"Apuleius kept some things wrapped in a napkin at Pontianus's household shrine. I do not know what they were, I therefore insist that they were magic charms. So believe what I say, because I say what I do not know."

What beautiful arguments, ones that clearly disprove the charge! "It was this, since I don't know what it was." Only you have been found to know exactly what you do not know, Aemilianus. You have surpassed all others in stupidity by far, since the most diligent and careful philosophers say that we must not even be confident about what we see. But you are actually confident about what you have never seen or heard.

If Pontianus were alive and you questioned him about what was in that wrapping, he would answer that he didn't know. That freedman -- over there -- who has the keys to the place to this day and stands by you, says that he never looked into it, although as a librarian of the books stored there he opened and closed it almost daily. Often with me, even more often alone, he entered and saw the napkin placed on the table with no seal, no binding. Certainly, why not? Magic charms were hidden in it! I guarded it rather carelessly, in fact, I casually left it out to be scanned freely and looked into and, if it were allowed, taken away. I left it under someone else's protection, entrusted it to another's judgment. So what do you want us to believe about you in these circumstances? That what Pontianus, who lived with me in inseparable companionship, did not know, YOU know, though I've never seen you except in front of the tribunal? Or that what the continually present freedman had every opportunity to look into, what this freedman never saw, that YOU who never had access to it saw it? Let's even assume that what you did not see turned out exactly as you say: all the same, you idiot, if today you had acquired that handkerchief, no matter what evidence you brought forth from it, I would still deny any magic.

[54] I give you permission: contrive what you will, invent, think up what could seem magical. But I would still dispute it with you. I could say it was planted there or taken as a remedy or kept for a sacred rite or ordered in a dream. There are a thousand other ways I could truthfully refute you in an ordinary manner and with the most basic habits of observation. Now you claim that this uncertain, unknown thing condemns me based on empty suspicion -- a thing which would not harm me in the least, seized and presented before a good judge.

I have no idea whether you'll say again, as you tend to, "What was it, then? What did you put way into the shrine covered with a napkin?" Is that what we can expect, Aemilianus? You make your accusations in such a way that you acquire all your information by interrogating the defendant while you offer nothing you know yourself.
"WHY do you seek fish?
WHY did you examine a sick woman?
WHAT did you have in the handkerchief?"
Did you come to accuse me or interrogate me? If to accuse, provide your own proof of what you claim. If to question, do not prejudge what happened since it is because you do not know that you must ask. With this procedure, everyone will prepare cases if a person indicting someone doesn't need to prove a charge, but on the contrary, has every opportunity for interrogation. In fact, there will be trouble over magic for all, regardless of what they actually did.

You left your written vow on the thigh of some statue.
=>You're a magician, why else would you do it?

You offered silent prayers to the gods at the temple.
=>You're a magician, what else would you ask for?

Reverse it: you offered no prayers at the temple.
=>You're a magician, why wouldn't you ask the gods?

Similarly, if you left some gift, if you sacrificed, if you used some herb. Even if I wanted to, the day is not long enough for me to pursue every possible method a trickster could manipulate. In particular, no matter what is stored, sealed, or closed up at home and kept, everything will by the same logic be called magic or brought from the supply room to the forum and into court.

[55] Maximus, the quantity and type of such things, how broad a field is opened to false charges by this path of Aemilianus, and how much sweat is poured by innocents over this one handkerchief, all this and more I could discuss, but I'll do what I set out to do. Even though it isn't necessary, I'll testify and respond to Aemilianus' questions. You ask, Aemilianus, what I had in the napkin. Now, I could deny that any napkin of mine was ever placed in Pontianus' library. If at most I grant that it was there, I could still claim that nothing was wrapped in it. If I claimed that, no testimony or argument would refute me, since no one touched it and a lone freedman, as you say, saw it. STILL, I grant that it was stuffed. Fine, believe that if you wish, just as Ulysses' men believed they'd found a treasure when they cut open that very windy bag. Would you like me to say what sort of stuff I entrusted all bundled up in a napkin to Pontianus' shrine? I'll humor you.

