on dainties: he there enumerates

countless species of fish, which of course he had carefully studied. I

remember a few lines and will recite them:

_Clipea's sea-weasels are of all the best,

For 'mice' the place is Aenus; oysters rough

In greatest plenty from Abydos come.

The sea-comb's found at Mitylene and

Ambracian Charadrus, and I praise

Brundisian sargus: take him, if he's big.

Know that Tarentum's small sea-boar is prime;

The sword-fish at Surrentum thou shouldst buy;

Blue fish at Cumae. What! have I passed by

Scarus? the brain of Jove is not less sweet.

You catch them large and good off Nestor's home.

Have I passed by the black-tail and the 'thrush',

The sea-merle and the shadow of the sea?

Best to Corcyra go for cuttlefish,

For the acarne and the fat sea-skull

The purple-fish, the little murex too,

Mice of the sea and the sea-urchin sweet._

He glorified many fish in other verses, stating where each was to be

found and whether they were best fried or stewed, and yet he is not

blamed for it by the learned. Spare then to blame me, who describe

things known to few under elegant and appropriate names both in Greek

and Latin.

40. Enough of this! I call your attention to another point. What if I

take such interest and possess such skill in medicine as to search for

certain remedies in fish? For assuredly as nature with impartial

munificence has distributed and implanted many remedies throughout all

other created things, so also similar remedies are to be found in

fish. Now, do you think it more the business of a magician than of a

doctor, or indeed of a philosopher, to know and seek out remedies? For

the philosopher will use them not to win money for his purse, but to

give assistance to his fellow men. The doctors of old indeed knew how

to cure wounds by magic song, as Homer, the most reliable of all the

writers of antiquity, tells us, making the blood of Ulysses to be

stayed by a chant as it gushed forth from a wound. Now nothing that is

done to save life can be matter for accusation. 'But,' says my

adversary, 'for what purpose save evil did you dissect the fish

brought you by your servant Themison?' As if I had not told you just

now that I write treatises on the organs of all kind of animals,

describing the place, number and purpose of their various parts,

diligently investigating Aristotle's works on anatomy and adding to

them where necessary. I am, therefore, greatly surprised that you are

only aware of my having inspected one small fish, although I have

actually inspected a very large number under all circumstances

wherever I might find them, and have, moreover, made no secret of my

researches, but conducted them openly before all the world, so that

the merest stranger may, if it please him, stand by and observe me. In

this I follow the instruction of my masters, who assert that a free

man of free spirit should as far as possible wear his thoughts upon

his face. Indeed I actually showed this small fish, which you call a

sea-hare, to many who stood by. I do not yet know what name to call

it[14] without closer research, since in spite of its rarity and most

remarkable characteristics I do not find it described by any of the

ancient philosophers. This fish is, as far as my knowledge extends,

unique in one respect, for it contains twelve bones resembling the

knuckle-bones of a sucking-pig, linked together like a chain in its

belly. Apart from this it is boneless. Had Aristotle known this,

Aristotle who records as a most remarkable phenomenon the fact that

the fish known as the small sea-ass alone of all fishes has its

diminutive heart placed in its stomach, he would assuredly have

mentioned the fact.

[Footnote 14: _vocem_ (Colvius).]

41. 'You dissected a fish,' says he. Who can call this a crime in a

philosopher which would be no crime in a butcher or cook? 'You

dissected a fish.' Perhaps you object to the fact that it was raw. You

would not regard it as criminal if I had explored its stomach and cut

up its delicate liver after it was cooked, as you teach the boy

Sicinius Pudens to do with his own fish at meals. And yet it is a

greater crime for a philosopher to eat fish than to inspect them. Are

augurs to be allowed to explore the livers of victims and may not a

philosopher look at them too, a philosopher who knows that he can draw

omens from every animal, that he is the high-priest of every god? Do

you bring that as a reproach against me which is one of the reasons

for the admiration with which Maximus and myself regard Aristotle?

Unless you drive his works from the libraries and snatch them from the

hands of students you cannot accuse me. But enough! I have said almost

more on this subject than I ought.

See, too, how they contradict themselves. They say that I sought my

wife in marriage with the help of the black art and charms drawn from

the sea at the very time when they acknowledge me to have been in the

midmost mountains of Gaetulia, where, I suppose, Deucalion's deluge

has made it possible to find fish! I am, however, glad that they do

not know that I have read Theophrastus' 'On beasts that bite and

sting' and Nicander 'On the bites of wild animals'; otherwise they

would have accused me of poisoning as well! As a matter of fact I have

acquired a knowledge of these subjects thanks to my reading of

Aristotle and my desire to emulate him. I owe something also to the

advice of my master Plato, who says that those who make such

investigations as these 'pursue a delightful form of amusement which

they will never regret'.

42. Since I have sufficiently cleared up this business of the fish,

listen to another of their inventions equally stupid, but much more

extravagant and far more wicked. They themselves knew that their

argument about the fish was futile and bound to fail. They realized,

moreover, its strange absurdity (for who ever heard of fish being

scaled and boned for dark purposes of magic?), they realized that it

would be better for their fictions to deal with things of more common

report, which have ere now been believed. And so they devised the

following fiction which does at least fall within the limits of

popular credence and rumour. They asserted that I had taken a boy

apart to a secret place with a small altar and a lantern and only a

few accomplices as witnesses, and there so bewitched him with a

magical incantation that he fell in the very spot where I pronounced

the charm, and on being awakened was found to be out of his wits. They

did not dare to go any further with the lie. To complete their story

they should have added that the boy uttered many prophecies. For this

we know is the prize of magical incantations, namely divination and

prophecy. And this miracle in the case of boys is confirmed not only

by vulgar opinion but by the authority of learned men. I remember

reading various relations of the kind in the philosopher Varro, a

writer of the highest learning and erudition, but there was the

following story in particular. Inquiry was being made at Tralles by

means of magic into the probable issue of the Mithridatic war, and a

boy who was gazing at an image of Mercury reflected in a bowl of water

foretold the future in a hundred and sixty lines of verse. He records

also that Fabius, having lost five hundred denarii, came to consult

Nigidius; the latter by means of incantations inspired certain boys so

that they were able to indicate to him where a pot containing a

certain portion of the money had been hidden in the ground, and how

the remainder had been dispersed, one denarius having found its way

into the possession of Marcus Cato the philosopher. This coin Cato

acknowledged he had received from a certain lackey as a contribution

to the treasury of Apollo.

43. I have read this and the like concerning boys and art-magic in

several authors, but I am in doubt whether to admit the truth of such

stories or no, although I believe Plato when he asserts that there are

certain divine powers holding a position and possessing a character

midway between gods and men, and that all divination and the miracles

of magicians are controlled by them. Moreover it is my own personal

opinion that the human soul, especially when it is young and

unsophisticated, may by the allurement of music or the soothing

influence of sweet smells be lulled into slumber and banished into

oblivion of its surroundings so that, as all consciousness of the body

fades from the memory, it returns and is reduced to its primal nature,

which is in truth immortal and divine; and thus, as it were in a kind

of slumber, it may predict the future. But howsoever these things may

be, if any faith is to be put in them, the prophetic boy must, as far

as I can understand, be fair and unblemished in body, shrewd of wit

and ready of speech, so that a worthy and fair shrine may be provided

for the divine indwelling power--if indeed such a power does enter

into the boy's body--or that the boy's mind when wakened may quickly

apply itself to its inherent powers of divination, find them ready to

its use and reproduce their promptings undulled and unimpaired by any

loss of memory. For, as Pythagoras said, not every kind of wood is fit

to be carved into the likeness of Mercury. If that be so, tell me who

was that healthy, unblemished, intelligent, handsome boy whom I deemed

worthy of initiation into such mysteries by the power of my spells. As

a matter of fact, Thallus, whom you mentioned, needs a doctor rather

than a magician. For the poor wretch is such a victim to epilepsy that

he frequently has fits twice or thrice in one day without the need for

any incantations, and exhausts all his limbs with his convulsions. His

face is ulcerous, his head bruised in front and behind, his eyes are

dull, his nostrils distended, his feet stumbling. He may claim to be

the greatest of magicians in whose presence Thallus has remained for

any considerable time upon his feet. For he is continually lying

down, either a seizure or mere weariness[15] causing him to collapse.

[Footnote 15: _seu_ (Casaubon).]

44. Yet you say that it is my incantations that have overwhelmed him,

simply because he has once chanced to have a fit in my presence. Many

of his fellow servants, whose appearance as witnesses you have

demanded, are present in court. They all can tell you why it is they

spit upon Thallus, and why no one ventures to eat from the same dish

with him or to drink from the same cup. But why do I speak of these

slaves? You yourselves have eyes. Deny then, if you dare, that Thallus

used to have fits of epilepsy long before I came to Oea, or that has

frequently been shown to doctors. Let his fellow slaves who are in

your service deny this: I will confess myself guilty of everything, if

he has not long since been sent away into the country, far from the

sight of all of them, to a distant farm, for fear he should infect the

rest of the household. They cannot deny this to be the fact. For the

same reason it is impossible for us to produce him here to-day. The

whole of this accusation has been reckless and sudden, and it was only

the day before yesterday that Aemilianus demanded that we should

produce fifteen slaves before you. The fourteen living in the town are

present to-day. Thallus only is absent owing to the fact that he has

been banished to a place some hundred miles distant. However, we have

sent a man to bring him here in a carriage. I ask you, Maximus, to

question these fourteen slaves whom we have produced as to where the

boy Thallus is and what is the state of his health; I ask you to

question my accuser's slaves. They will not deny that this boy is of

revolting appearance, that his body is rotten through and through with

disease, that he is liable to fits, and is a barbarian and a

clodhopper. This is indeed a handsome boy whom you have selected as

one who might fairly be produced at the offering of sacrifice, whom

one might touch upon the head and clothe in a fair white cloak in

expectation of some prophetic reply from his lips. I only wish he were

present. I would have entrusted him to your tender mercies,

Aemilianus, and would be ready to hold him myself that you might

question him. Here in open court before the judges he would have

rolled his wild eyes upon you, he would have foamed at the mouth, spat

in your face, drawn in his hands convulsively, shaken his head and

fallen at last in a fit into your arms.

45. Here are fourteen slaves whom you bade me produce in court. Why do

you refuse to question them? You want one epileptic boy who, you know

as well as I, has long been absent from Oea. What clearer evidence of

the falseness of your accusations could be desired? Fourteen slaves

are present, as you required; you ignore them. One young boy is

absent: you concentrate your attack on him. What is it that you want?

Suppose Thallus were present. Do you want to prove that he had a fit

in my presence? Why, I myself admit it. You say that this was the

result of incantation. I answer that the boy knows nothing about it,

and that I can prove that it was not so. Even you will not deny that

Thallus was epileptic. Why then attribute his fall to magic rather

than disease? Was there anything improbable in his suffering that fate

in _my_ presence, which he has often suffered on other occasions in

the presence of a number of persons? Nay, even supposing I had thought

it a great achievement to cast an epileptic into a fit, why should I

use charms when, as I am told by writers on natural history, the

burning of the stone named _gagates_ is an equally sure and easy proof

of the disease? For its scent is commonly used as a test of the

soundness or infirmity of slaves even in the slave-market. Again, the

spinning of a potter's wheel will easily infect a man suffering from

this disease with its own giddiness. For the sight of its rotations

weakens his already feeble mind, and the potter is far more effective

than the magician for casting epileptics into convulsions. You had no

reason for demanding that I should produce these slaves. I have good

reason for asking you to name those who witnessed that guilty ritual

when I cast the moribund Thallus into one of his fits. The only

witness you mention is that worthless boy, Sicinius Pudens, in whose

name you accuse me. He says that he was present. His extreme youth is

no reason why we should reject his sworn evidence, but the fact that

he is one of my accusers _does_ detract from his credibility. It would

have been easier for you, Aemilianus, and your evidence would have

carried much more weight, had you said that you were present at the

rite and had been mad ever since, instead of entrusting the whole

business to the evidence of boys as though it were a mere joke. A boy

had a fit, a boy saw him. Was it also some boy that bewitched him?

46. At this point Tannonius Pudens, like the old hand he is, saw that

this lie also was falling flat and was doomed to failure by the frowns

and murmurs of the audience, and so, in order to check the suspicions

of some of them by kindling fresh expectations, he said that he would

produce other boys as well whom I had similarly bewitched. He thus

passed to another line of accusation. I might ignore it, but I will go

out of my way to challenge it as I have done with all the rest. I want

those boys to be produced. I hear they have been bribed by the promise

of their liberty to perjure themselves. But I say no more. Only

produce them. I demand and insist, Tannonius Pudens, that you should

fulfil your promise. Bring forward those boys in whose evidence you

put your trust; produce them, name them. You may use the time allotted

to my speech for the purpose. Speak, I say, Tannonius. Why are you

silent? Why do you hesitate? Why look round? If _he_ does not remember

his instructions, or has forgotten his witnesses' names, do you at any

rate, Aemilianus, come forward and tell us what instructions you gave

your advocate, and produce those boys. Why do you turn pale? Why are

you silent? Is this the way to bring an accusation? Is this the way

to indict a man on so serious a charge? Is it not rather an insult to

so distinguished a citizen as Claudius Maximus, and a false and

slanderous persecution of myself? However, if your representative has

made a slip in his speech, and there are no such boys to produce, at

any rate make some use of the fourteen whom I have brought into court.

If you refuse, why did you demand the appearance of such a housefull?

47. You have demanded fifteen slaves to support an accusation of

magic; how many would you be demanding if it were a charge of

violence? The inference is that fifteen slaves know something, and

that something is still a mystery. Or is it nothing mysterious and yet

something connected with magic? You must admit one of these two

alternatives: either the proceeding to which I admitted so many

witnesses had nothing improper about it, or, if it had, it should not

have been witnessed by so many. Now this magic of which you accuse me

is, I am told, a crime in the eyes of the law, and was forbidden in

remote antiquity by the Twelve Tables because in some incredible

manner crops had been charmed away from one field to another. It is

then as mysterious an art as it is loathly and horrible; it needs as a

rule night-watches and concealing darkness, solitude absolute and

murmured incantations, to hear which few free men are admitted, not to

speak of slaves. And yet you will have it that there were fifteen

slaves present on this occasion. Was it a marriage? or any other

crowded ceremony? or a seasonable banquet? Fifteen slaves take part

in a magic rite as though they had been created _quindecimvirs_ for

the performance of sacrifice! Is it likely that I should have

permitted so large a number to be present on such an occasion, if they

were too many to be accomplices? Fifteen free men form a borough,

fifteen slaves a household, fifteen fettered serfs a chain-gang. Did I

need such a crowd to help me by holding the lustral victims during the

lengthy rite? No! the only victims you mentioned were hens! Were they

to count the grains of incense? or to knock Thallus down?

48. You assert also that by promising to heal her I inveigled to my

house a free woman who suffered from the same disease as Thallus; that

she, too, fell senseless as a result of my incantations. It appears to

me that you are accusing a wrestler not a magician, since you say that

all who visited me had a fall. And yet Themison, who is a physician

and who brought the woman for my inspection, denied, when you asked

him, Maximus, that I had done anything to the woman other than ask her

whether she heard noises in her ears, and if so, which ear suffered

most. He added that she departed immediately after telling me that her

right ear was most troubled in that way. At this point, Maximus,

although I have for the present been careful to abstain from praising

you, lest I should seem to have flattered you with an eye to winning

my case, yet I cannot help praising you for the astuteness of your

questions. After they had spent much time in discussing these points

and asserting that I had bewitched the woman, and after the doctor who

was present on that occasion had denied that I had done so, you, with

shrewdness more than human, asked them what profit I derived from my

incantations. They replied, 'The woman had a fit.' 'What then?' you

asked, 'Did she die?' 'No,' said they. 'What is your point then? How

did the fact of her having a fit profit Apuleius?' That third question

showed brilliant penetration and persistence. You knew that it was

necessary to submit all facts to stringent examination of their

causes, that often facts are admitted while motives remain to seek,

and that the representatives of litigants are called pleaders of

_causes_, because they set forth the causes of each particular act. To

deny a fact is easy and needs no advocate, but it is far more arduous

and difficult a task to demonstrate the rightness or wrongness of a

given action. It is waste of time, therefore, to inquire whether a

thing was done, when, even if it were done, no evil motive can be

alleged. Under such circumstances, if no criminal motive is

forthcoming, a good judge releases the accused from all further

vexatious inquiry. So now, since they have not proved that I either

bewitched the woman or caused her to have a fit, I for my part will

not deny that I examined her at the request of a physician; and I will

tell you, Maximus, why I asked her if she had noises in her ears. I

will do this not so much to clear myself of the charge which you,

Maximus, have already decided to involve neither blame nor guilt, as

to impart to you something worthy of your hearing and interesting to

one of your erudition. I will tell you in as few words as possible. I

have only to call your attention to certain facts. To instruct you

would be presumption.

49. The philosopher Plato, in his glorious work, the _Timaeus_, sets

forth with more than mortal eloquence the constitution of the whole

universe. After discoursing with great insight on the three powers

that make up man's soul, and showing with the utmost clearness the

divine purpose that shaped our various members, he treats of the

causes of all diseases under three heads. The first cause lies in the

elements of the body, when the actual qualities of those elements,

moisture and cold and their two opposites, fail to harmonize. That

comes to pass when one of these elements assumes undue proportions or

moves from its proper place. The second cause of disease lies in the

vitiation of those components of the body which, though formed out of

the simple elements, have coalesced in such a manner as to have a

specific character of their own, such as blood, entrails, bone,

marrow, and the various substances made from the blending of each of

these. Thirdly, the concretion in the body of various juices, turbid

vapours, and dense humours is the last provocative of sickness.

50. Of these causes that which contributes most to epilepsy, the

disease of which I set out to speak, is a condition when the flesh is

so melted by the noxious influence of fire as to form a thick and

foaming humour. This generates a vapour, and the heat of the air thus

compressed within the body causes a white and eruptive ferment. If

this ferment succeeds in escaping from the body, it is dispersed in a

manner that is repulsive rather than dangerous. For it causes an

eczema to break out upon the surface of the skin of the breast and

mottles it with all kinds of blotches. But the person to whom this

happens is never again attacked with epilepsy, and so he rids himself

of a most sore disease of the spirit at the price of a slight

disfigurement of the body. But if, on the other hand, this dangerous

corruption[16] be contained within the body and mingle with the black

bile, and so run fiercely through every vein, and then working its way

upwards to the head flood the brain with its destructive stream, it

straightway weakens that royal part of man's spirit which is endowed

with the power of reason and is enthroned in the head of man, that is

its citadel and palace. For it overwhelms and throws into confusion

those channels of divinity and paths of wisdom. During sleep it makes

less havoc, but when men are full of meat and wine it makes its

presence somewhat unpleasantly felt by a choking sensation, the herald

of epilepsy. But if it reaches such strength as to attack the heads of

men when they are wide awake, then their minds grow dull with a sudden

cloud of stupefaction and they fall to the ground, their bodies

swooning as in death, their spirit fainting within them. Men of our

race have styled it not only the 'Great sickness' and the 'Comitial

sickness', but also the 'Divine sickness', in this resembling the

Greeks, who call it [Greek: hiera nosos], the holy sickness. The name

is just; for this sickness does outrage to the rational part of the

soul, which is by far the most holy.

[Footnote 16: _putredo_ (conj. Helm).]

51. You recognize, Maximus, the theory of Plato, as far as I have been

able to give it a lucid explanation in the time at my disposal. I put

my trust in him when he says that the cause of epilepsy is the

overflowing of this pestilential humour into the head. My inquiry

therefore was, I think, reasonable when I asked the woman whether her

head felt heavy, her neck numb, her temples throbbing, her ears full

of noises. The fact that she acknowledged these noises to be more

frequent in her right ear was proof that the disease had gone home.

For the right-hand organs of the body are the strongest, and therefore

their infection with the disease leaves small hope of recovery. Indeed

Aristotle has left it on record in his _Problems_ that whenever in the

case of epileptics the disease begins on the right side, their cure is

very difficult. It would be tedious were I to repeat the opinion of

Theophrastus also on the subject of epilepsy. For he has left a most

excellent treatise on convulsions. He asserts, however, in another

book on the subject of animals ill-disposed towards mankind, that the

skins of newts--which like other reptiles they shed at fixed intervals

for the renewal of their youth--form a remedy for fits. But unless you

snatch up the skin as soon as it be shed, they straightway turn upon

it and devour it, whether from a malign foreknowledge of its value to

men or from a natural taste for it. I have mentioned these things, I

have been careful to quote the arguments of renowned philosophers, and

to mention the books where they are to be found, and have avoided any

reference to the works of physicians or poets, that my adversaries may

cease to wonder that philosophers have learnt the causes of remedies

and diseases in the natural course of their researches. Well then,

since this woman was brought to be examined by me in the hope that she

might be cured, and since it is clear both from the evidence of the

physician who brought her and from the arguments I have just set forth

that such a course was perfectly right, my opponents must needs assert

that it is the part of a magician and evildoer to heal disease, or, if

they do not dare to say that, must confess that their accusations in

regard to this epileptic boy and woman are false, absurd, and indeed

epileptic.

52. Yes, Aemilianus, if you would hear the truth, _you_ are the real

sufferer from the falling sickness, so often have your false

accusations failed and cast you helpless to the ground. Bodily

collapse is no worse than intellectual, and it is as important to keep

one's head as to keep one's feet, while it is as unpleasant to be

loathed by this distinguished gathering as to be spat upon in one's

own chamber. But you perhaps think yourself sane because you are not

confined within doors, but follow the promptings of your madness

whithersoever it lead you: and yet compare your frenzy with that of

Thallus; you will find that there is but little to choose between

you, save that Thallus confines his frenzy to himself, while you

direct yours against others; Thallus distorts his eyes, you distort

the truth; Thallus contracts his hands convulsively, you not less

convulsively contract with your advocates; Thallus dashes himself

against the pavement, you dash yourself against the judgement-seat. In

a word, whatever he does, he does in his sickness erring

unconsciously; but you, wretch, commit your crimes with full knowledge

and with your eyes open, such is the vehemence of the disease that

inspires your actions. You bring false accusations as though they were

true; you charge men with doing what has never been done; though a

man's innocence be clear to you as daylight, you denounce him as

though he were guilty.

