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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77

But though Rufinus' fortune is small, his hopes are boundless. With avarice rivalled only by his need he had already devoured Pudentilla's 4,000,000 in vain anticipation. With this in view he decided that I must be got out of the way, in order that he might find fewer obstacles in his attempt to hoodwink the weak Pontianus and the lonely Pudentilla. He began, therefore, to upbraid his son-in-law for having betrothed his mother to me. He urged him to draw back without delay from so perilous a path, while there was yet time; to keep his mother's fortune himself rather than deliberately transfer it to the keeping of a stranger. He threatened that, if he refused, he would take away his daughter, the device of an old hand to influence a young man in love.

To be brief, he so wrought upon the simple-minded young man, who was, moreover, a slave to the charms of his new bride, as to mould him to his will and move him from his purpose. Pontianus went to his mother and told her what Rufinus had said to him. But he made no impression on her steadfast character. On the contrary, she rebuked him for his fickleness and inconstancy, and it was no pleasant news he took back to his father-in-law. His mother had shown a firmness of purpose not to be expected of one of her placid disposition, and to make matters worse, his expostulations had made her angry, which was likely seriously to increase her obstinacy; in fact, she had finally replied, that it was no secret to her that his expostulations were instigated by Rufinus, a fact which made the support and assistance of a husband against his desperate greed all the more necessary to her.