I participated in several sacred rites in Greece. I keep certain tokens and objects of these rites which the priests gave to me. I claim nothing unusual, nothing unknown. Even you initiates of the one father Liber who are here know what you keep hidden at home and honor silently, away from all non-initiates. Certainly I, as I was saying, have learned complex rituals, many rites, and various ceremonies out of an eagerness for truth and service to the gods. And I didn't invent this for the occasion. It has been almost three years since the first days when I was lecturing at venerable Oea about the grandeur of Asclepius, and I recounted these same things about myself and counted the sacred rites I knew. This lecture is well known, widely read, and has passed through everyone's hands not so much because of my eloquence but because the mention of Asclepius recommended it to the religious Oeans. Someone recite it, if anyone happens to remember the beginning of the passage
**** ********* *** ******* **** ** ** *********
--do you not hear, Maximus, many quoting it? Yes, look: the book is even offered up. I'll ask for these passages to be recited, since from your very courteous expression you appear to be an audience that is not annoyed by this.
******* ***** ******* ** ******* ******** *****
*** ******* ***** ** ******** ******** *******

[56] Can anyone who has any recollection of religious practice really be astonished at seeing a man who has knowledge of so many mysteries of the gods guard in his home certain amulets of these sacred rites and wrap them in a linen cloth, which is the purest covering for divine things? Of course, you know that Orpheus and Pythagoras consider wool, the refuse stripped away from sheep, the most sluggish of beasts, unfit for clothing. But an immaculate batch of flax arises from the earth among the best fruits and is used by the most pious priests in Egypt not only for covering and for clothing, but also for concealing sacred objects.

Still I know some people, and prominent among them that Aemilianus, who think they are witty when they make fun of religion. For, as I hear from some people in Oea who know him, he has never up to this point in his life offered a prayer to any god, he hasn't visited any temple, and if he should happen to pass some consecrated place, he thinks it's a crime to kiss his hand out of reverence. In addition, the man has never shared any of the first harvest or the pick of the vine or flock with the gods of the countryside who nourish and clothe him, there is no cleansing shrine in his villa, no sacred grove or consecrated place. Why should I speak of sacred groves and shrines? Those who have been on his property say they haven't seen a single anointed stone or wreathed bough there. So he has two nicknames: Charon, as I already mentioned, on account of the cruelty of his face and his soul, and the other, which he ackowledges readily on account of his hatred of the gods, is Mezentius.

So it's easy for me to understand why the catalog of so many mysteries seems like nonsense to him. Perhaps because of his defiance of the gods he does not believe my testimony to be true, that in the most pious manner I keep watch over the emblems and tokens of so many sacred rites. But I couldn't care less what Mezentius thinks about me. To others, however, I declare publicly in the clearest voice: if someone happens to be here who has participated with me in these same solemn ceremonies, give me some sign, and you may hear what I am guarding. For no threat will ever force me to announce to the uninitiated what I have received under a vow of silence.

[57] So I think, Maximus, that I appear to have satisfied even the most prejudiced people and, as relates to the handkerchief, wiped away every blemish of the crime. Now I may safely pass from the suspicions of Aemilianus to that testimony of Crassus, which they read afterwards as if it were of a most serious nature. You heard from the deposition the testimony of a certain gourmand and desperate glutton Junius Crassus, that in his house I performed sacred rites at night with my friend Appius Quintianus, who was paying for lodging there. And Crassus, although he was actually in Alexandria at that time, still affirmed that he had discovered this from the smoke of a torch and the feathers of a bird.

Obviously, as he was engaging in drinking parties at Alexandria (since this is the same Crassus who is not unwilling to slink into brothels in daylight), he lay in wait like a bird hunter in some stench-filled haunt for the feathers conveyed by his household gods, and he recognized the smoke of his home rising up from his paternal rooftop, so far away. If he saw this with his eyes, that gives him even better eyesight than Ulysses, with all his vows and requests. Ulysses desired in vain for many years to see from the shore smoke rising up from his home: Crassus, in the few months when he was away, caught sight of this smoke with no toil at all, loitering in some tavern.

But if he actually perceived the smoke of his home with his nose, he has conquered hounds and vultures with his sharp sense of smell. For what hound, what vulture in the sky above Alexandria could smell anything from within the borders of Oea? Actually, Crassus is an outstanding glutton and not at all uninformed about every type of smoke, but because of his passion for drinking, the only thing for which he is recognized, the smell of wine rather than of smoke would more easily have reached him in Alexandria.

