The Defense

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

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 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 founde

 Now let me read you the others also which they read last as being the most intemperate in expression.

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

 Without citing any further examples I will conclude by quoting a line addressed by Plato to Dion of Syracuse:

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 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:

 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 reme

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 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.

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 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

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 Similarly in another passage he says:

 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 Circ

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 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

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 These words, which I have quoted in Greek, have been selected by Rufinus and separated from their context. He has taken them round as a confession on

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60

We all knew of this before it actually took place. I might have prevented the transaction by denouncing it, but I knew that so foolish a lie would be prejudicial to Aemilianus, who wasted his money to secure it, rather than to myself, who treated it with the contempt it deserved. I wished not only that Aemilianus should lose his money, but that Crassus should have his reputation ruined by his disgraceful perjury. It was but the day before yesterday that the transaction took place in the most open manner at the house of Rufinus, of whom I shall soon have something to say. Rufinus and Calpurnianus acted as middlemen and entreated him to comply to their wishes. The former carried out the task with all the more readiness because he was certain that his wife, at whose misconduct he knowingly connives, would be sure to recover from Crassus a large proportion of his fee for perjury.

I noticed that you also, Maximus, as soon as this written evidence was produced, suspected with your usual acuteness that they had formed a league and conspiracy against me; and I saw from your face that the whole affair excited your disgust. Finally my accusers, in spite of their being paragons of audacity and monsters of shamelessness, noticed that Crassus' evidence smelled after faex and did not dare to read it out in full or to build anything upon it. I have mentioned these facts not because I am afraid of these dreadful feathers and stains of soot - least of all with you to judge me - but that Crassus might meet with due punishment for having sold mere smoke to a helpless rustic like Aemilianus.