53. Nay, further, though I had almost forgotten to mention it, there

are certain things of which you confess your ignorance, and which

nevertheless you make material for accusation as though you knew all

about them. You assert that I kept something mysterious wrapped up in

a handkerchief among the household gods in the house of Pontianus. You

confess your ignorance as to what may have been the nature or

appearance of this object; you further admit that no one ever saw it,

and yet you assert that it was some instrument of magic. You are not

to be congratulated on this method of procedure. Your accusation

reveals no shrewdness, and has not even the merit of impudence. Do not

think so for a moment. No! it shows naught save the ill-starred

madness of an embittered spirit and the pitiable fury of cantankerous

old age. The words you used in the presence of so grave and

perspicacious a judge amounted to something very like this. 'Apuleius

kept certain things wrapped in a cloth among the household gods in the

house of Pontianus. Since I do not know what they were, I therefore

argue that they were magical. I beg you to believe what I say, because

I am talking of that of which I know nothing.' What a wonderful

argument, in itself an obvious refutation of the charge. 'It must have

been this, because I do not know what it was.' You are the only person

hitherto discovered who knows that which he does not know. You so far

surpass all others in folly, that whereas philosophers of the most

keen and penetrating intellect assert that we should not trust even

the objects that we see, you make statements about things which you

have never seen or heard. If Pontianus still lived and you were to ask

him what the cloth contained, he would reply that he did not know.

There is the freedman who still has charge of the keys of the place;

he is one of your witnesses, but he says that he has never examined

these objects, although, as the servant responsible for the books kept

there, he opened and shut the doors almost daily, continually entered

the room, not seldom in my company but more often alone, and saw the

cloth lying on the table unprotected by seal or cord. Quite natural,

was it not? Magical objects were concealed in the cloth, and for that

reason I took little care for its safe custody, but left it about

anyhow for any one to examine and inspect, if he liked, or even to

carry it away! I entrusted it to the custody of others, I left it to

others to dispose of at their pleasure! What credence do you expect us

to give you after this? Are we to believe that you, on whom I have

never set eyes save in this court, know that of which Pontianus, who

actually lived under the same roof, was ignorant? or shall we believe

that you, who have never so much as approached the room where they

were placed, have seen what the freedman never saw, although he had

every opportunity to inspect them during the sedulous performance of

his duties? In a word, that which you never saw must have been what

you assert it to have been! And yet, you fool, if this very day you

had succeeded in getting that handkerchief into your hands, I should

deny the magical nature of whatever you might produce from it.

54. I give you full leave; invent what you like, rack your memory and

your imagination to discover something that might conceivably seem to

be of a magical nature. Even then, should you succeed in so doing, I

should argue the point with you. I should say that the object in

question had been substituted by you for the original, or that it had

been given as a remedy, or that it was a sacred emblem that had been

placed in my keeping, or that a vision had bidden me to carry it thus.

There are a thousand other ways in which I might refute you with

perfect truth and without giving any explanation which is abnormal or

lies outside the limits of common observation. You are now demanding

that a circumstance, which, even if it were proved up to the hilt,

would not prejudice me in the eyes of a good judge, should be fatal to

me when, as it is, it rests on vague suspicion, uncertainty, and

ignorance. You will perhaps, as is your wont, say, 'What, then, was it

that you wrapped in a linen cloth and were so careful to deposit with

the household gods?' Really, Aemilianus! is this the way you accuse

your victims? You produce no definite evidence yourself, but ask the

accused for explanations of everything. 'Why do you search for fish?

Why did you examine a sick woman? What had you hidden in your

handkerchief?' Did you come here to accuse me or to ask me questions?

If to accuse me, prove your charges yourself; if to ask questions, do

not anticipate the truth by expressing opinions on that concerning

which your ignorance compels you to inquire. If this precedent be

followed, if there is no necessity for the accuser to prove anything,

but on the contrary he is given every facility for asking questions of

the accused, there is not a man in all the world but will be indicted

on some charge or other. In fact, everything that he has ever done

will be used as a handle against any man who is charged with sorcery.

Have you written a petition on the thigh of some statue? You are a

sorcerer! Else why did you write it? Have you breathed silent prayers

to heaven in some temple? You are a sorcerer! Else tell us what you

asked for? Or take the contrary line. You uttered no prayer in some

temple! You are a sorcerer! Else why did you not ask the gods for

something? The same argument will be used if you have made some votive

dedication, or offered sacrifice, or carried sprigs of some sacred

plant. The day will fail me if I attempt to go through all the

different circumstances of which, on these lines, the false accuser

will demand an explanation. Above all, whatever object he has kept

concealed or stored under lock and key at home will be asserted by the

same argument to be of a magical nature, or will be dragged from its

cupboard into the light of the law-court before the seat of judgement.

55. I might discourse at greater length on the nature and importance

of such accusations, on the wide range for slander that this path

opens for Aemilianus, on the floods of perspiration that this one poor

handkerchief, contrary to its natural duty, will cause his innocent

victims! But I will follow the course I have already pursued. I will

acknowledge what there is no necessity for me to acknowledge, and will

answer Aemilianus' questions. You ask, Aemilianus, what I had in that

handkerchief. Although I might deny that I had deposited any

handkerchief of mine in Pontianus' library, or even admitting that it

was true enough that I did so deposit it, I might still deny that

there was anything wrapped up in it. If I should take this line, you

have no evidence or argument whereby to refute me, for there is no one

who has ever handled it, and only one freedman, according to your own

assertion, who has ever seen it. Still, as far as I am concerned I

will admit the cloth to have been full to bursting. Imagine yourself,

please, to be on the brink of a great discovery, like the comrades of

Ulysses who thought they had found a treasure when they stole the bag

that contained all the winds. Would you like me to tell you what I had

wrapped up in a handkerchief and entrusted to the care of Pontianus'

household gods? You shall have your will. I have been initiated into

various of the Greek mysteries, and preserve with the utmost care

certain emblems and mementoes of my initiation with which the priests

presented me. There is nothing abnormal or unheard of in this. Those

of you here present who have been initiated into the mysteries of

father Liber alone, know what you keep hidden at home, safe from all

profane touch and the object of your silent veneration. But I, as I

have said, moved by my religious fervour and my desire to know the

truth, have learned mysteries of many a kind, rites in great number,

and diverse ceremonies. This is no invention on the spur of the

moment; nearly three years since, in a public discourse on the

greatness of Aesculapius delivered by me during the first days of my

residence at Oea, I made the same boast and recounted the number of

the mysteries I knew. That discourse was thronged, has been read far

and wide, is in all men's hands, and has won the affections of the

pious inhabitants of Oea not so much through any eloquence of mine as

because it treats of Aesculapius. Will any one, who chances to

remember it, repeat the beginning of that particular passage in my

discourse? You hear, Maximus, how many voices supply the words. I will

order this same passage to be read aloud, since by the courteous

expression of your face you show that you will not be displeased to

hear it. (_The passage is read aloud._)

56. Can any one, who has the least remembrance of the nature of

religious rites, be surprised that one who has been initiated into so

many holy mysteries should preserve at home certain talismans

associated with these ceremonies, and should wrap them in a linen

cloth, the purest of coverings for holy things? For wool, produced by

the most stolid of creatures and stripped from the sheep's back, the

followers of Orpheus and Pythagoras are for that very reason forbidden

to wear as being unholy and unclean. But flax, the purest of all

growths and among the best of all the fruits of the earth, is used by

the holy priests of Egypt, not only for clothing and raiment, but as a

veil for sacred things. And yet I know that some persons, among them

that fellow Aemilianus, think it a good jest to mock at things divine.

For I learn from certain men of Oea who know him, that to this day he

has never prayed to any god or frequented any temple, while if he

chances to pass any shrine, he regards it as a crime to raise his hand

to his lips in token of reverence. He has never given firstfruits of

crops or vines or flocks to any of the gods of the farmer, who feed

him and clothe him; his farm holds no shrine, no holy place, nor

grove. But why do I speak of groves or shrines? Those who have been on

his property say they never saw there one stone where offering of oil

has been made, one bough where wreaths have been hung. As a result,

two nicknames have been given him: he is called Charon, as I have

said, on account of his truculence of spirit and of countenance, but

he is also--and this is the name he prefers--called Mezentius, because

he despises the gods. I therefore find it the easier to understand

that he should regard my list of initiations in the light of a jest.

It is even possible that, thanks to his rejection of things divine, he

may be unable to induce himself to believe that it is true that I

guard so reverently so many emblems and relics of mysterious rites. I

care not a straw what Mezentius may think of me; but to others I make

this announcement clearly and unshrinkingly. If any of you that are

here present had any part with me in these same solemn ceremonies,

give a sign and you shall hear what it is I keep thus. For no thought

of personal safety shall induce me to reveal to the uninitiated the

secrets that I have received and sworn to conceal.

57. I have, I think, Maximus, said enough to satisfy the most

prejudiced of men and, as far as the handkerchief is concerned, have

cleared myself of every speck of guilt. I shall run no risk in passing

from the suspicions of Aemilianus to the evidence of Crassus, which my

accusers read out next as if it were of the utmost importance. You

heard them read from a written deposition, the evidence of a gorging

brute, a hopeless glutton, named Junius Crassus, that I performed

certain nocturnal rites at his house in company with my friend Appius

Quintianus, who had taken lodgings there. This, mark you, Crassus says

that he discovered (in spite of the fact that he was as far away as

Alexandria at the time!) from finding the feathers of birds and traces

of the smoke of a torch. I suppose that while he was enjoying a round

of festivities at Alexandria--for Crassus is one who is ready even to

encroach upon the daylight with his gluttonies--I suppose, I say, that

there from his reeking tavern he espied, with eye keen as any

fowler's, feathers of birds wafted towards him from his house, and saw

the smoke of his home rising far off from his ancestral roof-tree. If

he saw this with his eyes, he saw even further than Ulysses prayed and

yearned to see. For Ulysses spent years in gazing vainly from the

shore to see the smoke rising from his home, while Crassus during a

few months' absence from home succeeded, without the least difficulty,

in seeing this same smoke as he sat in a wine-shop! If, on the other

hand, it was his nose discerned the smoke, he surpasses hounds and

vultures in the keenness of his sense of smell. For what hound, what

vulture hovering in the Alexandrian sky, could sniff out anything so

far distant as Oea? Crassus is, I admit, a _gourmand_ of the first

order, and an expert in all the varied flavours of kitchen-smoke, but

in view of his love of drinking, his only real title to fame, it would

have been easier for the fumes of his wine, rather than the fumes of

his chimney, to reach him at Alexandria.

58. Even he saw that this would pass belief. For he is said to have

sold this evidence before eight in the morning while he was still

fasting from food and drink! And so he wrote that he had made his

discovery in the following manner. On his return from Alexandria he

went straight to his house, which Quintianus had by this time left.

There in the entrance-hall he came across a large quantity of birds'

feathers: the walls, moreover, were blackened with soot. He asked the

reason of this from the slave whom he had left at Oea, and the latter

informed him of the nocturnal rites carried out by myself and

Quintianus. What an ingenious lie! What a probable invention! That I,

had I wished to do anything of the sort, should have done it there

rather than in my own house! That Quintianus, who is supporting me

here to-day, and whom I mention with the greatest respect and honour

for the close love that binds him to me, for his deep erudition and

consummate eloquence, that this same Quintianus, supposing him to have

dined off some birds or, as they assert, killed them for magical

purposes, should have had no slave to sweep up the feathers and throw

them out of doors! Or further that the smoke should have been strong

enough to blacken the walls and that Quintianus should have suffered

such defacement of the room in which he slept, while it was still in

his occupation! Nonsense, Aemilianus! There is no probability in the

story, unless indeed Crassus on his return went not to the bedroom,

but after his fashion made straight for the kitchen. And what made

his slave suspect that the walls had been blackened by night in

particular? Was it the colour of the smoke? Does night smoke differ

from day smoke in being darker? And why did so suspicious and

conscientious a slave allow Quintianus to leave the house before

having it cleaned? Why did those feathers lie like lead and await the

arrival of Crassus for so long? Let not Crassus accuse his slave. It

is much more likely that he himself fabricated this mendacious

nonsense about feathers and soot, being unable even in his evidence to

divorce himself further from his kitchen.

59. And why did you read out this evidence from a written deposition?

Where in the world is Crassus? Has he returned to Alexandria out of

disgust at the state of his house? Is he washing his walls? or, as is

more likely, is the glutton feeling ill after his debauch? I myself

saw him yesterday here at Sabrata hiccoughing in your face,

Aemilianus, in the most conspicuous manner in the middle of the

market-place. Pray, Maximus, ask your slaves whose duty it is to keep

you informed of people's names--although, I admit, Crassus is better

known to the keepers of taverns--yet ask them, I say, whether they

have ever seen Junius Crassus, a citizen of Oea, in this place. They

will answer 'yes'. Let Aemilianus then produce this most admirable

young man on whose testimony he relies. You notice the time of day. I

tell you that Crassus has long since been snoring in a drunken slumber

or has taken a second bathe and is now evaporating the sweat of

intoxication at the bath that he may be equal to a fresh drinking bout

after supper. He presents himself in writing only. That is the way he

speaks to you, Maximus. Even he is not so dead to sense of shame as to

be able to lie to your face without a blush. But there is perhaps

another reason for his absence. He may have been unable to abstain

from the wine-cup[17] sufficiently long to keep sober against this

moment; or it may be that Aemilianus took good care not to subject him

to your severe and searching gaze, lest you should damn the brute with

his close-shaven cheeks and his disgusting appearance by a mere glance

at his face, when you saw a young man with his features stripped of

the beard and hair that should adorn them, his eyes heavy with wine,

his lids swollen, his broad[18] grin, his slobbering lips, his harsh

voice, his trembling hands, his breath[19] reeking of the cook-shop.

He has long since devoured his fortune; nothing is left him of his

patrimony save a house that serves him for the sale of his false

witness, and never did he make a more remunerative contract than he

has done with regard to this evidence he offers to-day. For he sold

Aemilianus his drunken fictions for 3,000 sesterces, as every one at

Oea is aware.

[Footnote 17: _a bria_ (Hildebrand).]

[Footnote 18: _rictum diductum_ (Jahn).]

[Footnote 19: _ructus popinam_ (Pricaeus).]

60. We all knew of this before it actually took place. I might have

prevented the transaction by denouncing it, but I knew that so foolish

a lie would be prejudicial to Aemilianus, who wasted his money to

secure it, rather than to myself, who treated it with the contempt it

deserved. I wished not only that Aemilianus should lose his money, but

that Crassus should have his reputation ruined by his disgraceful

perjury. It was but the day before yesterday that the transaction took

place in the most open manner at the house of Rufinus, of whom I shall

soon have something to say. Rufinus and Calpurnianus acted as

middlemen and arranged the bargain.[20] The former carried out the

task with all the more readiness because he was certain that his wife,

at whose misconduct he knowingly connives, would be sure to recover

from Crassus a large proportion of his fee for perjury. I noticed that

you also, Maximus, suspected with your usual acuteness that they, as

soon as this written evidence was produced, had formed a league and

conspiracy against me; and I saw from your face that the whole affair

excited your disgust. Finally my accusers, in spite of their being

paragons of audacity and monsters of shamelessness, did not dare to

read out Crassus' evidence in full or to build anything upon it; for

they saw that at the mention of his name you smelt a rat. I have

mentioned these facts not because I am afraid of these dreadful

feathers and stains of soot--least of all with you to judge me--but

that Crassus might meet with due punishment for having sold mere smoke

to a helpless rustic like Aemilianus.

[Footnote 20: _depectoribus_ (Kronenberg).]

61. Their next[21] charge concerns the manufacture of a seal which

they produced when they read Pudentilla's letters. This seal, they

assert, I had fashioned of the rarest wood by some secret process for

purposes of the black art. They add that, although it is loathly and

horrible to look upon, being in the form of a skeleton, I yet give it

especial honour and call it in the Greek tongue, [Greek: basileus], my

king. I think I am right in saying that I am following the various

stages of their accusation in due order and reconstructing the whole

fabric of their slander detail by detail.

[Footnote 21: _inde_ (Acidalius).]

Now how can the manufacture of this seal have been secret, as you

assert, when you are sufficiently well acquainted with the maker to

have summoned him to appear in court? Here is Cornelius Saturninus,

the artist, a man whose skill is famous among his townsfolk and whose

character is above reproach. A little while back, in answer, Maximus,

to your careful cross-examination, he explained the whole sequence of

events in the most convincing and truthful manner. He said that I

visited his shop and, after looking at many geometrical patterns all

carved out of boxwood in the most cunning and ingenious manner, was so

much attracted by his skill that I asked him to make me certain

mechanical devices and also begged him to make me the image of some

god to which I might pray after my custom. The particular god and the

precise material I left to his choice, my only stipulation being that

it should be made of wood. He therefore first attempted to work in

boxwood. Meanwhile, during my absence in the country, Sicinius

Pontianus, my step-son, wishing to gratify me,[22] procured some ebony

tablets from that excellent lady Capitolina and brought them to his

shop, exhorting him to make what I had ordered out of this rarer and

more durable material: such a gift, he said, would be most gratifying

to me. Our artist did as Pontianus suggested, as far as the size of

the ebony tablets permitted. By careful dove-tailing of minute

portions of the tablets he succeeded in making a small figure of

Mercury.

[Footnote 22: _gratum factum_ (Van der Vliet).]

62. You heard all the evidence just as I repeat it. Moreover it

receives exact confirmation from the answers given to you in

cross-examination by Capitolina's son, a youth of the most excellent

character, who is here in court to-day. He said that Pontianus asked

for the tablets, that Pontianus took them to the artist Saturninus.

Nor does he deny that Pontianus received the completed signet from

Saturninus and afterwards gave it me. All these things have been

openly and manifestly proved. What remains, in which any suspicion of

sorcery can lie concealed? Nay, what is there that does not absolutely

convict you of obvious falsehood? You said that the seal was of secret

manufacture, whereas Pontianus, a distinguished member of the

equestrian order, gave the commission for it. The figure was carved in

public by Saturninus as he sat in his shop. He is a man of sterling

character and recognized honesty. The work was assisted by the

munificence of a distinguished married lady, and many both among the

slaves and the acquaintances who frequented my house were aware both

of the commission for the work and its execution. You were not ashamed

falsely to pretend that I had searched high and low for the requisite

wood through all the town, although you know that I was absent from

Oea at that time, and although it has been proved that I gave a free

hand as to the material.

63. Your third lie was that the figure which was made was the lean,

eviscerated frame of a gruesome corpse, utterly horrible and ghastly

as any goblin. If you had discovered such definite proof of my

sorceries, why did you not insist on my producing it in court? Was it

that you might have complete freedom for inventing lies in the absence

of the subject of your slanders? If so, the opportunity afforded you

for mendacity has been lost you, thanks to a certain habit of mine

which comes in most opportunely. It is my wont wherever I go to carry

with me the image of some god hidden among my books and to pray to him

on feast days with offerings of incense and wine and sometimes even of

victims. When, therefore, I heard persistent though outrageously

mendacious assertions that the figure I carried was that of a

skeleton, I ordered some one to go and bring from my house my little

image of Mercury, the same that Saturninus had made for me at Oea. You

there, give it them! Let them see it, hold it, examine it. There you

see the image which that scoundrel called a skeleton. Do you hear

these cries of protest that arise from all present? Do you hear the

condemnation of your lie? Are you not at last ashamed of all your

slanders? Is this a skeleton, this a goblin, is this the familiar

spirit you asserted it to be? Is this a magic symbol or one that is

common and ordinary? Take it, I beg you, Maximus, and examine it. It

is good that a holy thing should be entrusted to hands as pure and

pious as yours. See there, how fair it is to view, how full of all a

wrestler's grace and vigour! How cheerful is the god's face, how

comely the down that creeps on either side his cheeks, how the curled

hair shows upon his head beneath the shadow of his hat's brim, how

neatly the tiny pair of pinions project about his brows, how daintily

the cloak is drawn about his shoulders! He who dares call this a

skeleton, either never sees an image of a god or if he does ignores

it. Indeed, he who thinks this to represent a goblin must have goblins

on the brain.

64. But in return for that lie, Aemilianus, may that same god who goes

between the lords of heaven and the lords of hell grant you the hatred

of the gods of either world and ever send to meet you the shadows of

the dead with all the ghosts, with all the fiends, with all the

spectres, with all the goblins of all the world, and thrust upon your

eyes all the terror that walketh by night, all the dread dwellers in

the tomb, all the horrors of the sepulchre, although your age and

character have brought you near enough to them already. But we of the

family of Plato know naught save what is bright and joyous, majestic

and heavenly and of the world above us. Nay, in its zeal to reach the

heights of wisdom, the Platonic school has explored regions higher

than heaven itself and has stood triumphant on the outer circumference

of this our universe. Maximus knows that I speak truth, for in his

careful study of the _Phaedrus_ he has read of the 'place that is

higher than heaven, being builded on heaven's back.' Maximus also

clearly understands--I am now going to reply to your accusation about

the name--who he is whom not I but Plato was first to call the 'King'.

'All things,' he says, 'depend upon the King of all things and for him

only all things exist.' Maximus knows who that 'King' is, even the

cause and reason and primal origin of all nature, the lord and father

of the soul, the eternal saviour of all that lives, the unwearying

builder of his world. Yet builds he without labour, yet saves he

without care, he is father without begetting, he knows no limitation

of space or time or change, and therefore few may conceive and none

may tell of his power.

65. I will even go out of my way to aggravate the suspicion of

sorcery; I will not tell you, Aemilianus, who it is that I worship as

my king. Even if the proconsul should ask me himself who my god is, I

am dumb.

