Apuleius
124 A.C.E.-ca. 170 A.C.E. - Wrote in Greek
The Defense
Written (Date Pending)
Translated by H. E. Butler
The Defense
By Apuleius
Section 1
Part 1
For my part, Claudius Maximus, 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.
Part 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; 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.
Part 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.
Part 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 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.
Part 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.
Part 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 cleans thy teeth withal.
This delicate dust of Arab spices fine,
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 shown 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.
Part 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 today 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 freeborn 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
thq 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.
Part 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.
Part 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 as a poet, but not as a philosopher. If they are 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 your thighs and your sweet mouth.
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 be.
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; \u00a1!
then shall my songs be shamed and mute
before the music of thy flute.
Part 10
This, Maximus, is what they throw in my teeth, as though it were
the work of an infamous rake: verses about garlands and
serenades.
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 nnames and calls himself Corydon and the boy Alexis.
But Aemilianus, whose rusticity far surpasses that of the Virgilean
shepherds and cowherds, 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. Learn then the verses written by Plato
in honour of the boy Aster, though I doubt if at your age it is possible
for you to become a man of learning.
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.
There is another poem by Plato dealing conjointly with the boys
Alexis and Phaedrus:
I lid 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.
Part 11
Which of us is most to blame? I who am fool enough to speak seriously
of such things in a lawcourt? 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.
Part 12
I say nothing of those lofty and divine Platonic doctrina, 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
bodies 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.
Part 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.
For next I have 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.
Part 14
Come now, let me admit that I h\u00e1ve 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 in 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 that craftsmanly
smoothness and productive splendour of the mirror.
Part 15
Two alternatives then are before us. We must either follow the
precept of the Lacedaemonian Agesilaus, who had no confidence in his personal
appeannce 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 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.
Part 16
What do you think? Should not philosophers make all these problems
subjects of research and inquiry and in solitary study look into mirrors
of every kind, liquid and solid? 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.
Part 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 do you have for regarding three slaves as a mark of my poverty,
rather than for considering three freed men as a proof of my
wealth?
You don't know, really, Aemilianus, you don't know 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.
Part 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 content
with little, greedy for naught save honour, a stable possession in the
face of 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 sex. 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, Gnaeus 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?
Part 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 Fortune,
if cannot be carried but must be dragged, 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?
Part 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 harmong 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.
Part 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?
lf the horse is 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 purchaches 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 leas 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.
Part 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 twon 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 palmleaves.
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.
Part 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 by contempt for my patrimony. 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.
Part 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. Sellers 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.
Part 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 is 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.
The Defense
By Apuleius
Section 2
Part 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.
Part 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 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?' As if it were not more remarkable that she
should have remained a widow so long. `Why, before she married you, did
she express certain opinions in a letter?' As if anyone should give the
reasons for 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.' As if it were not
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?
Part 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 villanous accusation -- is more likely
to resemble his uncle Aemilianus than his brother Pontianus.
Part 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.
Part 30
`You seek to purchase fish,' he says. 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
will recognize the lines.
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,
and eke the charm tbat gods the whinnying mare.
Part 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 relea~ed 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 speasing
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, whereo
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.
Part 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,
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 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?
Part 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.
Part 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.
Part 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, rough shells,
smooth pebbles, crabs' claws, sea-urchins' husks, the tentacles of cuttlefish,
shingle, straws, cordage, not to mention 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.
Part 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 ome learning even at the eleventh hour. Let him read
the words 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.
Part 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.
Part 38
You hear, Maximus. You have doubtless frequently read the like
in the wor}s 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 zôiotoka and ôiotoka
-- 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 today, 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. Selacheia,
malacheia, malakostraka, chondrakantha, ostrakoderma, karcharodonta, amphibia,
lepidôta, pholidôta, dermoptera, steganopoda, monèrè,
sunagelastika -- 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.
Part 39
What do you think? 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 cuttle-fish,
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.
Part 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 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.
Part 41
`You dissected a fish,' he says. 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 rays that those who make such
investigations as these `pursue a delightful form of amusement which they
will never regret.'
Part 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.
Part 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 nentioned,
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 causing him to collapse.
Part 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.
Do his fellow slaves, who are at 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 today. 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 today. 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.
Part 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 |
