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Now, Aemilianus, try to remember whether the following were not the words of which, together with myself, you took a copy in the presence of witnesses.

For since I desired to marry for the reasons of which I told you, you persuaded me to choose Apuleius in preference to all others, since you had a great admiration for him and were eager through me to become yet more intimate with him. But now that certain ill-natured persons have brought accusations against us and attempt to dissuade you, Apuleius has suddenly become a magician and has bewitched me to love him! Come to me, then, while I am still in my senses.

I ask you, Maximus, if letters - some of which are actually called vocal - could find a voice, if words, as poets say, could take them wings and fly, would they not, when Rufinus first made disingenuous excerpts from that letter, read but a few lines and deliberately said nothing of much that bore a more favourable meaning, would not the remaining letters have cried out that they were unjustly kept out of sight? Would not the words suppressed by Rufinus have flown from his hands and filled the whole market-place with tumult: 'they too had been sent by Pudentilla, they too had been entrusted with something to say; men should not give ear to a dishonest villain attempting to prove a lie by means of another's letter, but rather listen to them; Pudentilla never accused Apuleius of magic, while Rufinus' accusation was tantamount to an acquittal.' All these things were not said then, but now, when they are of more effectual service to me, their truth appears clearer than day. Rufinus, your cunning stands revealed, your fraud stares us in the face, your lies are laid bare; truth dethroned for a while rises once more and transcends slander as if from a bottomless pit.