About the name I have said enough for the present. For the rest I know

that some of my audience are anxious to hear why I wanted the figure

made not of silver or gold, but only of wood, though I think that

their desire springs not so much from their anxiety to see me cleared

of guilt as from eagerness for knowledge. They would like to have this

last doubt removed, even although they see that I have amply rebutted

all suspicion of any crime. Listen, then, you who would know, but

listen with all the sharpness and attention that you may, for you are

to hear the very words that Plato wrote in his old age in the last

book of the _Laws_. 'The man of moderate means when he makes offerings

to the gods should do so in proportion to his means. Now, earth and

the household hearths of all men are holy to all the gods. Let no one

therefore dedicate any shrines to the gods over and above these.' He

forbids this with the purpose of preventing men from venturing to

build private shrines; for he thinks that the public temples suffice

his citizens for the purposes of sacrifice. He then continues, 'Gold

and silver in other cities, whether in the keeping of private persons

or of temples, are invidious possessions; ivory taken from a body

wherefrom the life has passed is not a welcome offering; iron and

bronze are instruments of war. Whatsoever a man dedicates, let it be

of wood and wood only, or if it be of stone, of stone only.' The

general murmur of assent shows, O Maximus, and you, gentlemen, who

have the honour to assist him, that I am adjudged to have made

admirable use of Plato, not only as a guide in life, but as an

advocate in court, to whose instructions, as you see, I give implicit

obedience.

66. It is now time for me to turn first and foremost to the letters of

Pudentilla, or rather to retrace the whole course of events a little

further back still. For I desire to make it abundantly clear that I,

whom they keep accusing of having forced my way into Pudentilla's

house solely through love of money, ought really never to have come

near that house, had the thought of money ever crossed my mind. My

marriage has for many reasons brought me the reverse of prosperity

and, but for the fact that my wife's virtues are compensation for any

number of disadvantages, might be described as disastrous.

Disappointment and envy are the sole causes that have involved me in

this trial, and even before that gathered many mortal perils about my

path. What motives for resentment has Aemilianus against me, even

assuming him to be correctly informed when he accuses me of magic? No

least word of mine has ever injured him in such a way as to give him

the appearance of pursuing a just revenge. It is certainly no lofty

ambition that prompts him to accuse me, ambition such as fired Marcus

Antonius to accuse Cnaeus Carbo, Caius Mucius to accuse Aulus

Albucius, Publius Sulpicius to accuse Cnaeus Norbanus, Caius Furius to

accuse Manius Aquilius, Caius Curio to accuse Quintus Metellus. They

were young men of admirable education and were led by ambition to

undertake these accusations as the first step in a forensic career,

that by the conduct of some _cause celebre_ they might make themselves

a name among their fellow citizens. This privilege was conceded by

antiquity to young men just entering public life as a means of winning

glory for their youthful genius. The custom has long since become

obsolete, but even if the practice were still common, it would not

apply to Aemilianus. It would not have been becoming to him to make

any display of his eloquence, for he is rude and unlettered; nor to

show a passion for renown, since he is a mere barbarian bumpkin; nor

thus to open his career as an advocate, for he is an old man on the

brink of the grave. The only hypothesis creditable to him would be

that he is perhaps giving an example of his austerity of character and

has undertaken this accusation through sheer hatred of wrongdoing and

to assert his own integrity. But I should hardly accept such an

hypothesis even in the case of a greater Aemilianus, not our African

friend here, but the conqueror of Africa and Numantia, who held,

moreover, the office of censor at Rome. Much less will I believe that

this dull blockhead, I will not say, hates sin, but recognizes it when

he sees it.

67. What then was his motive? It is as clear as day to any one that

envy is the sole motive that has spurred him and Herennius Rufinus,

his instigator--of whom I shall have more to say later--and the rest

of my enemies, to fabricate these false charges of sorcery.

Well, there are five points which I must discuss. If I remember

aright, their accusations as regards Pudentilla were as follows.

Firstly, they said that after the death of her first husband she

resolutely set her face against re-marriage, but was seduced by my

incantations. Secondly, there are her letters, which they regard as an

admission that I used sorcery. Thirdly and fourthly, they object that

she made a love-match at the advanced age of sixty and that the

marriage contract was sealed not in the town but at a country house.

Lastly, there is the most invidious of all these accusations, namely,

that which concerns the dowry. It is into this charge they have put

all their force and all their venom; it is this that vexes them most

of all. They assert that at the very outset of our wedded life I

forced my devoted wife in the absolute seclusion of her country house

to make over to me a large dowry. I will show that all these

statements are so false, so worthless, so unsubstantial, and I shall

refute them so easily and unquestionably, that in good truth, Maximus,

and you, gentlemen, his assessors, I fear you may think that I have

suborned my accusers to bring these charges, that I might have the

opportunity of publicly dispelling the hatred of which I am the

victim. I will ask you to believe _now_, what you will understand when

the facts are before you, that I shall need to put out all my strength

to prevent you from thinking that such a baseless accusation is a

cunning device of my own rather than a stupid enterprise of my

enemies.

68. I shall now briefly retrace events and force Aemilianus himself

to admit, when he has heard the facts, that his envy was groundless

and that he has strayed far from the truth. In the meantime I beg you,

as you have already done, or if possible yet more than you have

already done, to give the best of your attention to me as I trace the

whole case to its fount and source.

Aemilia Pudentilla, now my wife, was once the wife of a certain

Sicinius Amicus. By him she had two sons, Pontianus and Pudens. These

two boys were left by their father's death under the guardianship of

their paternal grandfather--for Amicus predeceased his father--and

were brought up by their mother with remarkable care and affection for

about fourteen years. She was in the flower of her age, and it was not

of her own choosing that she remained a widow for so long. But the

boys' grandfather was eager that she should, in spite of her

reluctance, take his son, Sicinius Clarus, for her second husband[23]

and with this in view kept all other suitors at a distance. He further

threatened her that if she married elsewhere he would by his will

exclude her sons from the possession of any of their father's

heritage. When she saw that nothing could move him to alter the

condition that he had laid down, such was her wisdom, and so admirable

her maternal affection, that to prevent her sons' interests suffering

any damage in this respect, she made a contract of marriage with

Sicinius Clarus in accordance with her father-in-law's bidding, but by

various evasions managed to avoid the marriage until the boys'

grandfather died, leaving them as his heirs, with the result that

Pontianus, the elder son, became his brother's guardian.

[Footnote 23: _iterum_ (Riese).]

69. She was now freed from all embarrassment, and being sought in

marriage by many distinguished persons resolved to remain a widow no

longer. The dreariness of her solitary life she might have borne, but

her bodily infirmities had become intolerable. This chaste and saintly

lady, after so many years of blameless widowhood, without even a

breath of scandal, owing to her long absence from a husband's

embraces, began to suffer internal pains so severe that they brought

her to the brink of the grave. Doctors and wise women agreed that the

disease had its origin in her long widowhood, that the evil was

increasing daily and her sickness steadily assuming a more serious

character; the remedy was that she should marry before her youth

finally departed from her. There were many who welcomed this

recommendation, but none more so than that fellow Aemilianus, who a

little while back asserted with the most unhesitating mendacity that

Pudentilla had never thought of marriage until I compelled her to be

mine by my exercise of the black art; that I alone had been found to

outrage the virgin purity of her widowhood by incantations and love

philtres. I have often heard it said with truth that a liar should

have a good memory. Had you forgotten, Aemilianus, that before I came

to Oea, you wrote to her son Pontianus, who had then attained to man's

estate and was pursuing his studies at Rome, suggesting that she

should marry? Give me the letter, or better give it to Aemilianus and

let him refute himself in his own voice with his own words.

Is this your letter? Why do you turn pale? We know you are past

blushing. Is this your signature? Read a little louder, please, that

all may realize how his written words belie his speech and how much

more he is at variance with himself than with me.

70. Did you, Aemilianus, write what has just been read out? 'I know

that she is willing to marry and that she ought to do so, but I do not

know the object of her choice.' You were right there. You knew nothing

about it. For Pudentilla, though she admitted that she wished to marry

again, said nothing to you about her suitor. She knew the intrusive

malignity of your nature too well. But you still expected her to marry

your brother Clarus and were induced by your false hopes to go further

and to urge her son to assent to the match. And of course, if she had

wedded Clarus, a boorish and decrepit old man, you would have asserted

that she had long desired to marry him of her own free will without

the intervention of any magic. But now that she has married a young

man of the elegance which you attribute to him, you say that she had

always refused to marry and must have done so under compulsion! You

did not know, you villain, that the letter you had written on the

subject was being preserved, you did not know that you would be

convicted by your own testimony. The fact is that Pudentilla, knowing

your changeableness and unreliability no less than your shamelessness

and mendacity, rather than forward the letter preferred to keep it as

clear evidence of your intentions, and wrote a letter of her own on

the same subject to her son Pontianus at Rome, in which she gave full

reasons for her determination. She told him pretty fully about the

state of her health; there was no longer any reason for her to persist

in remaining a widow; she had so remained for thus long and had

sacrificed her health solely to procure him the inheritance of his

grandfather's fortune, a fortune to which she had by the exercise of

the greatest care made considerable additions: Pontianus himself was

now by the grace of heaven ripe for marriage and his brother for the

garb of manhood. She begged them to suffer her at length to solace her

lonely existence and to relieve her ill health: they need have no

fears as to her final choice or as to her motherly affection; she

would still be as a wife what she had been as a widow. I will order a

copy of this letter to her son to be read aloud. (_The letter is

read._)

71. This letter makes it, I think, sufficiently clear that it needed

no incantations of mine to move Pudentilla from her resolve to remain

a widow, but that she had been for some time by no means averse to

marriage, when she chose me--it may be in preference to others. I

cannot see why such a choice by so excellent a woman should be brought

against me as matter for reproach rather than honour. But I admit

feeling surprise that Aemilianus and Rufinus should be annoyed at the

lady's decision, when those who were actually suitors for her hand

acquiesce in her preference for myself. She was indeed guided in

making her choice less by her personal inclination than by the advice

of her son, a fact which Aemilianus cannot deny. For Pontianus on

receiving his mother's letter hastily flew hither from Rome, fearing

that, if the man of her choice proved to be avaricious, she might, as

often happens, transfer her whole fortune to the house of her new

husband. This anxiety tormented him not a little. All his own

expectations of wealth together with those of his brother depended on

his mother. His grandfather had left but a moderate fortune, his

mother possessed 4,000,000 sesterces. Of this sum, it is true, she

owed a considerable portion to her sons, but they had no security for

this, relying--naturally enough--on her word alone. He gave but silent

expression to his fears; he did not venture to show any open

opposition for fear of seeming to distrust her.

72. Things being in this delicate position owing to the matrimonial

intentions of the mother and the fears of the son, chance or destiny

brought me to Oea on my way to Alexandria. Did not my respect for my

wife prevent me, I would say 'Would God it had never happened'. It was

winter when this occurred. Overcome by the fatigues of the journey, I

was laid up for a considerable number of days in the house of my

friends the Appii, whom I name to show the affection and esteem with

which I regard them. There Pontianus came to see me; for not so very

long before certain common friends had introduced him to me at Athens,

and we had afterwards lodged together and come to know each other

intimately. He greeted me with the utmost courtesy, inquired anxiously

after my health, and touched dexterously on the subject of love. For

he thought that he had found an ideal husband for his mother to whom

he could without the slightest risk entrust the whole fortune of the

house. At first he sounded me as to my inclinations in somewhat

ambiguous language, and seeing that I was desirous of resuming my

journey and was not in the least disposed to take a wife, he begged me

at any rate to remain at Oea for a little while, as he himself was

desirous of travelling with me. Since my physical infirmity had made

it impossible for me to profit by the present winter, he urged that it

would be well to wait for the next owing to the danger presented by

the passage of the Syrtes and the risk of encountering wild beasts.

His urgent entreaty induced my friends the Appii to allow me to leave

them and to become his guest in his mother's house. I should find the

situation healthier, he said, and should get a freer view of the

sea--a special attraction in my eyes.

73. He had shown the greatest eagerness in inducing me to come to this

decision, and strongly recommended his mother and his brother--that

boy there--to my consideration. I gave them some help in our common

studies and a marked intimacy sprang up between us. Meanwhile I

gradually recovered my health. At the instance of my friends I gave a

discourse in public. This took place in the basilica, which was

thronged by a vast audience. I was greeted with many expressions of

approval, the audience shouted 'bravo! bravo!' like one man, and

besought me to remain and become a citizen of Oea. On the dispersal of

the audience Pontianus approached me, and by way of prelude said that

such universal enthusiasm was nothing less than a sign from heaven. He

then revealed to me that it was his cherished design--with my

permission--to bring about a match between myself and his mother, for

whose hand there were many suitors. He added that I was the only

friend in the world in whom he could put implicit trust and

confidence. If I were to refuse to undertake such a responsibility,

simply because it was no fair heiress that was offered me, but a woman

of plain appearance and the mother of children--if I were moved by

these considerations and insisted on reserving myself for a more

attractive and wealthier match, my behaviour would be unworthy of a

friend and a philosopher. It would take too long--even if I were

willing--to tell you what I replied and how long and how frequently we

conversed on the subject, with how many pressing entreaties he plied

me, never ceasing until he finally won my consent. I had had ample

opportunity for observing Pudentilla's character, for I had lived for

a whole year continually in her company and had realized how rich was

her endowment of good qualities; but my desire for travel led me to

desire to refuse the match as an impediment. But I soon began to love

her for her virtues as ardently as though I had wooed her of my own

initiative. Pontianus had also persuaded his mother to give me the

preference over all her other suitors, and showed extraordinary

eagerness for the marriage to take place at the earliest possible

date. We could scarcely induce him to consent to the very briefest

postponement to such time as he himself should have taken a wife and

his brother in due course have assumed the garb of manhood. That done,

we would be married at once.

74. Would to heaven it were possible without serious damage to my case

to pass by what I have now to relate. I freely forgave Pontianus when

he begged for pardon, and I have no wish to seem to reproach him now

for the fickleness of his conduct. I acknowledge the truth of a

circumstance brought against me by my accusers, I admit that

Pontianus, after taking to himself a wife, broke his pledged word and

suddenly changed his mind; that he tried to prevent the fulfilment of

this project with no less obstinacy than he had shown zeal in

forwarding it. He was ready to make any sacrifice, to go any lengths,

to prevent our marriage taking place. Nevertheless this discreditable

change of attitude, this deliberate quarrel with his mother, must not

be laid to his charge, but to that of his father-in-law, Herennius

Rufinus, whom you see before you, a man than whom no more worthless,

wicked, and grime-stained soul lives upon this earth. I will--since I

cannot avoid it--give a brief description of this man's character,

using such moderation as I may, lest, if I pass him by in silence, the

energy which he has shown in engineering this accusation against me

should have been spent all in vain.

This is the man who poisoned that worthless boy against me, who is the

prime mover in this accusation, who has hired advocates and bought

witnesses. This is the furnace in which all this calumny has been

forged, this the firebrand, this the scourge that has driven

Aemilianus here to his task. He makes it his boast before all men in

the most extravagant language that it is through his machinations that

my indictment has been procured. In truth he has some reason for

self-congratulation. For he is the organizer of every lawsuit, the

deviser of every perjury, the architect of every lie, the seed-ground

of every wickedness, the vile haunt and hideous habitation of lust and

gluttony, the mark of every scandal since his earliest years: in

boyhood, ere he became so hideously bald, the ready servant of the

vilest vices; in youth a stage dancer limp and nerveless enough in all

conscience, but, they tell me, clumsy and inartistic in his very

effeminacy. Except for his immodesty he is said not to have possessed

a single quality that should distinguish an actor.

75. He is older now--God's curse upon him! I crave your pardon for my

warmth of language. But his house is the dwelling-place of panders,

his whole household foul with sin, himself a man of infamous

character, his wife a harlot, his sons like their parents. His door

night and day is battered with the kicks of wanton gallants, his

windows loud with the sound of loose serenades, his dining-room wild

with revel, his bedchambers the haunt of adulterers. For no one need

fear to enter it save he who has no gift for the husband. Thus does he

make an income from his own dishonour. What else should the wretch do?

He has lost a considerable fortune, though I admit that he only got

that fortune unexpectedly through a fraudulent transaction on the part

of his father. The latter, having borrowed money from a number of

persons, preferred to keep their money at the cost of his own good

name. Bills poured in on every side with demands for payment. Every

one that met him laid hands on him as though he were a madman.

'Steady, now!' says he, 'I can't find the cash.' So he resigned his

golden rings and all the badges of his position in society and thus

came to terms with his creditors. But he had by a most ingenious fraud

transferred the greater part of his property to his wife, and so,

although he himself was needy, ill-clad and protected by the very

depth of his fall, managed to leave this same Rufinus--I am telling

you the truth and nothing but the truth--no less than 3,000,000

sesterces to be squandered on riotous living. This was the sum that

came to him unencumbered from his mother's property, over and above

the daily dowry brought him by his wife. Yet all this money has been

ravenously devoured by this glutton in a few short years, all this

fortune has been destroyed by the infinite variety of his

gormandizing; so that you might really think him to be afraid of

seeming in any way to be the gainer by his father's dishonesty. This

honourable fellow actually took care that what had been ill-gained

should be ill-spent, nor was anything left him from his too ample

fortune, save his depraved ambition and his boundless appetite.

76. His wife, however, was getting old and worn out and refused to

continue to support the whole household by her own dishonour. But

there was a daughter who, at her mother's instigation, was exhibited

to all the wealthy young men, but in vain. Had she not come across so

easy a victim as Pontianus she would perhaps still have been sitting

at home a widow who had never been a bride. Pontianus, in spite of

urgent attempts on our part to dissuade him, gave her the right--false

and illusory though it was--to be called a bride. He did this knowing

that, but a short time before he married her, she had been seduced and

deserted by a young man of good family to whom she had been previously

betrothed. And so his new bride came to him, not as other brides come,

but unabashed and undismayed, her virtue lost, her modesty gone, her

bridal-veil a mockery. Cast off by her previous lover, she brought to

her wedding the name without the purity of a maid. She rode in a

litter carried by eight slaves. You who were present saw how

impudently she made eyes at all the young and how immodestly she

flaunted her charms. Who did not recognize her mother's pupil, when

they saw her dyed lips, her rouged cheeks, and her lascivious eyes?

Her dowry was borrowed, every farthing of it, on the eve of her

wedding, and was indeed greater than could be expected of so large and

impoverished a family.

77. But though Rufinus' fortune is small, his hopes are boundless.

With avarice rivalled only by his need he had already devoured

Pudentilla's 4,000,000 in vain anticipation. With this in view he

decided that I must be got out of the way, in order that he might find

fewer obstacles in his attempt to hoodwink the weak Pontianus and the

lonely Pudentilla. He began, therefore, to upbraid his son-in-law for

having betrothed his mother to me. He urged him to draw back without

delay from so perilous a path, while there was yet time; to keep his

mother's fortune himself rather than deliberately transfer it to the

keeping of a stranger. He threatened that, if he refused, he would

take away his daughter, the device of an old hand to influence a young

man in love. To be brief, he so wrought upon the simple-minded young

man, who was, moreover, a slave to the charms of his new bride, as to

mould him to his will and move him from his purpose. Pontianus went to

his mother and told her what Rufinus had said to him. But he made no

impression on her steadfast character. On the contrary, she rebuked

him for his fickleness and inconstancy, and it was no pleasant news he

took back to his father-in-law. His mother had shown a firmness of

purpose not to be expected of one of her placid disposition, and to

make matters worse his expostulations had made her angry, which was

likely seriously to increase her obstinacy: in fact, she had finally

replied, that it was no secret to her that his expostulations were

instigated by Rufinus, a fact which made the support and assistance of

a husband against his desperate greed all the more necessary to her.

78. When he heard this, the ruffian was stung to fury and burst into

such wild and ungovernable rage that in the presence of her own son he

heaped insults, such as he might have used to his own wife, on the

purest and most modest of women. In the presence of many witnesses,

whom, if you desire it, I will name, he loudly denounced her as a

wanton and myself as a sorcerer and poisoner, threatening to murder me

with his own hands. I can hardly restrain my anger, such fierce

indignation fills my soul. That you, the most effeminate of men,

should threaten any man with death at your hand! Your hand! What hand!

The hand of Philomela or Medea or Clytemnestra? Why, when you dance in

those characters you show such contemptible timidity, you are so

frightened at the sight of steel, that you will not even carry a

property sword? But I am digressing. Pudentilla, seeing to her

astonishment that her son had fallen lower than she could have deemed

possible, went into the country and by way of rebuke wrote him the

notorious letter, in which, according to my accusers, she confessed

that my magical practices had made her lose her reason and fall in

love with me. And yet, Maximus, the day before yesterday at your

command I took a copy of the letter in the presence of witnesses and

of Pontianus' secretary. Aemilianus also was there and countersigned

the copy. What is the result? In contradiction to my accusers'

assertion everything is found to tell in my favour.

79. And yet, even if she had spoken somewhat strongly and had called

me a magician, it would be a reasonable explanation that she had, in

defending her conduct to her son, preferred to allege compulsion on my

part rather than her own inclination. Is Phaedra the only woman whom

love has driven to write a lying letter? Is it not rather a device

common to all women that, when they have begun to feel strong desire

for anything of this kind, they should prefer to make themselves out

the victims of compulsion? But even supposing she had genuinely

regarded me as a magician, would the mere fact of Pudentilla's writing

to that effect be a reason for actually regarding me as a magician?

You, with all your arguments and your witnesses and your diffuse

eloquence, have failed to prove me a magician. Could she prove it with

one word? A formal indictment, written and signed before a judge, is a

far more weighty document than what is written in a private letter!

Why do not you prove me a magician by my own deeds instead of having

recourse to the mere words of another? If your principle be followed,

and whatever any one may have written in a letter under the influence

of love or hatred be admitted as proof, many a man will be indicted on

the wildest charges. 'Pudentilla called you a magician in her letter;

therefore you are a magician!' If she had called me a consul, would

that make me one? What if she had called me a painter, a doctor, or

even an innocent man? Would you accept any of these statements, simply

because she had made them? You would accept none of them. Yet it is a

gross injustice to believe a person when he speaks evil of another and

to refuse to believe him when he speaks well. It is a gross injustice

that a letter should have power to destroy and not to save. 'But,'

says my accuser, 'she was out of her wits, she loved you

distractedly.' I will grant it for the moment. But are all persons,

who are the objects of love, magicians, just because the person in

love with them chances to say so in a letter? If, indeed, Pudentilla

wrote in a letter to another person what would clearly be prejudicial

to myself, I think she could hardly have been in love with me at the

moment in question.