[58] He realized this would be an unbelievable story, so it's said that he sold that testimony before the second hour of the day, while fasting and abstaining from drink. So he wrote how he he'd discovered these things: after he returned from Alexandria, he'd hurried directly to his house, from which Quintianus had already departed. There, in the courtyard, he'd come upon a heap of birds' feathers, and what's more, the walls were soiled with soot. He sought an explanation from the slave he left behind in Oea, and the slave had told him about the rites which Quintianus and I had performed by night.

What a truly fine invention and probable contrivance!

That I, if I wished to do any of this, wouldn't rather have done these things in my own house. That Quintianus, who supports me, whom I name with the favor of honor and praise because of the very firm friendship that exists between us, and also because of his eminent wisdom and most polished eloquence, that this Quintianus, if he'd prepared these birds for dinner or, as they assert, he'd slain them for magical purposes, wouldn't have had a slave to sweep up the feathers and throw them outside. And furthermore, that there was so much force in the smoke that the walls turned black, and that Quintianus would have endured this ugliness as long as he occupied his room. You speak nonsense, Aemilianus, and nothing of what you say is even likely, unless Crassus happened not to return to his room, but as is his custom proceded straight to the hearth. And what's more, why did Crassus' slave suppose that the walls had become stained by smoke chiefly at night? From the color of the smoke? It's obvious that nocturnal smoke is blacker and differs from day-smoke. Why, moreover, did such a suspicious and attentive slave allow Quintianus to depart before he'd returned the room to its pristine condition? Why did those feathers wait so long for the return of Crassus, as if they were full of lead? Don't let Crassus blame his slave: he himself is more likely to have invented these things about the soot and the feathers, since even while giving testimony, he can't separate himself for an extended period from his kitchen.

[59] Why then did you read this testimony from a deposition? Where in the world is Crassus himself? Has he returned to Alexandria out of disgust at his house? Is he cleaning his walls? Or, as is more likely, is the glutton being attacked by a hangover? For I did catch sight of this man here in Sabratha yesterday, remarkably enough in the middle of the forum, Aemilianus, belching in your face. Ask your secretary, Maximus, although that man is better known to innkeepers than to secretaries. Anyway, inquire whether they've seen this Junius Crassus from Oea; they won't deny it. Let Aemilianus produce for us this most respectable young man on whose testimony he relies.

You can see what time of day it is: I say that Crassus has already for some time been snoring drunkenly, or, in the midst of a second bathing in preparation for an after-dinner drinking bout, is sitting in some bath sweating profusely a wine-soaked perspiration. He is present with you, Maximus, speaking through a note, only because he is not so divorced from all shame that if he were to appear before your eyes, he could lie without any blushing. But perhaps he is not even capable of such a little thing as restraining his drunkenness, so that he could hope to arrive to this hour in a sober condition. Or, perhaps, it's possible that Aemilianus planned this strategy, that Crassus not appear before your strict eyes, fearing that you'd disapprove of that brute with his shaved jaw and the abominable appearance of his face, when you took notice of the young man's head, stripped of its beard and hair, and his drunken eyes, his swollen eyelids, his open mouth, his slobbering lips, his inharmonious voice, his trembling hands, his vulgar belching. He long ago consumed his entire inheritance in luxury, and nothing survives to him from his good parents, except a single house for selling false accusations. Still, he has never rented it out for a higher price than he has in this testimony; for he sold that drunken lie to this Aemilianus for 3000 sesterces, and no one in Oea is unaware of it.

[60] We all knew of this even before it happened, and I could've prevented the accusation, if I hadn't thought that such an idiotic lie would be more prejudicial to Aemilianus, who purchased it in vain, than to me, who justifiably despised it. I wished Aemilianus to suffer a loss and Crassus to be prostituted by the disgrace of his testimony. In addition, something not at all concealed was done the day before yesterday in the home of a certain Rufinus, about whom I will soon speak, as Rufinus himself and Calpurnianus were both acting as intermediaries and pleaders. Rufinus did it that much more willingly because he was sure that his wife, whose crimes he knowingly covers up, would bring him a large portion of Crassus' gift. I saw that you, Maximus, through your wisdom, were also suspicious of their conspiracy and union against me, and even as the deposition was submitted, you showed contempt on your face for this whole affair. And finally, although they are endowed with unusual boldness and ill-omened rashness, still, even they didn't try to read out or rely upon any of Crassus' testimony, when they saw that it smelled like shit. I have recounted my opponents' doings, not because I feared the threats of feathers or the stain of soot, especially with you as my judge, but so that Crassus would not get off unpunished for selling crass smoke to Aemilianus, a country hick.

