Apuleius : Apology - Section III
Translated by H. E. BUTLER
Part 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.
Part 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.
Part 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?
Suppose that what you never saw was such as you say. 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.
Part 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 is 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.
Part 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 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 anyone, 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.
Part 56
Can anyone, 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.
But what Mezentius may think of me, I do not care a straw; 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.
Part 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
rooftree. 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 that 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 to reach him at Alexandria
for the fumes of his wine rather than the fumes of his chimney.
Part 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 today, 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 his bedroom for as long as he lived there!
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.
Part 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 belching 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
drunkenness 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 <...> grin, his slobbering lips, his harsh voice, his trembling
hands, his breath 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 today. For he sold Aemilianus his drunken fictions for 3,000 sesterces,
as every one at Oea is aware.
Part 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 entreated him to comply to
their wishes. 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, as soon as this written evidence was
produced, suspected with your usual acuteness that they 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, noticed that Crassus' evidence
smelled after faex and did not dare to read it out in full or to
build anything upon it. 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.
Part 61
And after all this, they have also come up, on reading Pudentilla's letters,
concerning the manufacture of a seal. 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, 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.
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 it to be made for me, 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.
Part 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 today. 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.
Part 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
ghost. 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 kept 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
here, 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 ghost, 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 ghost is evoking ghosts.
Part 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 shades, with all the fiends, with all the spectrets, with
all the ghosts of all the world, and thrust upon your eyes all the terror
that walks 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 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 he builds without labour, yet he saves 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.
Part 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, 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 laws, as you see, I obey.
Part 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, it would
be contrary to my interests.
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 motiva 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 Marcus 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.
Part 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 lovematch 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.
Part 68
I shall now briefly retrace events and force Aemilianus himself to
admit, whenhe 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 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.
Part 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.
Part 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.
Furthermore, she 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.
Part 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.
Part 72
Things being in this delicate position owing to the mother's request and
the son's fear, 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.
Part 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 nd
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.
Part 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
crime-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 habitation of lust and
gluttony, a brothel and a house of whores; the mark of every scandal since
his earliest years; in boyhood, ere he became so hideously bald, the
ready servant of his pederasts in 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. He is said not to have possessed a
single quality that should distinguish an actor, except for his indecency.
Part 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 the shame of his
own bed. Once he had been good at making money everywhere with his own
body, now with that of wife. With none but him -- it is not a lie! --
with none but him most make the arrangements for a night with his wife. So
here we have this well known collusion of husband and wife: whoever have
brought a large sum to the woman are not checked by anyone and can leave
as they wish. Whoever has come with less, are caught as adulterers, after
a sign has been given; and as if they had come to school, they are not
allowed to leave before they have `written something.'
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!'
he says, stating that he cannot pay. 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.
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