80. Tell me now, what is your contention? Was she mad or sane when she

wrote? Sane, do you say? Then she was not the victim of magic. Insane?

In that case she did not know what she was writing and must not be

believed. Nay, even supposing her to have been insane, she would not

have been aware of the fact. For just as to say 'I am silent' is to

make a fool of oneself, since these very words actually break silence,

and the act of speaking impugns the substance of one's speech, so it

is even more absurd to say 'I am mad'. It cannot be true unless the

speaker knows what he says, and he who knows what madness is, is

_ipso facto_ sane. For madness cannot know itself any more than

blindness can see itself. Therefore Pudentilla was in possession of

her senses, if she thought she was out of them. I could say more on

this point, but enough of dialectic! I will read out the letter which

gives crying witness to a very different state of things and might

indeed have been specially prepared to suit this particular trial.

Take it and read it out until I interrupt. (_The letter is read._)

Stop a moment before you go on to what follows. We have come to the

crucial point. So far, Maximus, as far at any rate as I have noticed,

the lady has made no mention of magic, but has merely repeated in the

same order the statements which I quoted a short time ago about her

long widowhood, the proposed remedy for her ill health, her desire to

marry, the good report she had heard of me from Pontianus, his own

advice that she should marry me in preference to others.

81. So much for what has been read. There remains a portion of the

letter which, although like the first part it was written in my

defence, also turns against me. For although it was specially written

to rebut the charge of magic brought against me, a remarkable piece of

ingenuity on the part of Rufinus has altered its meaning and brought

me into discredit with certain citizens of Oea as being a proved

sorcerer. Maximus, you have heard much from the lips of others, you

have learned yet more by reading, and your own personal experience

has taught you not a little. But you will say that never yet have you

come across such insidious cunning or such marvellous dexterity in

crime. What Palamedes, what Sisyphus, what Eurybates or Phrynondas

could ever have devised such guile? All those whom I have mentioned,

together with all the notorious deceivers of history, would seem mere

clowns and pantaloons, were they to attempt to match this one single

instance of Rufinus' craftiness. O miracle of lies! O subtlety worthy

of the prison and the stocks! Who could imagine that what was written

as a defence could without the alteration of a single letter be

transformed into an accusation! Good God! it is incredible. But I will

make clear to you how the incredible came to pass.

82. The mother was rebuking her son because, after extolling me to her

as a model of all the virtues, he now, at Rufinus' instigation,

asserted that I was a magician. The actual words were as follows:

'Apuleius is a magician and has bewitched me to love him. Come to me,

then, while I am still in my senses!' These words, which I have quoted

in Greek, have been selected by Rufinus and separated from their

context. He has taken them round as a confession on the part of

Pudentilla, and, with Pontianus at his side all dissolved in tears,

has shown them through all the market-place, allowing men only to read

that portion which I have just cited and suppressing all that comes

before and after. His excuse was that the rest of the letter was too

disgusting to be shown; it was sufficient that publicity should be

given to Pudentilla's confession as to my sorcery. What was the

result? Every one thought it probable enough. That very letter, which

was written to clear my character, excited the most violent hatred

against me amongst those who did not know the facts. This foul villain

went rushing about in the midst of the market-place like any

bacchanal; he kept opening the letter and proclaiming, 'Apuleius is a

sorcerer! She herself describes her feelings and her sufferings! What

more do you demand?' There was no one to take my part and reply, 'Give

us the whole letter, please! Let me see it all, let me read it from

beginning to end. There are many things which, produced apart from

their context, may seem open to a slanderous interpretation. Any

speech may be attacked, if a passage depending for its sense on what

has preceded be robbed of its commencement, or if phrases be expunged

at will from the place they logically occupy, or if what is written

ironically be read out in such a tone as to make it seem a defamatory

statement.' With what justice this protest or words to that effect

might have been uttered the actual order of the letter will show.

83. Now, Aemilianus, try to remember whether the following were not

the words of which, together with myself, you took a copy in the

presence of witnesses, 'For since I desired to marry for the reasons

of which I told you, you persuaded me to choose Apuleius in preference

to all others, since you had a great admiration for him and were eager

through me to become yet more intimate with him. But now that certain

ill-natured persons have brought accusations against us and attempt to

dissuade you, Apuleius has suddenly become a magician and has

bewitched me to love him. Come to me, then, while I am still in my

senses.'

I ask you, Maximus, if letters--some of which are actually called

vocal[24]--could find a voice, if words, as poets say, could take them

wings and fly, would they not, when Rufinus first made disingenuous

excerpts from that letter, read but a few lines and deliberately said

nothing of much that bore a more favourable meaning, would not the

remaining letters have cried out that they were unjustly kept out of

sight? Would not the words suppressed by Rufinus have flown from his

hands and filled the whole market-place with tumult, crying that they

too had been sent by Pudentilla, they too had been entrusted with

something to say, and calling upon men to listen to _them_ instead of

giving ear to a dishonest villain who was attempting to prove a lie by

means of another's letter? for Pudentilla had never accused Apuleius

of magic, while Rufinus' accusation was tantamount to an acquittal.

All these things were not said then, but now, when they are of more

effectual service to me, their truth appears clearer than day.

Rufinus, your cunning stands revealed, your fraud stares us in the

face, your lies are laid bare; truth dethroned for a while rises once

more and slander sinks[25] downward to the bottomless pit.

[Footnote 24: i.e. vowels.]

[Footnote 25: _se ecfert--calumnia se mergit_ (Salmasius).]

84. You challenged me with Pudentilla's letter: with that letter I win

the day. If you like to hear the conclusion, I will not grudge it

you. Tell me, what were the words with which she ended the letter,

that poor bewitched, lunatic, insane, infatuated lady? 'I am not

bewitched, I am not in love; it is my destiny.'[26] Would you have

anything more? Pudentilla throws your words in your teeth and publicly

vindicates her sanity against your slanderous aspersions. The motive

or necessity of her marriage, whichever it was, she now ascribes to

fate, and between fate and magic there is a great gulf, indeed they

have absolutely nothing in common. For if it be true that the destiny

of each created thing is like a fierce torrent that may neither be

stayed nor diverted, what power is left for magic drugs or

incantations? Pudentilla, therefore, not only denied that I was a

magician, but denied the very existence of magic. It is a good thing

that Pontianus, following his usual custom, kept his mother's letter

safe in its entirety: it is a good thing that the speed with which

this case has been hurried on left you no opportunity for adding to

that letter at your leisure. For this I have to thank you and your

foresight, Maximus. You saw through their slanders from the beginning

and hurried on the case that they might not gather strength as the

days went by; you gave them no breathing space and wrecked their

designs. Suppose now that the mother, after her wont, _had_ made

confession of her passion for me in some private letter to her son.

Was it just, Rufinus, was it consistent, I will not say with filial

piety but with common humanity, that these letters should be

circulated and, above all, published and proclaimed abroad by her own

son? But perhaps I am no better than a fool to ask you to have regard

for another's sense of decency when you have so long lost your own.

[Footnote 26: [Greek: ten heimarmenen echo] (Rossbach).]

85. Why should I only complain of what is past? The present is equally

distressing. To think that this unhappy boy should have been so

corrupted by you as to read aloud in the proconsular court, before a

man of such lofty character as Claudius Maximus, a letter from his

mother, which he chooses to regard as amatory, and in the presence of

the statues of the emperor Pius to accuse his mother of yielding to a

shameful passion and reproach her with her _amours_? Who is there of

such gentle temper, but that this would wake him to fury? Vilest of

creatures, do you pry into your mother's heart in such matters, do you

watch her glances, count her sighs, sound her affections, intercept

her letters, and accuse her of being in love? Do you seek to discover

what she does in the privacy of her own chamber, do you demand--I will

not say that she should be above love affairs--but that she should

cease to be a woman? Cannot you conceive the possibility that she

should show any affection save the affection of a mother for her son?

Ah! Pudentilla, you are unhappy in your offspring! Far better have

been barren than have borne such children! Ill-omened were the long

months through which you bore them in your womb and thankless your

fourteen years of widowhood! The viper, I am told, reaches the light

of day only by gnawing through its mother's womb; its parent must die

ere it be born. But your son is full-grown and the wounds he deals are

far bitterer, for they are inflicted on you while you yet live and see

the light of day. He insults your reserve, he arraigns your modesty,

he wounds you to the heart and outrages your dearest affections. Is

this the gratitude with which a dutiful son like yourself repays his

mother for the life she gave him, for the inheritance she won him, for

her long fourteen years of seclusion? Is the result of your uncle's

teaching this, that, if you were sure your sons would be like

yourself, you should be afraid to take a wife? There is a well-known

line

_I hate the boy that's wise before his time._

Yes, and who would not loathe and detest a boy that is 'wicked before

his time', when he sees you, like some frightful portent, old in sin

but young in years, with the bodily powers of a boy, yet deep in

guilt, with the bright face of a child, but with wickedness such as

might match grey hairs? Nay, the most offensive thing about him is

that his pernicious deeds go scot free; he is too young to punish, yet

old enough to do injury. Injury, did I say? No! crime, unfilial,

black, monstrous, intolerable crime!

86. The Athenians, when they captured the correspondence of their

enemy, Philip of Macedon, and the letters were being read in public

one by one, out of reverence for the common rights of humanity forbade

one letter to be read aloud, a letter addressed by Philip to his wife

Olympias. They spared the enemy that they might not intrude on the

privacy of husband and wife; they placed the law that is common to all

mankind above the claims of private vengeance. So enemy dealt with

enemy! How have you dealt with the mother that bore you? You see how

close is my parallel. Yet you read out aloud letters written by your

mother which, according to your assertion, concern her love affairs,

and you do so before this gathering here assembled, a gathering before

which you would not dare to read the verses of some obscene poet, even

if bidden to do so, but you would be restrained by some sense of

shame. Nay, you would never have touched your mother's letters, had

you ever been in touch with letters in the wider sense of the term.

But you have also dared to submit a letter of your own to be read, a

letter written about your mother in outrageously disrespectful,

abusive, and unseemly language, written too at a time when you were

still being brought up under her loving care. This letter you sent

secretly to Pontianus, and you have now produced it to avoid the

reproach of having sinned only once and to rescue so good a deed from

oblivion![27] Poor fool, do you not realize that your uncle permitted

you to do this, that he might clear himself in public estimation by

using your letter as proof that even before you migrated to his house,

even at the time when you caressed your mother with false words of

love, you were already as cunning as any fox and devoid of all filial

affection?

[Footnote 27: _oblivio_ (Casaubon).]

87. I cannot bring myself to believe Aemilianus such a fool as to

think that the letter of a mere boy, who is also one of my accusers,

could seriously tell against me.

There is also that forged letter by which they attempted to prove that

I beguiled Pudentilla with flattery. I never wrote it and the forgery

is not even plausible. What need had I of flattery, if I put my trust

in magic? And how did they secure possession of that letter which

must, as is usual in such affairs, have been sent to Pudentilla by

some confidential servant? Why, again, should I write in such faulty

words, such barbarous language, I whom my accusers admit to be quite

at home in Greek? And why should I seek to seduce her by flattery so

absurd and coarse? They themselves admit that I write amatory verse

with sufficient sprightliness and skill. The explanation is obvious to

every one; it is this. He who could not read the letter which

Pudentilla wrote in Greek altogether too refined for his

comprehension, found it easier to read this letter and set it off to

greater advantage because it was his own.

One more point and I shall have said enough about the letters.

Pudentilla, after writing in jest and irony those words 'Come then,

while I am yet in my senses', sent for her sons and her

daughter-in-law and lived with them for about two months. I beg this

most dutiful of sons to tell us whether he then noticed his mother's

alleged madness to have affected for the worse either her words or her

deeds. Let him deny that she showed the utmost shrewdness in her

examination of the accounts of the bailiffs, grooms, and shepherds,

that she earnestly warned his brother Pontianus to be on his guard

against the designs of Rufinus, that she rebuked him severely for

having freely published the letter she had sent him without having

read it honestly as it was written! Let him deny that, after what I

have just related to you, his mother married me in her country house,

as had been agreed some time previously!

88. The reason for our decision to be married by preference at her

country house not far from Oea was to avoid a fresh concourse of

citizens demanding largesse. It was but a short time before that

Pudentilla had distributed 50,000 sesterces to the people on the

occasion of Pontianus' marriage and this boy's assumption of the garb

of manhood. We wished also to avoid the frequent and wearisome

dinner-parties which custom generally imposes on newly-married

couples. This is the whole reason, Aemilianus, why our marriage

contract was signed not in the town but at a country house in the

neighbourhood--to avoid squandering another 50,000 sesterces and to

escape dining in your company or at your house. Is that sufficient? I

must say that I am surprised that you object so strongly to the

country house, considering that you spend most of your time in the

country. The Julian marriage-law nowhere contains a clause to the

effect that no man shall wed in a country house. Indeed, if you would

know the truth, it is of far better omen for the expectation of

offspring that one should marry one's wife in a country house in

preference to the town, on rich soil in preference to barren ground,

on the greensward of the meadow rather than the pavement of the

market-place. She that would be a mother should marry in the very

bosom of her mother, among the standing crops, on the fruitful

plough-land, or she should lie beneath the elm that weds the vine, on

the very lap of mother earth, among the springing herbage, the

trailing vine-shoots and the budding trees. I may add that the

metaphor in the line so well known in comedy

_That in the furrow children true be sown_

bears out this view most strongly. The ancient Romans also, such as

Quintius, Serranus and many others, were offered not only wives but

consulships and dictatorships in the open field. But I am becoming

long-winded. I will restrain myself for fear of gratifying you by my

praise of country life.

89. As to Pudentilla's age, concerning which you lied so boldly as to

assert that she had married at the age of sixty, I will reply in a few

words. It is not necessary to speak at length in discussing a matter

where the truth is so obvious.

Her father acknowledged her for his daughter in the usual fashion; the

documents in which he did so are preserved partly in the public record

office, partly in his house. Here they are before your very eyes.

Please hand the documents to Aemilianus. Let him examine the linen

strip that bears the seal; let him recognize the seal stamped upon

it, let him read the names of the consuls for the year, let him count

up the years. He gave her sixty years. Let him bring out the total at

fifty-five, admitting that he lied and gave her five too many. Nay,

that is hardly enough. I will deal yet more liberally with him. He

gave Pudentilla such a number of years that I will reward him by

returning ten. Mezentius has been wandering with Ulysses; let him at

least prove that she is fifty. To cut the matter short, as I am

dealing with an accuser who is used to multiplying by four, I will

multiply five years by four and subtract twenty years at one fell

swoop. I beg you, Maximus, to order the number of consuls since her

birth to be reckoned. If I am not mistaken, you will find that

Pudentilla has barely passed her fortieth year. The insolent audacity

of this falsehood! Twenty years' exile would be a worthy punishment

for such mendacity! Your fiction has added a good half to the sum,

your fabrication is one and a half times the size of the original. Had

you said thirty years when you ought to have said ten, it might have

been supposed that you had made a slip in the gesture used for your

calculation, that you had placed your forefinger against the middle

joint of your thumb, when you should have made them form a circle. But

whereas the gesture indicating forty is the simplest of all such

gestures, for you have merely to hold out the palm of your hand--you

have increased the number by half as much again. There is no room for

an erroneous gesture; the only possible hypothesis is that, believing

Pudentilla to be thirty, you got your total by adding up the number of

consuls, two to each year.

90. I have done with this. I come now to the very heart of the

accusation, to the actual motive for the use of magic. I ask Rufinus

and Aemilianus to answer me and tell me--even assuming that I am the

most consummate magician--what had I to gain by persuading Pudentilla

to marry me by means of my love philtres and my incantations. I am

well aware that many persons, when accused of some crime or other,

even if it has been shown that there was some real motive for the

offence, have amply cleared themselves of guilt by this one line of

defence, that the whole record of their lives renders the suspicion of

such a crime incredible and that even though there may have been

strong temptation to sin, the mere fact of the existence of the

temptation should not be counted against them. We have no right to

assume that everything that might have been done actually has been

done. Circumstances may alter; the one true guide is a man's

character; the one sure indication that a charge should be rejected or

believed is the fact that through all his life the accused has set his

face towards vice or virtue as the case may be. I might with the

utmost justice put in such a plea for myself, but I waive my right in

your favour, and shall think that I have made out but a poor case for

myself, if I do no more than amply clear myself of all your charges

and show that there exists not the slightest ground for suspecting me

of sorcery. Consider what confidence in my innocence and what contempt

of you is implied by my conduct. If you can discover one trivial

reason that might have led me to woo Pudentilla for the sake of some

personal advantage, if you can prove that I have made the very

slightest profit out of my marriage, I am ready to be any magician you

please--the great Carmendas himself or Damigeron or Moses[28] of whom

you have heard, or Jannes or Apollobex or Dardanus himself or any

sorcerer of note from the time of Zoroaster and Ostanes till now.

[Footnote 28: _is Moses_ (Jan. Parrhasius).]

91. See, Maximus, what a disturbance they have raised, merely because

I have mentioned a few magicians by name. What am I to do with men so

stupid and uncivilized? Shall I proceed to prove to you that I have

come across these names and many more in the course of my study of

distinguished authors in the public libraries? Or shall I argue that

the knowledge of the names of sorcerers is one thing, participation in

their art another, and that it is not tantamount to confessing a crime

to have one's brain well stored with learning and a memory retentive

of its erudition? Or shall I take what is far the best course and,

relying on your learning, Maximus, and your perfect erudition, disdain

to reply to the accusations of these stupid and uncultivated fellows?

Yes, that is what I will do. I will not care a straw for what they may

think. I will go on with the argument on which I had entered and will

show that I had no motive for seducing Pudentilla into marriage by the

use of love philtres.

My accusers have gone out of their way to make disparaging remarks

both about her age and her appearance; they have denounced me for

desiring such a wife from motives of greed and robbing her of her vast

and magnificent dowry at the very outset of our wedded life. I do not

intend to weary you, Maximus, with a long reply on these points. There

is no need for words from me, our deeds of settlement will speak more

eloquently than I can do. From them you will see that both in my

provision for the future and in my action at the time my conduct was

precisely the opposite of that which they have attributed to me,

inferring my rapacity from their own. You will see that Pudentilla's

dowry was small, considering her wealth, and was made over to me as a

trust not as a gift, and moreover that the marriage only took place on

this condition that if my wife should die without leaving me any

children, the dowry should go to her sons Pontianus and Pudens, while

if at her death she should leave me one son or daughter, half of the

dowry was to go to the offspring of the second marriage, the remainder

to the sons of the first.

92. This, as I say, I will prove from the actual deed of settlement.

It may be that Aemilianus will still refuse to believe that the total

sum recorded is only 300,000 sesterces, and that the reversion of this

sum is given by the settlement to Pudentilla's sons. Take the deeds

into your own hands, give them to Rufinus who incited you to this

accusation. Let him read them, let him blush for his arrogant temper

and his pretentious beggary. _He_ is poor and ill-clad and borrowed

400,000 sesterces to dower his daughter, while Pudentilla, a woman of

fortune, was content with 300,000, and her husband, who has often

refused the hand of the richest heiresses, is also content with this

trifling dowry, a mere nominal sum. He cares for nothing save his wife

and counts the mutual love and harmony of his wedded life as his sole

treasure, his only wealth. Who that had the least experience of life,

would dare to pass any censure if a widow of inconsiderable beauty and

considerable age, being desirous of marriage, had by the offer of a

large dowry and easy conditions invited a young man, who, whether as

regards appearance, character or wealth, was no despicable match, to

become her husband? A beautiful maiden, even though she be poor, is

amply dowered. For she brings to her husband a fresh untainted spirit,

the charm of her beauty, the unblemished glory of her prime. The very

fact that she is a maiden is rightly and deservedly regarded by all

husbands as the strongest recommendation. For whatever else you

receive as your wife's dowry you can, when it pleases you and if you

desire to feel yourself under no further obligation, repay in full

just as you received it; you can count back the money, restore the

slaves, leave the house, abandon the estates. Virginity only, once it

has been given, can never be repaid; it is the one portion of the

dowry that remains irrevocably with the husband. A widow on the other

hand, if divorced, leaves you as she came. She brings you nothing that

she cannot ask back, she has been another's and is certainly far from

tractable to your wishes; she looks suspiciously on her new home,

while you regard her with suspicion because she has already been

parted from one husband: if it was by death she lost her husband, the

evil omen of her ill-starred union minimizes her attractions, while,

if she left him by divorce, she possesses one of two faults: either

she was so intolerable that she was divorced by her husband, or so

insolent as to divorce him. It is for reasons of this kind among

others that widows offer a larger dowry to attract suitors for their

hands. Pudentilla would have done the same had she not found a

philosopher indifferent to her dowry.

93. Consider. If I had desired her from motives of avarice, what could

have been more profitable to me in my attempt to make myself master in

her house than the dissemination of strife between mother and sons,

the alienation of her children from her affections, so that I might

have unfettered and supreme control over her loneliness? Such would

have been, would it not, the action of the brigand you pretend me to

be. But as a matter of fact I did all I could to promote, to restore

and foster quiet and harmony and family affection, and not only

abstained from sowing fresh feuds, but utterly extinguished those

already in existence. I urged my wife--whose whole fortune according

to my accusers I had by this time devoured--I urged her and finally

persuaded her, when her sons demanded back the money of which I spoke

above, to pay over the whole sum at once in the shape of farms, at a

low valuation and at the price suggested by themselves, and further to

surrender from her own private property certain exceedingly fertile

lands, a large house richly decorated, a great quantity of wheat,

barley, wine and oil, and other fruits of the earth, together with not

less than four hundred slaves and a large number of valuable cattle.

Finally I persuaded her to abandon all claims on the portion she had

given them and to give them good hopes of one day coming into the rest

of the property. All these concessions I extorted from Pudentilla with

difficulty and against her will--I have her leave to tell the whole

story as it happened--I wrung them from her by my urgent entreaty,

though she was angry and reluctant. I reconciled the mother with her

sons, and began my career as a step-father by enriching my step-sons

with a large sum of money.