[61] They mentioned another crime when they read Pudentilla's letter, about the construction of a certain figurine. They claim I had it prepared from the most carefully chosen wood for the sake of secret, evil black magic, and, although it is in the foul and disgusting shape of a skeleton, that I still worship it and call it in the Greek language, BASILEU/S king [LINK]. Unless I'm mistaken, I'm pursuing their tracks in order and by seizing every bit of their false accusations one by one, I'm unraveling them.

How could the construction of the figurine be hidden, as you say, if you know the maker well enough that you have summoned him here as a witness? The craftsman Cornelius Saturninus is present, a man whose art is praised among his colleagues and whose character is approved. Under your careful examination a short while ago, Maximus, he reviewed the entire series of events with the highest honesty and veracity. He said that I, when I was at his shop, saw many geometric shapes made finely and skillfully from boxwood, and that I was so attracted by his craftsmanship that I asked him to develop certain devices for me. At the same time I asked him to carve the image of any god to which I could pray following my own custom, out of any material, as long as it was wood. So at first he tried to carve it out of boxwood. In the meantime, while I was spending time in the country, my stepson Sicinius Pontianus, who wanted to do something for me, brought some tablets of ebony I had requested from Capitolina, a most respectable woman, to Saturninus, and asked him to make the image from this rarer and more durable material, saying that this gift would be very pleasing to me. So he did this, as the tablets were available. In this way he was able gradually to cut out a little Mercury of dense thickness from the tablets.

[62] You heard all the things which I am now saying. In addition, when the son of Capitolina, a really decent youth who's right here, was under examination he said the same things: Pontianus sought the tablets, and then Pontianus brought the tablets to the craftsman Saturninus. Furthermore, he doesn't deny that Pontianus received from Saturninus a completed figurine, and that afterwards he gave it to me as a gift. Since all these things were openly and publicly proven, what, then, remains in which any suspicion of magic lies hidden? On the contrary, what remains that does not refute your blatant dishonesty? You said that this thing was made secretly, this thing which Pontianus, a most brilliant member of the equestrian order, sought to have made, which Saturninus, an important and renowned man among his colleagues, carved publicly while sitting in his workshop, which a most decorated matron assisted by her gift, and which many of the slaves and friends who visit me knew about before and after it was made. It causes you no shame to invent the story that I desperately sought out this wood throughout the whole town, even though you knew I was absent at that time, and even though it has been proven that I ordered the image to be carved from any type of material.

[63] Your third lie was that it was an emaciated artistic representation of a deathlike cadaver, horrible and like an evil spirit. But if you knew for certain that this was such a clear sign of magic, why didn't you force me to exhibit it? So you could lie freely about something which wasn't here? An advantage of a habit of mine, however, has taken away from you the feasibility of this falsehood. For I have a custom: wherever I go, I carry the image of some god or another hidden among my books, and on holidays I worship it with incense and unmixed wine and sometimes with sacrifices. So when I heard a little earlier that it was repeatedly being called a skeleton in an exceedingly shameless lie, I ordered someone to go in a cart and bring back my little Mercury, which this Saturninus made for me at Oea. Come now, let them look at it, hold it, examine it. So! Do you see what that accursed man was calling a skeleton? Do you hear the cry of disapproval from everyone here? Aren't you ashamed, in the end, of so many false accusations? Is this a skeleton, is this an evil spirit, is this what you were calling a demon? Is this a magical image, or a normal, ceremonial one?