94. All Oea was aware of this. Every one execrated Rufinus and

extolled my conduct. Pontianus together with his very inferior brother

had come to visit us, before his mother had completed her donation. He

fell at our feet and implored us to forgive and forget all his past

offences; he wept, kissed our hands and expressed his penitence for

listening to Rufinus and others like him. He also most humbly begged

me to make his excuses to the most honourable Lollianus Avitus to whom

I had recommended him not long before when he was beginning the study

of oratory. He had discovered that I had written to Avitus a few days

previously a full account of all that had happened. I granted him this

request also and gave him a letter with which he set off to Carthage,

where Lollianus Avitus, the term of his proconsulate having nearly

expired, was awaiting your arrival, Maximus. After reading my letters

he congratulated Pontianus with the exquisite courtesy which always

characterizes him for having so soon rectified his error and entrusted

him with a reply. Ah! what learning! what wit! what grace and charm

dwelt in that reply! Only a 'good man and an orator' could have

written it. I know, Maximus, that you will readily give a hearing to

this letter. Indeed, if it is to be read, I will recite it myself.

Give me Avitus' letter. That I should have received it has always

flattered me. To-day it shall do more than flatter, it shall save me!

You may let the water-clock continue, for I would gladly read and

re-read the letter of that excellent man to the third and fourth time

at the cost of any amount of the time allowed me. (_The letter is

read._)

95. I know that after reading this letter I should bring my speech to

a close. For what ampler commendation, what purer testimony could I

produce in my support, what more eloquent advocacy? I have in the

course of my life listened with rapt attention to many eloquent

Romans, but never have I admired any so much as Avitus. There is in my

opinion no one living of any attainments or promise in oratory who

would not far sooner be Avitus, if he compare him with himself

impartially and without envy. For practically all the different

excellencies of oratory are united in him. Whatever speech Avitus

composes will be found so absolutely perfect and complete in all

respects that it would satisfy Cato by its dignity, Laelius with its

smoothness, Gracchus with its energy, Caesar with its warmth,

Hortensius with its arrangement, Calvus with its point, Sallust with

its economy and Cicero with its wealth of rhetoric. In fact, not to go

through all his merits, if you were to hear Avitus, you would wish

nothing added, withdrawn or altered of anything that he says.

I see, Maximus, with what pleasure you listen to the recital of the

virtues which you recognize your friend Avitus to possess. Your

courtesy invited me to say a few words about him. But I will not

trespass on your kindness so far as to permit myself to commence a

discourse on his extraordinary virtues at this period of the case. It

is wearing to its end and my powers are almost exhausted. I will

rather reserve the praise of Avitus' virtues for some day when my time

is free and my powers unimpaired.

96. _Now_, I grieve to say, it is my duty to turn from the description

of so great a man to discuss these pestilent fellows here.

Do you dare then, Aemilianus, to match yourself against Avitus? Will

you attack with accusations of magic and the black art him whom Avitus

describes as a good man, and whose disposition he praises so warmly in

his letter? Or have you greater reason to be vexed at my forcing my

way into Pudentilla's house and pillaging her goods than Pontianus

would have had, Pontianus, who not only in my presence but even before

Avitus in my absence, made amends for the strife of a few days that

had sprung up between us at your instigation, and expressed his

gratitude to me in the presence of so great a man? Suppose I had read

a report of what took place in Avitus' presence instead of reading

merely his letter. What is there in the whole affair that could give

you or any one else[29] a handle for accusing me? Pontianus himself

considered himself in my debt for the money given him by his mother;

Pontianus rejoiced with the utmost sincerity in his good fortune in

having me for his step-father. Ah! would that he had returned from

Carthage safe and sound! or since it was not fated that that should

be, would that you, Rufinus, had not poisoned his judgement at the

last! What gratitude he would have expressed to me either personally

or in his will! However, as things are, I beg you, Maximus,--it will

not take long--to allow the reading of these letters full of

expressions of respect and affection for myself, which he sent me,

some of them from Carthage, some as he drew near on his homeward

journey, some written while he still enjoyed his health, and some when

the sickness was already upon him. Thus his brother, my accuser, will

realize with what[30] lack of success he pursues his literary studies

compared with his brother of blessed memory. (_Pontianus' letters are

read._)

[Footnote 29: _quas vel tu vel quisquis_ (Van der Vliet). There is no

doubt as to the sense required: the precise correction must remain

doubtful.]

[Footnote 30: _quam in omnibus minor Minervae_ (H.E.B.).]

97. Did you hear the phrases which your brother Pontianus used in

speaking of me? He called me his father, his master, his instructor

not only on various occasions in his lifetime but actually on his

deathbed. I might follow this[31] by producing similar letters from

you, if I thought that the delay thus caused would be worth while. But

I should prefer to produce your brother's recent will, unfinished

though it may be, in which he made most dutiful and respectful mention

of myself. But Rufinus never allowed this will to be drawn up or

completed owing to his chagrin at the loss of the inheritance which he

had regarded in the light of a rich payment[32] for his daughter's

embraces during the few months in which he was Pontianus'

father-in-law. He had further consulted certain Chaldean soothsayers

as to what profit his daughter, whom he regarded in the light of an

investment, would bring him in. They, I am told, prophesied

truly--would they had not--that her first husband would die in a few

months. The rest of the prophecy dealing with the inheritance was as

usual fabricated to suit the desires of their client. But Rufinus

gaped for his prey in vain like a wild beast that has gone blind. For

Pontianus not only did not leave Rufinus' daughter as his heir--he

had discovered her evil character--but he did not even make her a

respectable legacy. He left her by way of insult linen to the value of

200 denarii, to show that he had not forgotten or ignored her, but

that he set this value on her as an expression of his resentment. As

his heirs--in this just as in the former will which has been read

aloud--he appointed his mother and his brother, against whom, mere boy

as he is, Rufinus is, as you see, bringing his old artillery into

play: I refer to his daughter. He thrusts her upon his embraces

although she is considerably his elder and but a brief while ago was

his brother's wife.

[Footnote 31: _post quae_ (Beyte).]

[Footnote 32: Omitting Helm's insertion of _praemium_ after _quam_.]

98. Pudens was so captivated and possessed by the charms of that

harlot and by the beguiling words of the pander, her father, that the

moment his brother had breathed his last, he left his mother and

migrated to his uncle's house. The design was to facilitate the

carrying out of the schemes already afoot by removing him from our

influence. For Aemilianus is backing Rufinus and desires his success.

(_A movement among the audience._) Ah! Thank you! You rightly remind

me that this excellent uncle has hopes of his own mixed up in this

affair, for he knows that if this boy dies intestate he will be his

heir-at-law, whatever he may be in point of equity. I wish I had not

let this slip. I am a man of great self-control and it is not my way

to blurt out openly the silent suspicions that must have occurred to

every one. You did wrong in suggesting this point to me. But to be

frank, if you will have the truth, many have been wondering at the

sudden affection which you, Aemilianus, have begun to show for this

boy since the death of his brother Pontianus, whereas formerly you

were such a stranger to him that frequently, even when you met him,

you failed to recognize the face of your brother's son. But now you

show yourself so patient towards him, you so spoil him by your

indulgence and grant his every whim to such an extent that your

conduct makes the more suspicious think their suspicions well

grounded. You took him from us a mere boy and straightway gave him the

garb of manhood. While he was under our guardianship, he used to go to

school: now he has bidden a long farewell to study and betaken himself

to the delights of the tavern. He despises serious friends, and, boy

as he is, spends his tender years in revelling with the most abandoned

youths among harlots and wine-cups. He rules your house, orders your

slaves, directs your banquets. He is a frequent visitor to the

gladiatorial school and there--as a boy of position should!--he learns

from the keeper of the school the names of the gladiators, the fights

they have fought, the wounds they have received. He never speaks any

language save Punic, and though he may occasionally use a Greek word

picked up from his mother, he neither will nor can speak Latin. You

heard, Maximus, a little while ago, you heard my step-son--oh! the

shame of it!--the brother of that eloquent young fellow Pontianus,

hardly able to stammer out single syllables, when you asked him

whether his mother had given himself and his brother the gifts which,

as I told you just now, she actually gave them with my hearty support.

99. I call you, therefore, Claudius Maximus, and you, gentlemen, his

assessors, and you that with me stand before this tribunal, to bear

witness that this boy's disgraceful falling away in morals is due to

his uncle here and that candidate for the privilege of becoming his

father-in-law, and that I shall henceforth count it a blessing that

such a step-son has lifted the burden of superintending him from my

shoulders, and that from this day forth I will never intercede for him

with his mother. For recently--I had almost forgotten to mention

it--when Pudentilla, who had fallen ill after the death of her son

Pontianus, was writing her will, I had a prolonged struggle to prevent

her disinheriting this boy on account of the outrageous insult and

injury he had inflicted on her. I prayed her with the utmost

earnestness to erase that most important clause, which, I can assure

you, she had already written, every word of it! Finally, I even

threatened to leave her, if she refused to accede to my request, and

begged her to grant me this boon, to conquer her wicked son by

kindness, and to save me from all the ill feeling which her action

would create. I did not desist till she complied. I regret that I

should have smoothed Aemilianus' way for him and showed him such an

unexpected path[33] to wealth. Look, Maximus, see how confused he is

at hearing this, see how he casts his eyes upon the ground. He had

not unnaturally expected something very different. He knew that my

wife was angry with her son on account of his insolent behaviour and

that she returned my devotion. He had reason also for fear in regard

to myself; for any one else, even if like myself he had been above

coveting the inheritance, would gladly have seen so undutiful a

step-son punished. It was this anxiety above all others that spurred

them on to accuse me. Their own avarice led them falsely to conjecture

that the whole inheritance had been left to me. As far as the past is

concerned, I will dispel your fears on that point. I was proof against

the temptation both of enriching myself and of revenging myself. I--a

step-father, mind you--contended for my wicked step-son with his

mother, as a father might contend against a stepmother in the

interests of a virtuous son; nor did I rest satisfied till, with a

perfectly extravagant sense of fairness, I had restrained my good

wife's lavish generosity towards myself.

[Footnote 33: _semitam_ (codd. inferiores).]

100. Give me the will which was made in the interests of so unfilial a

son by his mother. Each word of it was preceded by an entreaty from

myself, whom my accusers speak of as a mere robber. Order the tablets

to be broken open, Maximus. You will find that her son is the heir,

that I get nothing save some trifling complimentary legacy inserted to

avoid the non-appearance of my name, the husband's name, mark you, in

my wife's will, supposing she succumbed to any of the ills to which

this flesh is heir. Take up your mother's will. You are right, in one

respect it is undutiful. She excludes her devoted husband from the

inheritance in favour of her most unfilial son? Nay, it is not her son

to whom she leaves her fortune; she leaves it rather to the greedy

Aemilianus and the matchmaking Rufinus and that drunken gang, that

hang about you and prey upon you. Take it, O best of sons! Lay aside

your mother's love-letters for a while and read her will instead. If

she ever wrote anything while not in her right mind, you will find it

here, nor will you have to go far to find it. 'Let Sicinius Pudens, my

son, be my heir.' I admit it! he who reads this, will think it

insanity. Is this same son your heir, who at his own brother's funeral

attempted with the help of a gang of the most abandoned youths to shut

you out of the house which you yourself had given him, who is so

deeply and bitterly incensed to find that his brother left you co-heir

with himself, who hastened to desert you when you were plunged in

grief and mourning, and fled from your bosom to Aemilianus and

Rufinus, who afterwards uttered many insults against you to your face,

and manufactured others with the help of his uncle, who has dragged

your name through the law-courts, has attempted by using your own

letters publicly to besmirch your fair fame, and has accused upon a

capital charge the husband of your choice, with whom, as Pudens

himself objected, you were madly in love! Open the will, my good boy,

open it, I beg you. You will find it easier then to prove your

mother's insanity.

Why do you draw back? Why do you refuse to look at it, now that you

are free from all anxiety about the inheritance of your mother's

fortune?

101. He may do as he likes, Maximus, but for my part I cast these

tablets at your feet and call you to witness that henceforth I shall

show greater indifference as to what Pudentilla may write in her will.

He may approach his mother himself for the future; he has made it

impossible for me to plead for him again. He is now a man and his own

master; henceforth let him himself dictate to his mother the terms[34]

of an unpalatable will, himself smooth away her anger. He who can

plead in court, will be able to plead with his mother. I am more than

satisfied not only to have refuted the miscellaneous accusations

brought against myself, but also to have utterly swept away the

hateful charge on which the whole trial is based, the charge of having

attempted to secure the inheritance for myself.

[Footnote 34: Omit _qui_ inserted by Helm after _ut_.]

I will bring one final proof to show the falsity of that last charge

before I bring my speech to a close. I wish to pass nothing over in

silence. You asserted that I bought a most excellent farm in my own

name, but with a large sum of money which belonged to my wife. I say

that a tiny property was bought for 60,000 sesterces, and bought not

by me but by Pudentilla in her own name, that Pudentilla's name is in

the deed of sale, and that the taxes paid on the land are paid in the

name of Pudentilla. The honourable Corvinus Celer, the state treasurer

to whom the tax is paid, is here in court. Cassius Longinus also is

present, my wife's guardian and trustee, a man of the loftiest and

most irreproachable character. I cannot speak of him save with the

deepest respect. Ask him, Maximus, what was the purchase which he

authorized, and what was the trifling sum for which this wealthy lady

bought her little estate. (_Cassius Longinus and Corvinus Celer give

evidence._)

Is it as I said? Is my name ever mentioned in the deed of sale? Is the

price paid for this trifling property such as should excite any

prejudice against me, or did my wife give me even so much as this

small gift?

102. What is there left, Aemilianus, that in your opinion I have

failed to refute? What had I to gain by my magic that should lead me

to attempt to win Pudentilla by love-philtres? What had I to gain from

her? A small dowry instead of a large one? Truly my incantations were

miraculous. That she should refund her dowry to her sons rather than

leave it in my possession? What magic can surpass this? That she

should at my exhortation present the bulk of her property to her sons

and leave me nothing, although before her marriage with myself she had

shown them no special generosity? What a criminal use of

love-philtres! or perhaps I had better call it a generous action which

has not received its deserts! By her will, which she drew up in a fit

of violent irritation against her son, she leaves as her heir that

same son with whom she had quarrelled, rather than myself to whom she

was devoted! For all my incantations it was only with difficulty that

I persuaded her to this. Suppose that you were pleading your case, not

before Claudius Maximus, a man of the utmost fairness and unswerving

justice, but before a judge of depraved morals and of ferocious

temper, one in fact who naturally inclined to the side of the accuser

and was only too ready to condemn the accused! Give him some hint to

follow! Give him even the slightest reasonable opportunity for

declaring in your favour! At least invent something, devise some

suitable reply to questions such as have been put to you. Nay, since

every action must necessarily have some motive, answer me this, you

who say that Apuleius tried to influence Pudentilla's heart by magical

charms, answer me this! What did he seek to get from her by so doing?

Was he in love with her beauty? You say not! Did he covet her wealth?

The evidence of the marriage settlement denies it, the evidence of the

deed of gift denies it, the evidence of the will denies it! It shows

not only that I did not court the generosity of my wife, but that I

even repulsed it with some severity. What other motives can you

allege? Why are you struck dumb? Why this silence? What has become of

that ferocious utterance with which you opened the indictment, couched

in the name of my step-son? 'This is the man, most excellent Maximus,

whom I have resolved to indict before you.'

103. Why did you not add 'He whom I indict is my teacher, my

step-father, my mediator'? But how did you proceed? 'He is guilty of

the most palpable and numerous sorceries.' Produce one of these many

sorceries or at least some doubtful instance from those which you

style so palpable. Nay, see whether I cannot reply to your various

charges with two words to each. 'You clean your teeth.' Excusable

cleanliness. 'You look into mirrors.' Philosophers should. 'You write

verse.' 'Tis permitted. 'You examine fish.' Following Aristotle. 'You

worship a piece of wood.' So Plato. 'You marry a wife.' Obeying law.

'She is older than you.' Nothing commoner. 'You married for money.'

Take the marriage-settlement, remember the deed of gift, read the

will!

If I have rebutted all their charges, word by word, if I have refuted

all their slanders, if I am beyond reproach, not only as regards their

accusations but also as regards their vulgar abuse, if I have done

nothing to impair the honour of philosophy, which is dearer to me than

my own safety, but on the contrary have smitten my adversary hip and

thigh and vanquished him at all points, if all my contentions are

true, I can await your estimate of my character with the same

confidence with which I await the exercise of your power; for I regard

it as less serious and less terrible to be condemned by the proconsul

than to incur the disapproval of so good and so perfect a man.

THE FLORIDA

_The exordium to a discourse delivered in a town through which

Apuleius passes in the course of a journey._

1. It is the usual practice of wayfarers with a religious disposition,

when they come upon a sacred grove or holy place by the roadside, to

utter a prayer, to offer an apple, and pause for a moment from their

journeying. So I, on entering the revered walls of your city, feel

that, for all my haste, it is my duty to ask your favour, to make an

address, and to break the speed of my journey. I cannot conceive aught

that could give a traveller juster cause to halt in sign of reverence;

no altar crowned with flowers, no grotto shadowed with foliage,[35] no

oak bedecked with horns, no beech garlanded with the skins of beasts,

no mound whose engirdling hedge proclaims its sanctity, no tree-trunk

hewn into the semblance of a god, no turf still wet with libations, no

stone astream with precious unguents. For these are but small things,

and though there be a few that seek them out and do them worship, the

majority note them not and pass them by.

[Footnote 35: _frondibus_, cod. Florent. 29. 2 man. primi

correctoris.]

_Man's sight compared with that of the eagle._

2. But such was not the opinion of my master Socrates. For once when

he saw a youth of handsome appearance who remained for a long time

without uttering a syllable, he said to him, 'Say something, that I

may see what you are like.' For Socrates felt that a man who spoke not

at all was in a sense invisible, since he held that it was not with

the bodily vision, but with the mind's eye and the sight of the soul

that men should be regarded. In this he disagreed with the soldier in

Plautus, who says,

_One man that has eyes is better by far as a witness than

ten that have ears._

Indeed, for the purpose of examining men he had practically reversed

the meaning of the line to

_One man that has ears is better by far as a witness than

ten that have eyes._

Moreover, if the judgements of the eye were of greater value than

those of the soul, we should assuredly have to yield the palm for

wisdom to the eagle. For we men cannot see things far removed from us

nor yet things that are very near us, but all of us to a certain

extent are blind. And if you confine us to the eyes alone with their

dim earthly vision, the words of the great poet will be very true,

that a cloud as it were is shed upon our eyes and we cannot see beyond

a stone's cast. The eagle, on the other hand, soars exceeding high in

heaven to the very clouds, and rides on his pinions through all that

space where there is rain and snow, regions beyond whose heights

thunderbolts and lightnings have no place, even to the very floor of

heaven and the topmost verge of the storms of earth. And having

towered thus high, with gentle motion he turns his great body to glide

to left or right, directing his wings, that are as sails, whither he

will by the movement of his tail, which, small though it be, serves as

a rudder. Thence he gazes down on the world, staying awhile in that

far height[36] the ceaseless oarage of his wings and, poised almost

motionless with hovering flight, looks all around him and seeks what

prey he shall choose whereon to swoop[37] sudden like a thunderbolt

from heaven on high. In one glance he sees all cattle in the field,

all beasts upon the mountains, all men in their cities, all threatened

at once by his intended swoop, and thence he falls to pierce with his

beak and clutch with his claws the unsuspecting lamb, the timid hare,

or whatsoever living creature chance offers to his hunger or his

talons.

[Footnote 36: _inhibens_ (Heinsius) _pinnarum eminus_ (MSS.).]

[Footnote 37: _fulminis vicem de caelo improvisa, simul._ Van der

Vliet places a comma after _vicem_ and gives none after _improvisa_.]

_The story of Marsyas and his challenge to Apollo._

3. Hyagnis, according to tradition, was the father and instructor of

the piper Marsyas, and skilled in song beyond all others in the years

when music was still in its infancy. It is true that as yet the sound

of his breath lacked the finer modulations; he knew but a few simple

modes and his pipe had but few stops. For the art was but newly born

and only just beginning to grow. There is nothing that can attain

perfection in its first beginnings; everything must commence by

mastering the elements in hope, ere it can attain experience and

success. Well, then, before Hyagnis the majority of musicians could do

no more than the shepherds or cowherds of Vergil who

_Made sorry strains on pipes of scrannel straw._

If any of them seemed to have made some real advance in art, even he

played only on one pipe or one trumpet. Hyagnis was the first to

separate his hands when he played, the first to fill two pipes with

one breath, the first to finger stops with either hand and make sweet

harmony of shrill treble and booming bass. Marsyas was his son, and

though he possessed his father's skill upon the pipe, he was in all

else a barbarous Phrygian, with a filthy beard and the grim and shaggy

face of a wild beast. All his body was covered with hair and bristles,

and yet--good heavens! he is said to have striven for mastery with

Apollo. 'Twas hideousness contending with beauty, a rude boor against

a sage, a beast against a god. The Muses and Minerva, hiding their

amusement, stood by to judge, that they might make a mockery of the

monster's uncouth presumption and punish his stupidity. But Marsyas,

like the peerless fool he was, never perceived that he was an object

of ridicule, and before he began to blow upon his pipes stammered out

in his barbarous jargon some insane boasts about himself and Apollo.

He prided himself on the mane thrown back from his brow, on his

unkempt beard, his shaggy breast, his skill upon the pipes and his

lack of wealth. By contrast--oh the absurdity of it!--he blamed Apollo

for the opposite of these qualities, for being Apollo, for wearing his

hair long, for having a fair face and smooth body, for his skill in so

many arts, and for the opulence of his fortune. 'In the first place,'

he said, 'his hair is smoothed and plastered into tufts and curls that

fall about his brow and hang before his face. His body is fair from

head to foot, his limbs shine bright, his tongue gives oracles, and he

is equally eloquent in prose or verse, propose which you will. What of

his robes so fine in texture, so soft to the touch, aglow with purple?

What of his lyre that flashes gold, gleams white with ivory, and

shimmers with rainbow gems? What of his song, so cunning and so sweet?

Nay, all these allurements suit with naught save luxury. To virtue

they bring shame alone!' And then he proceeded to display his own body

as the model of perfection. The Muses laughed when they heard him

denounce Apollo for possessing gifts such as the wise would pray to

possess, and when this boastful piper had been defeated in the contest

and had been skinned as though he were a two-footed bear, they left

him with his entrails torn and exposed to the air. Thus did Marsyas

sing for his own undoing, and such was his fall. As for Apollo he was

ashamed of so inglorious a victory.

_The piper Antigenidas._

4. There was a certain piper named Antigenidas, whose every note made

honeyed harmony. He had skill, too, to make music in every mode,

choose which you would, the simple Aeolian or the complex Ionian, the

mournful Lydian, the solemn Phrygian, or the warlike Dorian. Being

therefore the most famous of all that played upon the pipe, he said

that nothing so tormented him, nothing so vexed his heart and soul, as

the fact that the musicians who played the trumpet at funerals were

dignified by the name of pipers. But he would have endured this

identity of names with equanimity, had he ever seen the performance of

mimes; for he would have noted that the magistrates, who preside in

the theatre, and the characters on the stage, who come in for a good

cudgelling, are clad in practically the same purple garments. So too,

had he ever watched our games! For he would have seen one presiding,

another fighting, yet both of them sharing the same common humanity.

He would have noted that the Roman toga is worn alike by him who

performs a vow to heaven and by him that lies dead upon the bier, that

the Grecian pallium serves to shroud the dead no less than to clothe

the philosopher.

_Fragment from the opening of a discourse delivered in a theatre._

5. You have, I feel assured, come to this theatre with the best will

in the world. For you know that the importance of an oration does not

depend on the place in which it is delivered, but that the first thing

that has to be considered is, 'What form of entertainment is the

theatre going to provide?' If it is a mime, you will laugh; if a

rope-walker, you will tremble lest he fall; if a comedian, you will

applaud him, while, if it be a philosopher, you will learn from him.

_India and the Gymnosophists._

6. India is a populous country of enormous extent. It lies far to the

east of us, close to the point where ocean turns back upon himself and

the sun rises, on that verge where meet the last of lands and the

first stars of heaven. Far away it lies, beyond the learned Egyptians,

beyond the superstitious Jews and the merchants of Nabataea, beyond

the children of Arsaces in their long flowing robes, the Ityreans, to

whom earth gives but scanty harvest, and the Arabs, whose perfumes are

their wealth. Wherefore I marvel not so much at the great stores of

ivory possessed by these Indians, their harvests of pepper, their

exports of cinnamon, their finely-tempered steel, their mines of

silver and their rivers of gold. I marvel not so much that in the

Ganges they have the greatest of all rivers which

_Lord of all the waters of the East

Is cloven and parted in a hundred streams.

A hundred vales are his, a hundred mouths,

And hundred-fold the flood that meets the main_;

nor wonder I that the Indians that dwell at the very portals of day

are yet of the hue of night, nor that in their land vast serpents

engage in combat with huge elephants, to the equal danger and the

common destruction of either; for they envelop and bind their prey in

slippery coils so that they cannot disengage their feet nor in any

wise break the scaly fetters of these clinging snakes, but must needs

find vengeance by hurling their vast bulk to the ground and crushing

the foe that grips them by the weight of their whole bodies. But it is

of the marvels of men rather than of nature that I would speak.[38]

For the dwellers in this land are divided into many castes. There is

one whose sole skill lies in tending herds of oxen, whence they are

known as the oxherds. There are others who are cunning in the barter

of merchandise, others who are sturdy warriors in battle and have

skill to fight at long range with arrows or hand to hand with swords.

There is, further, one caste that is especially remarkable. They are

called gymnosophists. At these I marvel most of all. For they are

skilled--not in growing the vine, or grafting fruit-trees, or

ploughing the soil. They know not how to till the fields, or wash

gold, or break horses, or tame bulls, or to clip or feed sheep or

goats. What, then, is their claim to distinction? This: one thing they

know outweighing all they know not. They honour wisdom one and all,

the old that teach and the young that learn. Nor is there aught I more

commend in them than that they hate that their minds should be

sluggish and idle. And so, when the table is set in its place, before

the viands are served, all the youths leave their homes and

professions to flock to the banquet. The masters ask each one of them

what good deed he has performed between the rising of the sun and the

present hour. Thereupon one tells how he has been chosen as arbiter

between two of his fellows, has healed their quarrel, reconciled their

strife, dispelled their suspicions and made them friends instead of

foes. Another tells how he has obeyed some command of his parents,

another relates some discovery that his meditations have brought him

or some new knowledge won from another's exposition. And so with the

rest of them,[39] they tell their story. He who can give no good

reason for joining in the feast is thrust fasting from the doors to go

to his work.

[Footnote 38: _libentius ego_ (MSS.).]

[Footnote 39: _denique ceteri commemorant_ (MSS.).]

_On Alexander and false philosophers._

7. The famous Alexander, by far the noblest of all kings, won the

title of the Great from the deeds that he had done and the empire he

had built, and thus it was secured that the man who had won glory

without peer should never be so much as named without a word of

praise. For he alone since time began, alone of all whereof man's

memory bears record, after he had conquered a world-wide empire such

as none may ever surpass, proved himself greater than his fortune. By

his energy he challenged the most glorious successes that fortune

could bestow, equalled them by his worth, surpassed them by his

virtues, and stood alone in peerless glory, so that none might dare

even hope for such virtue or pray for such fortune. The life of this

Alexander is marked by so many lofty deeds and glorious acts, be it of

prowess in the battle or statecraft in the council chamber, that you

may marvel at them till you are weary. It is the story of all these

great achievements that my friend Clemens, most learned and sweetest

of poets, has attempted to glorify in the exquisite strains of his

verse.

Now among the most remarkable acts recorded of Alexander is this.

Desiring that his likeness should be handed down to posterity with as

little variation as possible, he refused to permit it to be profaned

by a multitude of artists, and issued a proclamation to all the world

over which he ruled that no one should rashly counterfeit the king's

likeness in bronze or with the painter's colours, or with the

sculptor's chisel. Only Polycletus might portray him in bronze, only

Apelles depict him in colour, only Pyrgoteles carve his form with the

engraver's chisel. If any other than these three, each supreme in his

peculiar art, should be discovered to have set his hand to reproduce

the sacred image of the king, he should be punished as severely as

though he had committed sacrilege. This order struck such fear into

all men that Alexander alone of mankind was always like his portraits,

and that every statue, painting, or bronze revealed the same fierce

martial vigour, the same great and glorious genius, the same fresh and

youthful beauty, the same fair forehead with its back-streaming hair.

And would that philosophy could issue a like proclamation that should

have equal weight, forbidding unauthorized persons to reproduce her

likeness; then the study and contemplation of wisdom in all her

aspects would be in the hands of a few good craftsmen who had been

carefully trained, and unlettered fellows of base life and little

learning would ape the philosopher no longer (though their imitation

does not go beyond the professor's gown), and the queen of all

studies, whose aim is no less excellence of speech than excellence of

life, would no longer be profaned by evil speech and evil living: and,

mark you, profanation of either kind is far from hard. What is more

readily come by than madness of speech and worthlessness of character?

The former springs from contempt of others, the latter from contempt

of self. For to show little care for one's own character is

self-contempt, while to attack others with uncouth and savage speech

is an insult to those that hear you. For is it not the height of

insolence, think you, that a man should deem you to rejoice in hearing

abuse of the best of men, and should believe that you do not

understand evil and wicked words, or, if you do understand them, hold

them to be good? What boor, what porter, what taverner is so poor of

speech that could not curse more eloquently than these folk, if he

would consent to assume the professor's gown?

_A eulogy of the proconsul of Africa._

8. He owes more to his personal character than to his rank, although

even his rank is one that is shared by few. For out of numberless

multitudes of men not many are senators, of senators but few are of

noble birth, of the noble but few attain to the rank of consul, of

consuls but few are good, and of the good but few are learned. But to

confine what I have to say to his high office, 'tis not lightly that

any man may assume the insignia of his rank either as regards clothing

or foot-gear.

_A defence of himself against his critics and a laudation of the

proconsul Severianus._

9. If it should so chance that in this magnificent gathering there

should sit any of those that envy or hate me, since in a great city

persons may always be found who prefer to abuse rather than imitate

persons better than themselves, and, since they cannot be like them,

affect to hate them. They do this of course in order to illumine the

obscurity that shrouds their own names by the splendour that falls

from mine; if then, I say, any one of these envious persons sullies

this distinguished audience with the stain of his presence, I would

ask him for a moment to cast his eyes round this incredibly vast

concourse. When he has contemplated a throng such as before my day

never yet gathered to listen to a philosopher, let him consider in his

heart how great a risk to his reputation is undertaken by a man who is

not used to contempt in appearing here to-day; for it is an arduous

task, and far from easy of accomplishment, to satisfy even the

moderate expectations of a few. Above all it is difficult for me, for

the fame I have already won and your own kindly anticipation of my

skill will not permit me to deliver any ill-considered or superficial

utterance. For what man among you would pardon me one solecism or

condone the barbarous pronunciation of so much as one syllable? Who of

you will suffer me to stammer in disorderly and faulty phrases such as

might rise to the lips of madmen? In others of course you would pardon

such lapses, and very rightly so. But you subject every word that _I_

utter to the closest examination, you weigh it carefully, you try it

by the plumb-line and the file, you test it by the polish of the lathe

and the sublimity of the tragic buskin. Such is the indulgence

accorded to mediocrity, such the severity meted out to distinction. I

recognize, therefore, the difficulty of the task that lies before me,

and I do not ask you to alter the opinions you entertain of me. Yet I

would not have you deceived by false and petty resemblances, for, as I

have often said, there are certain strolling beggars who assume a

professor's gown to win their livelihood. Not only the proconsul, but

the town crier also ascends the tribunal and appears wearing the toga

like his master. But the crier stands upon his feet for hours

together, or strides to and fro, or bawls his news with all the

strength of his lungs. The proconsul, on the contrary, speaks quietly

and with frequent pauses, sits while he speaks, and often reads from a

written document. This is only natural. For the garrulous voice of the

crier is the voice of a hired servant, the words read by the

proconsul from a written document constitute a judgement, which, once

read, may not have one letter added to it or taken away, but so soon

as it is delivered, is set down in the provincial records. My literary

position will provide a humble analogy. All that I utter before you is

forthwith taken down and read. I can withdraw or change nothing, nor

make the least correction. I must therefore be all the more careful in

what I say before you, and that too with regard to more than one form

of composition. For there is greater variety in the works of my muse

than in all the elaborate achievements of Hippias. If you will give me

your best attention I will explain what I mean with greater detail and

precision.

Hippias was one of the sophists, and surpassed all his fellows in the

variety of his accomplishments, while as an orator he was second to

none. He was a contemporary of Socrates, and a native of Elis. Of his

family nothing is known. But his fame was great, his fortune moderate;

moreover he had a noble wk and an extraordinary memory, pursued many

branches of study, and had many rivals. This Hippias, of whom I speak,

once came to Pisa during the Olympian games arrayed in raiment that

was as remarkable to the eye as it was wonderful in its workmanship.

For he had purchased nothing of what he wore: it was all the work of

his own hands, the clothes in which he was clad, the shoes wherewith

he was shod, and the jewels that made him conspicuous. Next his skin

he wore an undershirt of triple weft and the finest texture, double

dyed with purple. He had woven it for himself in his own house with

his own hands. He had for girdle a belt, broidered in Babylonian

fashion with many varied colours. In this also no man else had helped

him. For outer garment he had a white cloak cast about his shoulders;

this cloak also is known to have been the work of his own hands. He

had fashioned even the shoes that covered his feet and the ring of

gold with its cunningly engraved signet which he displayed on his left

hand. Himself he had wrought the circle of gold, had closed the bezel

around the gem and engraved the stone. I have not yet told you all the

tale of his achievements. But I will not shrink from enumerating all

the marvels that he thought it no shame to show. For he proclaimed

before that vast concourse that his own hands had fashioned the

oil-flask which he carried. It was in shape a flattened sphere, and

its outlines were round and smooth. Beside it he showed an exquisite

flesh-scraper, the handle[40] of which was straight, while the tongue

was curved and grooved with hollow channels, so that the hand might

have a firm grip and the sweat might be carried off in a trickling

stream from the blade. Who could withhold praise from a man who had

such manifold knowledge of so many arts, who had won such glory in

every branch of knowledge, who was, in fact, a very Daedalus,[41] such

skill had he to fashion so many useful instruments? Nay, I myself

praise Hippias, but I prefer to imitate his fertile genius in respect

of the learning, rather than of the furniture with which it was so

richly equipped. I have, I confess, but indifferent skill in these

sedentary arts. When I want clothes I buy them from the weaver, when I

want sandals, such as I am now wearing, I purchase them from the

shoemaker. I do not carry a ring, since I regard gold and precious

stones of as little value as pebbles or lead. As for flesh-scrapers

and oil-flasks and other utensils of the bath I procure them in the

market. I will not go to the extent of denying that I am wholly

ignorant how to use a shuttle, an awl, a file, a lathe, and other

tools of the kind, but I confess that I infinitely prefer to all these

instruments one simple pen, with which I may write poems of all kinds,

such as may suit with the reciter's wand and the accompaniment of the

lyre or grace the comic or the tragic stage. Satires also do I write

and riddles, histories also on diverse themes, speeches that the

eloquent and dialogues that philosophers have praised. Nay, and I

write all these and much besides with equal fluency in Greek and

Latin, with equal pleasure, like ardour and uniform skill. Most

excellent proconsul, I would I could offer all these works of mine not

in fragments and quotations but in entirety and completeness! Would I

might enjoy the priceless boon of your testimony to the merits of all

the offspring of my muse! It is not that I lack praise, for my glory

has long bloomed fresh and bright before the eyes of all your

predecessors, till to-day it is presented to you! But there is none

whose admiration I would more gladly win than yours, for I admire you

beyond all other men by reason of your surpassing virtues. Such is the

ordinance of nature. Praise implies love and, love once given to

another, we demand his praise in return. And I acknowledge that I love

you; no private tie of interest binds me to you, it is in your public

capacity that you have won my devotion. I have never received any

favour at your hands, for I have never asked for one. But philosophy

has taught me not only to love my benefactors, but even such as may

have done me injury, to attach greater importance to justice than to

my private interests, and to prefer the furtherance of the public

welfare to the service of my own. And so it comes about that while

most men love you for the actual benefits conferred upon them by your

goodness, I love you for the zeal with which that goodness is

inspired. And the secret of my devotion is this. I have seen your

moderation in dealing with the affairs of the inhabitants of this

province, a moderation which has won the affection of those who have

come into contact with you by the benefits you have conferred on them,

of those with whom you have never come into contact by the good

example you have set. For while many have received your benefits, all

have profited by your example. Who would not gladly learn from you by

what moderation one may acquire your pleasing gravity, your severity

tempered with mercy, your unruffled resolution and the kindly energy

of your character? Africa has within my knowledge had no proconsul

whom she reverenced more or feared less. Your year of office stands

alone; for in it shame rather than fear has been the motive to set a

check on crime. No other invested with your power has more often

blessed, more rarely terrified: no governor has ever brought a son

with him more like his father's virtues than is yours; and for this

reason no proconsul has ever resided longer at Carthage than have you.

For during the period which you devoted to visiting the province,

Honorinus remained with us; wherefore, though we have never regretted

our governor's absence more, we have felt it less. For the son has all

his father's sense of justice, the youth has all an old man's wisdom,

the deputy has all the consul's authority. In a word, he presents such

a perfect pattern and likeness of your virtues, that the glory

acquired by one so young would, I vow, be a greater source of wonder

than your own, save for one fact; he has inherited it from you. Would

we might live in the joy of his perpetual presence! What need have we

of change of governors? What profit of these short years, these

fleeting months of office? Ah! how swiftly pass the days, when the

good are with us, how quickly spent the term of power for all the best

of those who have ruled over us! Ah! Severianus, the whole province

will sigh for your departure. But Honorinus at least is called away

by the honours which are his due; the praetorship awaits him; the

favour of the two Caesars forms him for the consulate; to-day our love

enfolds him, and the hopes of Carthage promise that in the years to

come he will be here once more. Your example is our sole comfort; he

who has served as deputy shall soon return to us as proconsul!

[Footnote 40: _clausulae_ vulgo.]

[Footnote 41: _Daedalum_ (Krueger).]

_On Providence and its marvels._

10. _First hail we thee, O Sun,

Whose fiery course and rushing steeds reveal

The glowing splendour of thy ardent flame._

Hail we also the Moon, who learns of his light how she herself may

shine, and the influences also of the five planets--Jupiter that

brings blessings, Venus that brings pleasure, Mercury the giver of

swiftness, Saturn the worker of bane, Mars with his temper of fire.

There are also other divine influences, that lie midway 'twixt earth

and heaven, influences that we may feel but not see, such as the power

of Love and the like, whose force we feel, though we have never seen

their form. So too on earth 'tis this force that, in accordance with

the wise behests of providence, here bids the lofty peaks of mountains

rise, there has spread forth the low flat levels of the plain, has

marked out the streams of rivers and the greensward of the meadows,

has given birds the power to fly, reptiles to crawl, wild beasts to

run, and men to walk.

_A comparison between those who lack wealth and those who lack

virtue._

11. He whose soul is barren of virtue is like those poor wretches that

till a barren inheritance of stony fields, mere heaps of rocks and

thorns. Since they may win no harvest from their own wildernesses, and

find no fruit in a soil where only

_Wild oats and darnel rank have mastery_,

conscious of their own poverty they go forth to steal the fruits of

others and rifle their gardens, that they may mingle their neighbours'

flowers with their own thistles.

_On the Parrot._

12. The parrot is an Indian bird, in size very slightly smaller than a

dove. But there is nothing dovelike in its hue. For it has nothing of

the milky whiteness or dull blue, blended or distinct, nor yet of the

pale yellow or iridescence that characterize the dove. The parrot is

green from the roots of its feathers to their very tips, save only for

the markings on the neck. For its tiny neck is girdled and crowned

with a slender band of crimson like a collar of gold, which is of

equal brilliance through all its extent. Its beak is extraordinarily

hard. If after it has soared to a great height it swoops headlong on

to some rock, it breaks the force of its fall with its beak, which it

uses as an anchor. Its head is not less hard than its beak. When it is

being taught to imitate human speech, it is beaten over the head with

an iron wand, that it may recognize its master's command. This is the

rod of its school-days. It can be taught to speak from the day of its

birth to its second year, while its mouth is still easily formed and

its tongue sufficiently soft to learn the requisite modulations. On

the other hand, if caught when it is old, it is hard to teach and

forgets what it has learned. The parrot which is most easily taught

the language of man is one that feeds on acorns and manlike has five

toes on each foot. All parrots do not possess this last peculiarity,

but there is one point which all have in common: their tongue is

broader than that of any other bird. Wherefore they articulate human

words more easily owing to the size of their palate and the organ of

speech. When it has learnt anything, it sings or rather speaks it out

with such perfect imitation that, if you should hear it, you would

think a man was speaking; on the contrary if you hear a crow[42]

attempting to speak, you would still call the result croaking rather

than speech. But crow and parrot are alike in this; they can only

utter words that they have been taught. Teach a parrot to curse and it

will curse continually, making night and day hideous with its

imprecations. Cursing becomes its natural note and its ideal of

melody. When it has repeated all its curses, it repeats the same

strain again. Should you desire to rid yourself of its bad language,

you must either cut out its tongue or send it back as soon as possible

to its native woods.

[Footnote 42: _corvinam quidem si audias idem conantem, crocire non

loqui._ The text is corrupt, Van der Vliet's suggestion probably gives

the correct sense.]

_A comparison between the eloquence of the philosopher and the song of

birds._

13. ... For the eloquence bestowed on me by philosophy has no

resemblance to the song that nature has given to certain birds which

sing but for a brief space and at certain times only. For instance,

the swallows sing at morn, the cicalas at noon, the night-owl late in

the dark, the screech-owl at even, the horned-owl at midnight, the

cock before the dawn. Indeed these animals seem to have made a compact

together as to the various times and tones of their song. The crowing

of the cock is a sound should wake men from their beds, the horned-owl

groans, the screech-owl shrieks, the night-owl cries 'tuwhit, tuwhoo',

the cicalas chatter, and the swallows twitter shrill. But the wisdom

and eloquence of the philosopher are ready at all times, waken awe in

them that hear, are profitable to the understanding, and their music

is of every tone.

_On Crates the Cynic._

14. These arguments and the like which he had heard from the lips of

Diogenes, together with others which suggested themselves to him on

other occasions, had such influence with Crates, that at last he

rushed out into the market-place and there renounced all his fortune

as being a mere filthy encumbrance, a burden rather than a benefit.

His action having caused a crowd to collect, he cried in a loud voice,

saying, 'Crates, even Crates sets thee free.' Thenceforth he lived not

only in solitude, but naked and in perfect freedom and, so long as he

lived, his life was happy. And such was the passion he inspired that a

maiden of noble birth, spurning suitors more youthful and more wealthy

than he, actually went so far as to beg him to marry her. In answer

Crates bared his shoulders which were crowned with a hump, placed his

wallet, staff and cloak upon the ground, and said to the girl, 'There

is all my gear! and your eyes can judge of my beauty. Take good

counsel, lest later I find you complaining of your lot.' But Hipparche

accepted his conditions, replying that she had already considered the

question and taken sufficient counsel, for nowhere in all the world

could she find a richer or a fairer husband. 'Take me where you will!'

she cried....

_Of the isle of Samos and Pythagoras._

15. Samos is an island of no great size in the Icarian sea, and lies

over against Miletus to the west, with but a small space of sea

between them. In whichever direction you sail from this island, though

you make no great haste, the next day will see you safe in harbour.

The land does not respond readily to the cultivation of corn, and it

is waste of time to plough it. But the olive grows better in it, and

those who grow vines or vegetables have no fault to find with it. Its

farmers are entirely taken up with hoeing the ground and the

cultivation of trees, for it is from these rather than from cereals

that Samos derives its wealth. The native population is numerous, and

the island is visited by many strangers. The capital town is unworthy

of its reputation, but the abundant ruins of its walls testify to its

former size.