I ask you, Maximus, to take it and contemplate it. It is right that a consecrated object be handed over to such pure and pious hands as yours. See how handsome and full of athletic vigor his face is, how cheerful the face of the god. See how the down creeps prettily over both of his cheeks; that his hair, curled up on his head, peeks out under the low shelter of his felt cap. See how charmingly his symmetrical wings project over his forehead, and, in addition, how jauntily his clothing is drawn around his shoulders. Whoever dares to call this a skeleton never sees any image of the gods or has forgotten all of them. In short, whoever thinks this is an evil spirit is himself bewitched.

[64] But, Aemilianus, for that lie let that same god, the intermediary between the living and the dead, give you the hatred of the gods of both worlds. May he always heap up before your eyes unavoidable apparitions of the dead, shades, lemures, ghosts, wandering spirits: all the things that you encounter in the night, all the horrors of the tomb, all the terrors of the grave, from which, by your age (and most deservedly so), you are not far away.

We followers of Plato, on the other hand, know only of the festive and the happy, the serious and the higher and celestial. As a matter of fact, in its desire to elevate itself, this school also investigated things more sublime than the sky itself and stood on the outermost surface of the universe. Maximus, who has read carefully in the Phaedrus concerning TO\N U(PEROURA/NION TO/PON "the place above the sky" [LINK] and OU)RANOU= NW=TON "the surface of heaven" [LINK] knows I am speaking the truth. This same Maximus understands perfectly, so that I may also respond to you concerning the name, who this god is who was not named BASILEU/S king [LINK] by me first, but by Plato: PERI\ TO\N PA/NTWN BASILE/A PA/NT' E)STI\ KAI\ E)KEI/NOU E(/NEKA PA/NTA all things are related to the lord of all things, and all things exist because of him. [LINK]

Who might this lord be,
the cause, reason, and initial origin of all the things in nature,
highest begetter of the spirit,
eternal savior of living things,
careful craftsman of his own universe, but, indeed, a craftsman without effort,
a savior without anxiety, a begetter without propagation,
bound not by place or by time or by any misfortune,
and so a few may understand him, but no one can describe him in words?

[65] I've said enough about the name for the moment. Furthermore, I know that some people standing around me want to hear why I wanted the image made, not out of silver or gold, but specifically out of wood, and I think they want to know this not so much to forgive me as to understand. In this way they may be freed from their misgivings when they see all suspicion of criminality thoroughly refuted. So let anyone who wants to know listen, but with an alert and attentive spirit (so far as you are able) -- as if you were about to hear the words of Plato, by now an old man, from the last book of his Laws:

QEOI=SIN DE\ A)NAQH/MATA XREW\N E)/MMETRA TO\N ME/TRION A)/NDRA A)NATIQE/NTA DWREI=SQAI. GH= ME\N OU)=N E(STI/A TE OU)KH/SEWS I(ERA\ PA=SI PA/NTWN QEW=N: MHDEI\S OU)=N DEUTE/RWS I(ERA\ KAQIEROU/TW QEOI=S

"It befits the moderate man to offer moderate votive-offerings to the gods. The land and the household hearth of all people are sacred to all the gods; therefore let no one dedicate other sacred things to the gods."[LINK]

With this he forbids that anyone dare to establish sanctuaries privately, for he believes public temples are sufficient for citizens to perform sacrifices. Then he adds:

XRUSO\S DE\ KAI\ A)/RGUROS E)N A)/LLAIS PO/LESIN I)DI/A| KAI\ E)N I(EROI=S E)STIN E)PI/FQONON KTH=MA, E)LE/FAS DE\ A)PO\ LELOIPO/TOS YUXH\N SW/MATOS OU)K EU)/XARI A)NA/QHMA, SI/DHROS DE\ KAI\ XALKO\S POLE/MWN O)/RGANA: CU/LOU DE\ MONO/CULON O(/ TI A)\N QE/LH| TIS A)NATIQE/TW, KAI\ LI/QOU W(SAU/TWS.

"Gold and silver, both privately and in temples in the other cities, are things which cause envy; and ivory, from a body which has left behind its soul, is not a pure offering; iron and bronze are tools of warfare; but whoever wishes may offer a single piece of wood, or similarly of stone."[LINK]

As the general agreement has declared, Maximus, and you who sit in council, I seem to have used Plato, whose laws you see me obeying, very competently, both as a teacher of my life and as an advocate for my case.