It possesses, however, a temple of Juno famous from remote antiquity:

to reach it, if I remember aright, one must follow the shore for not

more than twenty furlongs from the city. The treasury of the goddess

is extraordinarily rich, containing great quantities of gold and

silver plate, in the form of platters, mirrors, cups, and all manner

of utensils. There is also a great quantity of brazen images of

different kinds. These are of great antiquity, and remarkable for

their workmanship; I may mention one of them in particular, a statue

of Bathyllus standing in front of the altar; it was the gift of the

tyrant Polycrates, and I think I have never seen anything more

perfect. Some hold that it represents Pythagoras, but this opinion is

incorrect. The statue represents a youth of remarkable beauty; his

hair is parted evenly in the midst of his forehead and streams over

either cheek. Behind his hair is longer and reaches down to his

shoulders, covering the neck whose sheen one may detect between the

tresses. The neck is plump, the jaws full, the cheeks fine, and there

is a dimple in the middle of his chin. His pose is that of a player on

the lyre. He is looking at the goddess, and has the appearance of one

that sings, while his embroidered tunic streams to his very feet. He

is girt in the Greek style, and a cloak covers either arm down to the

wrists. The rest of the cloak hangs down in graceful folds. His lyre

is fastened by an engraven baldric, which holds it close to the body.

His hands are delicate and taper. The left touches the strings with

parted fingers, the right is in the attitude of one that plays and is

approaching the lyre with the plectrum, as though ready to strike as

soon as the voice ceases for a moment to sing. Meanwhile the song

seems to well forth from the delicate mouth, whose lips are half open

for the effort. This statue may represent one of the youthful

favourites of the tyrant Polycrates[43] hymning his master's love in

Anacreontic[44] strain. But it is far from[45] likely that it is a

statue of the philosopher Pythagoras. It is true he was a native of

Samos, remarkable for his unusual beauty, and skilled beyond all men

in harping and all manner of music, and living at the period when

Polycrates was lord of Samos. But the philosopher was far from being a

favourite of this tyrant. Indeed Pythagoras fled secretly from the

island at the very beginning of the tyrant's reign. He had recently

lost his father Mnesarchus, who was, I read, a skilful jeweller

excelling in the carving of gems, though it was fame rather than

wealth that he sought in the exercise of his art. There are some who

assert that Pythagoras was about this time carried to Egypt among the

captives of King Cambyses, and studied under the _magi_ of Persia,

more especially under Zoroaster the priest of all holy mysteries;

later they assert he was ransomed by a certain Gillus, King of Croton.

However, the more generally accepted tradition asserts that it was of

his own choice he went to study the wisdom of the Egyptians. There he

was initiated by their priests into the mighty secrets of their

ceremonies, passing all belief; there he learned numbers in all their

marvellous combinations, and the ingenious laws of geometry. Not

content with these sciences, he next approached the Chaldaeans and the

Brahmins, a race of wise men who live in India.[46] Among these

Brahmins he sought out the gymnosophists. The Chaldaeans taught him

the lore of the stars, the fixed orbits[47] of the wandering lords of

heaven, and the influence of each on the births of men. Also they

instructed him in the art of healing, and revealed to him remedies in

the search for which men have lavished their wealth and wandered far

by land and sea.[48] But it was from the Brahmins that he derived the

greater part of his philosophy, the arts of teaching the mind and

exercising the body, the doctrines as to the parts of the soul and its

various transmigrations, the knowledge of the torments and rewards

ordained for each man, according to his deserts, in the world of the

gods below. Further he had for his master Pherecydes, a native of the

island of Syros and the first who dared throw off the shackles of

verse and write in the free style of unfettered prose. Pherecydes died

of a horrible disease, for his flesh rotted and was devoured of lice;

Pythagoras buried him with reverent care. He is said also to have

studied the laws of nature under Anaximander of Miletus, to have

followed the Cretan Epimenides, a famous prophet skilled also in rites

of expiation, that he might learn from him and also Leodamas, the

pupil of Creophylus, the reputed guest and rival of the poet Homer.

Taught by so many sages, and having drained such deep and varied

draughts of learning through all the world, and being moreover dowered

with a vast intellect whose grandeur almost passes man's

understanding, he was the founder of the science and the inventor of

the name of philosophy. The first of all his lessons to his disciples

was the lesson of silence. With him meditation was a necessary

preliminary to wisdom, meditation set a bridle on all speech, robbed

words, which poets style winged, of their pinions and restrained them

within the white barrier of the teeth. This, I tell you, was for him

the first axiom of wisdom, 'Meditation is learning, speech is

unlearning.' His disciples, however, did not refrain from speech all

their lives, nor did their master impose dumbness on all for a like

space of time. For those of more solid character a brief term of

silence was considered sufficient discipline; the more talkative were

punished by exile from speech for as much as five years. I may add

that my master Plato deviates little or not at all from the principles

of this school, and in most of his utterances is a follower of

Pythagoras. And that I too might win from my instructors the right to

be called one of his followers, I have learned this double lesson in

the course of my philosophical studies--to speak boldly when there is

need of speech and gladly to be mute when there is need of silence. As

a result of this self-command, I think I may say that I have won from

your predecessors no less praise for my seasonable silence than

approval for the timeliness of my speech.

[Footnote 43: _qui_ vulgo.]

[Footnote 44: _Anacreonteum_ vulgo.]

[Footnote 45: _ceterum multum abest_ (MSS.).]

[Footnote 46: Omitting _illa_ before _Indiae gens est_.]

[Footnote 47: _statos ambitus_ (Krueger).]

[Footnote 48: _mortalibus_ MSS. _late pecuniis_ (Stewech).]

_An oration of thanks to Aemilianus Strabo and the senate of Carthage

for decreeing a statue in his honour._

16. Before I begin, illustrious representatives of Africa, to thank

you for the statue, with the demand for which you honoured me while I

was still with you, setting the seal upon your kindness by actually

decreeing its erection during my absence, I wish first to explain to

you why I absented myself for a considerable number of days from the

sight of my audience and betook myself to the Persian baths, where the

healthy may find delightful bathing, and the sick a no less welcome

relief. For I have resolved to make it clear to you, to whose service

I have dedicated myself irrevocably and for ever, that every moment of

my life is well spent. There shall be no action of mine, important or

trivial, but you shall be informed of it and pass judgement upon it.

Well then! to come to the reason for my sudden departure from the

presence of this most distinguished assembly, I will tell you a story

of the comic poet Philemon which is not so very unlike my own and will

serve to show you how sudden and unexpected are the perils that

threaten the life of man. You all are well acquainted with his

talents, listen then to a few words concerning his death, or perhaps

you would like a few words on his talents as well.

This Philemon was a poet, a writer of the middle comedy, and composed

plays for the stage in competition with Menander and contested against

him. He may not have been his equal, he was certainly his rival. Nay,

on not a few occasions--I am almost ashamed to mention it--he actually

defeated him. However this may be, you will certainly find his works

full of humour: the plots are full of wittily contrived intrigue, the

_denouements_ clear, the characters suited to the situations, the

words true to life, the jests never unworthy of true comedy, the

serious passages never quite on the level of tragedy. Seductions are

rare in his plays; if he introduces love affairs, it is as a

concession to human weakness. That does not, however, prevent the

presence in his plays of the faithless pander, the passionate lover,

the cunning slave, the coquetting mistress, the jealous wife whose

word is law, the indulgent mother, the crusty uncle, the friend in

need, the warlike soldier, aye and hungry parasites, skinflint

parents, and saucy drabs. One day, long after these excellences had

made him famous as a writer of comedy, he happened to give a

recitation of a portion of a play which he had just written. He had

reached the third act, and was beginning to arouse in his audience

those pleasurable emotions so dear to comedy, when a sudden shower

descended and forced him to put off the audience gathered to hear him

and the recitation which he had just begun. A similar event befell me,

you will remember, quite recently when I was addressing you. However,

Philemon, at the demand of various persons, promised to finish his

recitation the next day without further postponement. On the morrow,

therefore, a vast crowd assembled to hear him with the utmost

enthusiasm. Everybody who could do so took a seat facing the stage and

as near to it as he could get. Late arrivals made signs to their

friends to make room for them to sit: those who sat at the end of a

row complained of being thrust off their seat into the gangway; the

whole theatre was crammed with a vast audience. A hum of

conversation[49] arose. Those who had not been present the previous

day began to ask what had been recited; those who had been present

began to recall what they had heard, and finally when everybody had

made themselves acquainted with what had preceded, all began to look

forward to what was to come. Meanwhile the day wore on and Philemon

failed to come at the appointed time. Some blamed the poet for the

delay, more defended him. But when they had sat there for quite an

unreasonable length of time and still Philemon did not make his

appearance, some of the more active members of the audience were sent

to fetch him. They found him lying in his bed--dead. He had just

breathed his last, and lay there upon the couch stiff and stark in the

attitude of one plunged in meditation. His fingers still were twined

about his book, his mouth still pressed against the page he had been

reading. But the life had left him; he had forgotten his book, and

little recked he now of his audience. Those who had entered the room

stood motionless for a space, struck dumb by the strange suddenness of

the blow and the wondrous beauty of his death. Then they returned and

reported to the people that the poet Philemon, for whom they were

waiting that there in the theatre he might finish the drama of his

imagination, had finished the one true play, the drama of life, in his

own home. To this world he had said 'farewell' and 'applaud', but to

his friends 'weep and make your moan'. 'The shower of yesterday,' they

continued, 'was an omen of our tears; the comedy has ended in the

torch of funeral or ever it could come to the torch of marriage. Nay,

since so great a poet has laid aside the mask of this life, let us go

straight from the theatre to perform his burial. 'Tis his bones we now

must gather to our hearts; his verse must for awhile take second

place.'

[Footnote 49: _loqui_ (Van der Vliet).]

It was long ago that I first learned the story I have just told you,

but the peril I have undergone during the last few days[50] has

brought it afresh to my mind. For when my recitation was--as I am sure

you remember--interrupted by the rain, at your desire I put it off

till the morrow, and in good truth it was nearly with me as it was

with Philemon. For on that same day I twisted my ankle so violently at

the wrestling school that I almost tore the joint from my leg.

However, it returned to its socket, though my leg is still weak with

the sprain. But there is more to tell you. My efforts to reduce the

dislocation were so great that my body broke out into a profuse sweat

and I caught a severe chill. This was followed by agonizing pain in my

bowels, which only subsided when its violence was on the point of

killing me. A moment more and like Philemon I should have gone to the

grave, not to my recital, should have finished not my speech but my

destiny, should have brought not my tale but my life to a close. Well

then, as soon as the gentle temperature and still more the soothing

medical properties of the Persian baths had restored to me the use of

my foot--for though it gave naught save the most feeble support, it

sufficed me in my eagerness to appear before you--I set forth to

perform my pledge. And in the interval you have conferred such a boon

upon me that you have not only removed my lameness but have made me

positively nimble.

[Footnote 50: The reading is uncertain. Van der Vliet's suggestion

seems to give the outline of the sense desired.]

Was I not right to make all speed that I might express my boundless

gratitude for the honour which you have conferred unasked. True,

Carthage is so illustrious a city that it were an honour to her that a

philosopher should beg to be thus rewarded, but I wished the boon you

have bestowed on me to have its full value with no taint of

detraction, to suffer no loss of grace by any petition on my part, in

a word to be wholly disinterested. For he that begs pays so heavily,

and so large is the price that he to whom the petition is addressed

receives, that, where the necessaries of life are concerned, one had

rather purchase them one and all than ask them as a gift. Above all,

this principle applies to cases where honours are concerned. He to

whom they come as the result of importunate petition owes[51] no

gratitude for his success to any save himself. On the other hand, he

who receives honours without descending to vexatious canvassing is

obliged to the givers for two reasons; he has not asked and yet he has

received. The thanks, therefore, which I owe you are double or rather

manifold, and my lips shall proclaim them at all times and places. But

on the present occasion I will, as is my wont, make public

protestation of my gratitude from a written address which I have

specially composed in view of this distinction. For assuredly that is

the method in which a philosopher should return thanks to a city that

has decreed him a public statue. My discourse will, however, depart

slightly from this method as a mark of respect to the exalted

character and position of Aemilianus Strabo. I hope that I may be able

to compose a suitable discourse if only you will permit me to submit

it to your approbation[52] to-day. For Strabo is so distinguished a

scholar, that his own talents bring him even greater honour than his

noble rank and his tenure of the consulate. In what terms, Aemilianus

Strabo, who of all men that have been, are, or yet shall be, are most

renowned among the virtuous, most virtuous among the renowned, most

learned amongst either, in what terms can I hope to thank or

commemorate the gracious thoughts you have entertained for me? How may

I hope adequately to celebrate the honour to which your kindness has

prompted you? How may my speech repay you worthily for the glory

conferred by your action? It baffles my imagination. But I will seek

earnestly and strive to find a way

_While breath still rules these limbs and memory

Is conscious of its being._

[Footnote 51: _unam gratiam_ vulgo.]

[Footnote 52: _vobis comprobari_ (Krueger).]

For at the present moment, I will not deny it, the gladness of my

heart is too loud for my eloquence, I cannot think for pleasure,

delight is master of my soul and bids me rejoice rather than speak.

What shall I do? I wish to show my gratitude, but my joy is such that

I have not yet leisure to express my thanks. No one, however sour and

stern he be, will blame me if the honour bestowed on me makes me no

less nervous[53] than appreciative, if the testimony to my merits,

delivered by a man of such fame and learning, has transported me with

exultation. For he delivered it in the senate of Carthage, a body

whose kindness is only equalled by its distinction; and he that spoke

was one who had held the consulship, one by whom it were an honour

even to be known. Such was the man who appeared before the most

illustrious citizens of the province of Africa to sing my praise!

[Footnote 53: _non minus uereor quam intellego_ (Krueger).]

I have been told that two days ago he sent a written request in which

he demanded that my statue should be given a conspicuous place, and

above all told of the bonds of friendship which began under such

honourable circumstances, when we served together beneath the banner

of literature and studied under the same masters; he then recorded[54]

all the good wishes for his success with which I had welcomed each

successive step of his advance in his official career. He had already

done me a compliment in remembering that I had once been his fellow

student: it was a fresh compliment that so great a man should record

my friendship for him as though I were his equal. But he went further.

He stated that other peoples and cities had decreed not only statues,

but other distinctions as well in my honour. Could anything be added

to such a panegyric as this, delivered by the lips of an ex-consul?

Yes: for he cited the priesthood I had undertaken, and showed that I

had attained the highest honour that Carthage can bestow. But the

greatest and most remarkable compliment[55] paid me was this: after

producing such a wealth of flattering testimonials he commended me to

your notice by himself voting in my favour. Finally, he, a man in

whose honour every province rejoices through all the world to erect

four or six horse chariots, promised that he would erect my statue at

Carthage at his own expense.

[Footnote 54: _nunc postea vota omnia mea_ (MSS.).]

[Footnote 55: om. _honos_ following MSS.]

What lacks there to sanction and establish my glory and to set it on

the topmost pinnacle of fame? I ask you, what is there lacking?

Aemilianus Strabo, who has already held the consulship and is

destined, as we all hope and pray, soon to be a proconsul, proposed

the resolution conferring these honours upon me in the senate-house of

Carthage. You gave your unanimous assent to the proposal. Surely in

your eyes this was more than a mere resolution, it was a solemn

enactment of law. Nay more, all the Carthaginians gathered in this

august assembly showed such readiness in granting a site for the

statue that they might make it clear to you that, if they put off a

resolution for the erection of a second statue, as I hope,[56] to the

next meeting of the senate, they were influenced by the desire to show

the fullest reverence and respect to their honourable consular, and to

avoid seeming to emulate rather than imitate his beneficence. That is

to say, they wished to set apart a whole day for the business of

conferring on me the public honour still in store. Moreover, these

most excellent magistrates, these most gracious chiefs of your city,

remembered that the charge with which you men of Carthage had

entrusted them was in full harmony with their desires. Would you have

me be ignorant, be silent, as to these details? It would be rank

ingratitude. Far from that, I offer my very warmest thanks to the

whole assembly for their most lavish favour. I could not be more

grateful. For they have honoured me with the most flattering applause

in that senate-house, where even to be named is the height of honour.

And so I have in some sense achieved--pardon my vanity--that which was

so hard to achieve, and seemed indeed not unnaturally to be beyond my

powers. I have won the affections of the people, the favour of the

senate, the approbation of the magistrates and the chief men of the

city. What lacks there now to the honour of my statue, save the price

of the bronze and the service of the artist? These have never been

denied me even in small cities. Much less shall Carthage deny it,

Carthage, whose senate, even where greater issues are at stake,

decrees and counts not the cost. But I will speak of this more fully

at a later date, when you have given fuller effect to your resolution.

Moreover, when the time comes for the dedication of my statue, I will

proclaim my gratitude to you yet more amply in another written

discourse, will declare it to you, noble senators, to you, renowned

citizens, to you, my worthy friends. Yes, I will commit my gratitude

to the retentive pages of a book, that it may travel through every

province and, worlds and ages hence, record my praises of your

kindness to all peoples and all time.

[Footnote 56: _quantum spero_ (MSS.).]

_Fragment of a panegyric on Scipio Orfitus._

17. I leave it to those who are in the habit of obtruding themselves

upon their proconsul's leisure moments[57] to attempt to commend their

wits by the exuberance of their speech, and to glorify themselves by

affecting to bask in the smiles of your friendship. Both of these

offences are far from me, Scipio Orfitus. For on the one hand my poor

wit, such as it is, is too well known to all men to have any need of

further commendation; on the other hand, I prefer to enjoy rather than

to parade the friendship of yourself and such as you; I desire such

friendship, but I do not boast of it, for desire can in no case be

other than genuine, whereas boasting may always be false. With this in

view I have ever cultivated the arts of virtue, I have always sought

both here in Africa and when I moved among your friends in Rome to win

a fair name both for my character and studies, as you yourself can

amply testify, with the result that you should be no less eager to

court my friendship than I to long for yours. Reluctance to excuse the

rarity of a friend's appearances is a sign that you desire his

continual presence; if you delight in the frequency of his visits or

are angry with him for neglecting to come, if you welcome his company

and regret its cessation, it is clear proof of love, since it is

obvious that his presence must be a pleasure whose absence is a pain.

But the voice, if it be refrained in continued silence, is as useless

as the nostrils when choked by a cold in the head, the ears when they

are blocked with dirt, the eyes when they are sealed by cataract. What

can the hands do, if they are fettered, or what the feet, if they are

shackled? What can[58] the mind that rules and directs us do, if it be

relaxed in sleep or drowned in wine or crushed beneath the weight of

disease? Nay, as the sword acquires its sheen by usage, and rusts if

it lie idle, so the voice is dulled by its long torpor if it be hidden

in the sheath of silence. Desuetude must needs beget sloth, and sloth

decay. If the tragic actor declaim not daily, the resonance of his

voice is dulled and its channels grow hoarse. Wherefore he purges his

huskiness by loud and repeated recitation. However, it is vain toil

and useless labour[59] for a man to attempt to improve the natural

quality of the human voice. There are many sounds that surpass it. The

trumpet's blare is louder, the music of the lyre more varied, the

plaint of the flute more pleasing, the murmurs of the pipe sweeter,

the message of the bugle further heard. I forbear to mention the

natural sounds of many animals which challenge admiration by their

different peculiarities, as, for instance, the deep bellow of the

bull, the wolf's shrill howl, the dismal trumpeting of the elephant,

the horse's lively neigh, the bird's piercing song, the angry roar of

the lion, together with the cries of other beasts, harsh or musical,

according as they are roused by the madness of anger or the charms of

pleasure. In place of such cries the gods have given man a voice of

narrower compass; but if it give less delight to the ear, it is far

more useful to the understanding. Wherefore it should be all the more

cultivated by the most frequent use, and that nowhere else[60] than in

the presence of an audience presided over by so great a man, and in

the midst of so numerous and distinguished a gathering of learned men

who come kindly disposed to hear. For my part, if I were skilled to

make ravishing music on the lyre, I should never play save before

crowded assemblies. It was in solitude that

_Orpheus to woods, to fish Arion sang._

[Footnote 57: om. _et negotiosis_ following MSS.]

[Footnote 58: _quid si etiam_ (Krueger).]

[Footnote 59: _cassus labor supervacaneo studio. Plurifariam

superatur_, (MSS.). The reading is uncertain, but the above

punctuation will yield adequate sense.]

[Footnote 60: om. _usquam libentius_ with MSS.]

For if we may believe legend, Orpheus had been driven to lonely exile,

Arion hurled from his ship. One of them soothed savage beasts, the

other charmed beasts that were compassionate: both musicians were

unhappy, inasmuch as they strove not for honour nor of their free

choice, but for their safety and of hard necessity. I should have

admired them more if they had pleased men, not beasts. Such solitude

were far better suited to birds, to blackbird and nightingale and

swan. The blackbird whistles like a happy boy in distant wilds, the

nightingale trills its song of youthful passion in the lonely places

of Africa, the swan by far-off rivers chants the music of old age. But

he who would produce a song that shall profit boys, youths, and

greybeards, must sing it in the midst of thousands of men, even as now

I sing the virtues of Orfitus. It is late, perhaps, but it is meant in

all earnestness, and may prove no less pleasing than profitable to the

boys, the youths, and the old men of Carthage. For all have enjoyed

the indulgence of the best of all proconsuls: he has tempered their

desires and restrained them with gentle remedies, he has given to boys

the boon of plenty, to young men merriment, and to the old security.

But now, Scipio, that I have come to touch on your merits, I fear lest

either your own noble modesty or my own native bashfulness may close

my mouth. But I cannot refrain from touching on a very few of the many

virtues which we so justly admire in you. Citizens whom he has saved,

show with me that you recognize them!

_A discourse pronounced before the Carthaginians, incidentally

treating of Thales and Protagoras._

18. You have come in such large numbers to hear me that I feel I ought

rather to congratulate Carthage for possessing so many friends of

learning among her citizens than demand pardon for myself, the

professed philosopher who ventures to speak in public. For the crowd

that has collected is worthy of the grandeur of our city, and the

place chosen for my speech is worthy of so great a multitude.

Moreover, in a theatre we must consider, not the marble of its

pavements, not the boards of the stage, nor the columns of the

back-scene, nay, nor yet the height of its gables, the splendour of

its fretted roofs, the expanse of its tiers of seats; we need not call

to mind that this place is sometimes the scene for the foolery of the

mime, the dialogue of comedy, the sonorous rant of tragedy, the

perilous antics of the rope-walker, the juggler's sleight of hand, the

gesticulation of the dancer, with all the tricks of their respective

arts that are displayed before the people by other artists. All these

considerations may be put on one side; all that we need consider is

this, the discourse of the orator and the reasons for the presence of

the audience. Wherefore, just as poets in this place shift the scene

to various other cities--take, for instance, the tragic poet who makes

his actor say

_Liber, that dwellest on these heights august

Of famed Cithaeron_

or the comic poet who says

_Plautus but asks you for a tiny space

Within the circuit vast of these fair walls,

Whither without the aid of architect

He may transport old Athens,--_

even so I beg your leave to shift my scene, not, however, to any

distant city overseas, but to the senate-house or public library of

Carthage. I ask you, therefore, if any of my utterances be worthy of

the senate-house, to imagine that you are listening to me within the

very walls of the senate-house; if my words reveal learning, I beg you

to regard them as though you were reading them in the public library.

Would that I could find words enough to do justice to the magnitude of

this assembly and did not falter just when I would be most eloquent.

But the old saying is true, that heaven never blesses any man with

unmixed and flawless prosperity; even in the keenest joys there is

ever some slight undertone of grief, some blend of gall and honey;

there is no rose without a thorn. I have often experienced the truth

of this, and never more than at the present moment. For the more I

realize how ready you are to praise me, the more exaggerated becomes

the awe in which I stand of you, and the greater my reluctance to

speak. I have spoken to strange audiences often, and with the utmost

fluency, but now that I am confronted with my own folk, I hesitate.

Strange to say, I am frightened by what should allure, curbed by what

should spur me on, and restrained by what should make me bold. There

is much that should give me courage in your presence. I have made my

home in your city which I knew well as a boy, and where my student

days were spent. You know my philosophic views, my voice is no

stranger to you, you have read my books and approved of them. My

birthplace is represented in the council of Africa, that is, in your

own assembly; my boyhood was spent with you, you were my teachers, it

was here that my philosophy found its first inspiration, though 'twas

Attic Athens brought it to maturity, and, during the last six years,

my voice, speaking in either language, has been familiar to your ears.

Nay more, my books have no higher title to the universal praise that

is theirs, than the fact that you have passed a favourable judgement

upon them. All these great and varied allurements, appealing as they

do to you as well as to me, hamper and intimidate me just in

proportion as they attract you to the pleasure of hearing me. I should

find it far easier to sing your praises before the citizens of some

other city than to your face. To such an extent is it true that

modesty is a serious obstacle to one confronted by his fellow

citizens, while truth may speak unfettered in the presence of

strangers. But always and everywhere I praise you as my parents and

the first teachers of my youth, and do my best to repay my debt. But

the reward I offer you is not that which the sophist Protagoras

stipulated to receive and never got, but that which the wise Thales

got without ever stipulating for it. What is it you want? Ah! I

understand. I will tell you both stories.

Protagoras was a sophist with knowledge on an extraordinary number of

subjects, and one of the most eloquent among the first inventors of

the art of rhetoric. He was a fellow citizen and contemporary of the

physicist Democritus, and it was from Democritus he derived his

learning. The story runs that Protagoras made a rash bargain with his

pupil Euathlus, contracting for an exceptionally high fee on the

following conditions. The money was to be paid if Euathlus was

successful in the first suit he pleaded in court. The young man

therefore first learned all the methods employed to win the votes of

the jurors, all the tricks of opposing counsel, and all the artifices

of oratory. This he did with ease, for he was a very clever fellow

with a natural aptitude for strategy. When he had satisfied himself

that he had learned all he desired to know, he began to show

reluctance to perform his part of the contract. At first he baffled

his teacher's requests for payment by interposing various ingenious

delays, and for a considerable time refused either to plead in court

or to pay the stipulated fee. At last Protagoras called him into

court, set forth the conditions under which he had accepted him as a

pupil, and propounded the following dilemma. 'If I win,' he said, 'you

must pay the fee, for you will be condemned to do so. If you win, you

will still have to pay under the terms of your contract. For you will

have won the first suit you have ever pleaded. So if you win, you lose

under the terms of the contract: if you are defeated, you lose by the

sentence of the court.' What more would you have? The jury thought the

argument a marvel of shrewdness and quite irrefutable. But Euathlus

showed himself a very perfect pupil of so cunning a master, and turned

back the dilemma on its inventor. 'In that case,' he replied, 'I owe

your fee under neither count. For either I win and am acquitted by the

court, or lose and am released from the bargain, which states that I

do not owe you the fee if I am defeated in my first case in court. And

this is my first case! So in any case I come off scot free; if I lose,

I am saved by the contract; if I win, by the verdict of the jury.'

What think you? Does not the opposition of these sophistic arguments

remind you of brambles, that the wind has entangled one with another?

They cling together; thorns of like length on either side, each

penetrating to an equal depth, each dealing wound for wound. So we

will leave Protagoras' reward to shrewd and greedy folk. It involves

too many thorny difficulties. Far better is that other reward, which

they say was suggested by[61] Thales.

[Footnote 61: _Thalem ... suasisse_ (MSS.).]

Thales of Miletus was easily the most remarkable of the famous seven

sages. For he was the first of the Greeks to discover the science of

geometry, was a most accurate investigator of the laws of nature, and

a most skilful observer of the stars. With the help of a few small

lines he discovered the most momentous facts: the revolution of the

years, the blasts of the winds, the wanderings of the stars, the

echoing miracle of thunder, the slanting path of the zodiac, the

annual turnings of the sun, the waxing of the moon when young, her

waning when she has waxed old, and the shadow of her eclipse; of all

these he discovered the laws. Even when he was far advanced into the

vale of years, he evolved a divinely inspired theory concerning the

period of the sun's revolution through the circle in which he moves

in all his majesty. This theory, I may say, I have not only learned

from books, but have also proved its truth by experiment. This theory

Thales is said to have taught soon after its discovery to Mandraytus

of Priene. The latter, fascinated by the strangeness and novelty of

his newly acquired knowledge, bade Thales choose whatever recompense

he might desire in return for such precious instruction. 'It is enough

recompense,' replied Thales the wise, 'if you will refrain from

claiming as your own the theory I have taught you, whenever you begin

to impart it to others, and will proclaim me and no other as the

discoverer of this new law.' In truth that was a noble recompense,

worthy of so great a man and beyond the reach of time. For that

recompense has been paid to Thales down to this very day, and shall be

paid to all eternity by all of us who have realized the truth of his

discoveries concerning the heavens.

Such is the recompense I pay you, citizens of Carthage, through all

the world, in return for the instruction that Carthage gave me as a

boy. Everywhere I boast myself your city's nursling, everywhere and in

every way I sing your praises, do zealous honour to your learning,

give glory to your wealth and reverent worship to your gods. Now,

therefore, I will begin by speaking of the god Aesculapius. With what

more auspicious theme could I engage your ears? For he honours the

citadel of our own Carthage with the protection of his undoubted

presence. See, I will sing to you both in Greek and Latin a hymn

which I have composed to his glory and long since dedicated to him.

For I am well known as a frequenter of his rites, my worship of him is

no new thing, my priesthood has received the smile of his favour, and

ere now I have expressed my veneration for him both in prose and

verse. Even so now I will chant a hymn to his glory both in Greek and

Latin. I have prefaced it with a dialogue likewise in both tongues, in

which Sabidius Severus and Julius Persius shall speak together. They

are men who are deservedly bound alike to one another, and to you and

the public weal by the closest ties of friendship. Both are equally

distinguished for their learning, their eloquence, and their

benevolence. It is difficult to say whether they are more remarkable

for their great moderation, their ready energy, or the distinction of

their career. They are united one to another by the most complete

harmony. There is but one point on which rivalry exists between them,

namely this: they dispute which has the greater love for Carthage; for

this they contend with all their strength and all their soul, and

neither is vanquished in the contest. Thinking, then, that you would

be most delighted to listen to their converse, and that such a theme

suited my powers and would be a welcome offering to the god, I begin

at the outset of my book by making one of my fellow students of Athens

demand of Persius in Greek what was the subject of the declamation

delivered by myself on the previous day in the temple of Aesculapius.

As the dialogue proceeds I introduce Severus to their company. His

part is written in the language of Rome. For Persius, although a

master of Latin, shall yet to-day speak to you in the Attic tongue.

_A story of the physician Asclepiades._

19. The famous Asclepiades, who ranks among the greatest of doctors,

indeed, if you except Hippocrates, as the very greatest, was the first

to discover the use of wine as a remedy. It requires, however, to be

administered at the proper moment, and it was in the discovery of the

right moment that he showed especial skill, noting most carefully the

slightest symptom of disorder or undue rapidity of the pulse. It

chanced that once, when he was returning to town from his country

house, he observed an enormous funeral procession in the suburbs of

the city. A huge multitude of men who had come out to perform the last

honours stood round about the bier, all of them plunged in deep sorrow

and wearing worn and ragged apparel. He asked whom they were burying,

but no one replied; so he went nearer[62] to satisfy his curiosity and

to see who it might be that was dead, or, it may be, in the hope to

make some discovery in the interests of his profession. Be this as it

may, he certainly snatched the man from the jaws of death as he lay

there on the verge of burial. The poor fellow's limbs were already

covered with spices, his mouth filled with sweet-smelling unguent. He

had been anointed and was all ready for the pyre. But Asclepiades

looked upon him, took careful note of certain signs, handled his body

again and again and perceived that the life was still in him, though

scarcely to be detected. Straightway he cried out 'He lives! Throw

down your torches, take away your fire demolish the pyre, take back

the funeral feast and spread it on his board at home'. While he spoke

a murmur arose; some said that they must take the doctor's word,

others mocked at the physician's skill. At last, in spite of the

opposition offered even by his relations, perhaps because they had

already entered into possession of the dead man's property, perhaps

because they did not yet believe his words, Asclepiades persuaded them

to put off the burial for a brief space. Having thus rescued him from

the hands of the undertaker, he carried the man home, as it were from

the very mouth of hell, and straightway revived the spirit within him,

and by means of certain drugs called forth the life that still lay

hidden in the secret places of the body.

[Footnote 62: _uti_ (Beyte) _cognosceret more ingenii_ (MSS.). _more

ingenii_ may be corrupt. If it may stand, it must mean 'as his nature

prompted him', i.e. to satisfy his curiosity.]

_A panegyric on his own talents._

20. There is a remarkable saying of a wise man concerning the

pleasures of the table to the effect that, 'The first glass quenches

thirst, the second makes merry, the third kindles desire, the fourth

madness.' But in the case of a draught from the Muses' fountain the

reverse is true. The more cups you drink and the more undiluted the

draught the better it will be for your soul's good. The first cup is

given by the master that teaches you to read and write and redeems you

from ignorance[63], the second is given by the teacher of literature

and equips you with learning, the third arms you with the eloquence of

the rhetorician. Of these three cups most men drink. I, however, have

drunk yet other cups at Athens--the imaginative draught of poetry, the

clear draught of geometry, the sweet draught of music, the austerer

draught of dialectic, and the nectar of all philosophy, whereof no man

may ever drink enough. For Empedocles composed verse, Plato dialogues,

Socrates hymns, Epicharmus music, Xenophon histories, and Xenocrates

satire. But your friend Apuleius cultivates all these branches of art

together and worships all nine Muses with equal zeal. His enthusiasm

is, I admit, in advance of his capacity, but that perhaps makes him

all the more praiseworthy, inasmuch as in all high enterprises it is

the effort that merits praise, success is after all a matter of

chance. As an illustration I may remind you, that the law punishes

even the premeditation of crime, though the criminal's purpose may

never have been carried out; the hand may be pure, but there is blood

upon the soul, and that suffices. As, then, to call down the doom of

law it suffices to purpose deeds meet for punishment, so to win praise

it is sufficient to essay deeds worthy of the voice of fame; and what

greater or surer claim to praise may any man have than to glorify

Carthage? For you, her citizens, are full of learning to a man, your

boys learn, your young men display, and your old men teach all manner

of knowledge. Carthage is the venerable instructress of our province,

Carthage is the heavenly muse of Africa, Carthage is the fount whence

all the Roman world draws draughts of inspiration.

[Footnote 63: _litteratoris, ruditate_ (Krueger).]

_An excuse for delay caused by social duties._

21. Sometimes even when haste is most incumbent on us, the delays that

slow our progress may bring such honour, that often we shall be glad

to have been thwarted of our purpose. For instance, take the case of

persons who are compelled to journey in such high haste, that they

prefer the perils of the saddle to a seat in a carriage on account of

the trouble caused by their baggage, the weight of the vehicle, the

delays to progress, the roughness of the track, not to mention the

boulders that beset the route, the tree trunks fallen across the way,

the rivers that intersect the level, and the steep slopes of the

mountains. Well, then, those who wish to avoid all these obstacles

select a horse of tried endurance, mettle, and speed, that is to say,

one strong to bear and swift to go, like the horse described by

Lucilius that

_With one sole stride o'erpasses plain and hill._

None the less, if as this horse bears them along on the wings of his

speed, they chance to see some great personage, a man of noble birth,

high wisdom, and universal fame, then, however pressing their haste,

they refrain their speed that they may do him honour, slacken their

pace and rein in their horse: then straightway leaping to the ground

they transfer to their left hand the switch, which they carry

wherewith to beat the horse, and with right hand thus left free

approach the great man and salute him. If it please him for a while to

ask questions of them, they will walk with him for a while and talk

with him: in fact they will gladly suffer any amount of delay in the

performance of the duty which they owe him.

_On the Virtues of Crates._

22. Crates, the well-known disciple of Diogenes, was honoured at

Athens by the men of his own day as though he had been a household

god. No house was ever closed to him, no head of a family had ever so

close a secret as to regard Crates as an unseasonable intruder: he was

always welcome; there was never a quarrel, never a lawsuit between

kinsfolk, but he was accepted as mediator and his word was law. The

poets tell that Hercules of old by his valour subdued all the wild

monsters of legend, beast or man, and purged all the world of them.

Even so our philosopher was a very Hercules in the conquest of anger,

envy, avarice, lust, and all the other monstrous sins that beset the

human soul. He expelled all these pests from their minds, purged

households, and tamed vice. Nay, he too went half-naked and was

distinguished by the club he carried, aye, and he sprang from that

same Thebes, where Hercules, men say, was born. Even before he became

Crates pure and simple, he was accounted one of the chief men in

Thebes: his family was noble, his establishment numerous, his house

had a fair and ample porch: his lands were rich and his clothing

sumptuous. But later, when he understood that the wealth which had

been transmitted to him, carried with it no safeguard whereon he might

lean as on a staff in the ways of life, but that all was fragile and

transitory, that all the wealth that is in all the world was of no

assistance to a virtuous life....

_On the uncertainty of fortune._

23. Imagine some good ship, wrought by skilled hands, well built

within and fairly adorned without, with rudder answering to the touch,

taut rigging, lofty mast, resplendent tops, and shining sails; in a

word, supplied with all such gear as may serve either for use or the

delight of the eye. Imagine all this and then think how easily, if the

tempest and no helmsman be her guide, the deep may engulf her or the

reefs grind her to pieces with all her goodly gear. Again, when

physicians enter a sick man's house to visit him, none of them bids

the invalid be of good cheer on account of the exquisite balconies

with which they see the house to be adorned, nor on account of the

fretted ceilings all overlaid with gold, or the multitudes of handsome

boys and youths that stand about the couch in his chamber. Rather the

physician sits down by the man's bedside, takes his hand, feels it and

explores the beat and movements of the pulse. If he discovers any

irregularity or disorder, he informs his patient that he is seriously

ill. Our rich man is bidden fast: on that day mid all the abundant

store of his own house, he touches not even bread: and meanwhile all

his slaves feast and are merry, and their servile state makes no

difference to them.

_An improvisation._

24. You have asked me to give you an improvisation. Listen then. You

have heard me speak prepared, now hear me unprepared. I think I risk

but little in making an attempt to speak without premeditation in view

of the extraordinary approval which I have won by my set speeches. For

having pleased you by more serious efforts, I have no fear of

displeasing you when I speak on a frivolous subject. But in order that

you may know me in all my infinite variety, make trial of me in what

Lucilius called

_The improviser's formless art_,

and see whether I have the same skill at short notice as I have after

preparation; if indeed there be any of you who have never heard the

trifles I toss off on the spur of the moment. You will listen to them

with the same critical exactitude that I have bestowed on their

composition, but with greater complaisance, I hope, than I can feel in

reciting them. For prudent judges are wont to judge finished works by

a somewhat severe standard, but are far more complaisant to

improvisations. For you weigh and examine all that is actually

written, but in the case of extempore speaking pardon and criticism go

hand in hand, as it is right they should. For what we read forth from

manuscript will remain such as it was when set down, even though you

say nothing, but those words which I must utter now and the travail of

whose birth you must share with me, will be just such as your favour

shall make them. For the more I modify my style to suit your taste,

the more I shall please you.[64] I see that you hear me gladly. From

this moment it lies with you to furl or spread my sails, that they

hang not slack and drooping nor be reefed and brailed.

[Footnote 64: _modificabor, tanto a vobis in maius tolletur._ So all

editions before Van der Vliet. The words _tanto ... tolletur_ have no

MS. support, but some such insertion is necessary for the sense.]

I will try to apply the saying of Aristippus. Aristippus was the

founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy and was a disciple of

Socrates--a fact which he regarded as the greater honour of the two. A

certain tyrant asked him what benefit he had derived from so long and

so devoted a study of philosophy. 'It has given me the power,' replied

Aristippus, 'to converse with all men without fear or concern.'

My speech has begun with a certain abruptness of expression due to the

suddenness with which the subject suggested itself to me. It is as

though I were building a loose wall in which one must be content to

pile the stones haphazard without filling the interior with rubble,

levelling the front, or making all lines true to rule. For in building

up this speech I shall not bring stones from my own quarry, hewn

foursquare and planed on all sides with their outer edge cut smooth

and level, so that the nail slips lightly over it. No! at every point

I must fit in material that is rough and uneven, or slippery and

smooth, or jagged, projecting and angular, or round and rolling. There

will be no correction by rule, no measure or proportion, no attention

to the perpendicular. For it is impossible to produce a thing on the

spur of the moment and to give it careful consideration, nor is there

anything in the world that can hope at one and the same time to be

praised for its care and admired for its speed.

_The fable of the fox and the crow._

25. I have complied with the desire of certain persons who just now

begged me to speak extempore. But, by Hercules, I fear that I may

suffer the fate that befell the crow in Aesop's fable: namely, that in

the attempt to win this new species of glory I may lose the little I

have already acquired. What is this parable, you ask me? I will gladly

turn fabulist for awhile. A crow and a fox caught sight of a morsel of

food at the same moment and hurried to seize it. Their greed was

equal, but their speed was not. Reynard ran, but the crow flew, with

the result that the bird was too quick for the quadruped, sailed down

the wind on extended pinions, outstripped and forestalled him. Then,

rejoicing at his victory in the race for the booty, the crow flew into

a neighbouring oak and sat out of reach on the topmost bough. The fox

being unable to hurl a stone, launched a trick at him and reached him.

For coming up to the foot of the tree, he stopped there, and seeing

the robber high above him exulting in his booty, began to praise him

with cunning words. 'Fool that I was thus vainly to contend with

Apollo's bird! For his body is exquisitely proportioned, neither

exceeding small nor yet too large, but just of the size demanded by

use and beauty; his plumage is soft, his head sharp and fine, his beak

strong. Nay, more, he has wings with which to follow, keen eyes with

which to see, and claws with which to seize his prey. As for his

colour, what can I say? There are two transcendent hues, the blackness

of pitch and the whiteness of snow, the colours that distinguish night

and day. Both of these hues Apollo has given to the birds he loves,

white to the swan and black to the crow. Would he had given the latter

a voice like the sweet song he has conferred upon the swan, that so

fair a bird, so far excelling all the fowls of the air, might not

live, as now he lives, voiceless, the darling of the god of eloquence,

but himself mute and tongueless.' When the crow heard that, though

possessed of so many qualities, there yet lacked this one, he was

seized with a desire to utter as loud a cry as possible, that the swan

might not have the advantage of him in this respect at any rate, and

forgetting the morsel which he held in his beak, he opened his mouth

to its widest extent, and thus lost by his song what his wings had won

him, while the fox recovered by craft what his feet had lost him. Let

us reduce this fable to the smallest number of words possible. The

crow, to prove himself musical--for the fox pretended that this, the

absence of a voice, was the sole slur on such exquisite beauty--began

to croak, and delivered over the spoil which he carried in his mouth

to the enemy who had thus ensnared him.

_A transition from Greek to Latin._

26. I have known for a long time what it is your demonstrations

demand: namely, that I should deal with the rest of my material in

Latin. For I remember that at the very beginning, when you were

divided in opinion, I promised that neither party among you, neither

those who insisted on Greek nor those who insisted on Latin, should go

away without hearing the language he desired. Wherefore, if it seems

good to you, let us consider that my speech has been Attic long

enough. It is time to migrate from Greece to Latium. For we are now

almost half through our inquiry and, as far as I can see, the second

half does not yield to the first part which I have delivered in Greek.

It is as strong in argument, as full of epigram, as rich in

illustration and as admirable in style.

NOTES

THE APOLOGIA

CHAPTER 1. _Claudius Maximus_, proconsul of Africa, is spoken of as

having succeeded Lollianus Avitus. Lollianus Avitus was consul in 144

A.D. As ten to thirteen years usually elapsed between tenure of the

consulate and proconsulate, Lollianus Avitus may have been proconsul

154-7 A.D., and Claudius Maximus 155-8 A.D.

_gentlemen who sit beside him on the bench._ The governor of the

province, when holding his assize, would be assisted by a _consilium_

of assessors drawn partly from his staff, partly from the local

_conventus civium Romanorum_.

_Granii._ Nothing is known of this suit. Granii are mentioned as

connexions of Lollius Urbicus (C.I.L. viii. 6705).