And yet, by your order, Maximus, we copied the letter the day before yesterday in the presence of Pontianus's secretary, with Aemelianus countersigning, and in the presence of a witness. In the letter, everything was found contrary to their assertion and in my favor.
[79] And even if Pudentilla did say rather sharply that I was a magician, she could well be excusing herself to her son by using my force as an excuse rather than her own free will. Was Phaedra the only one to compose a false letter about love? Hasn't this art been used by all women, to make their desire appear compelled?
Even if she thought this way -- that I'm a magician -- should I be considered a magician for this reason? Because Pudentilla wrote as much? You, with so many arguments and so many witnesses and so many great words can't prove that I'm a magician. But she could prove it in one word?!
And to think, something that's about to be prosecuted in a court of law should be taken that much more seriously than something written in a letter.
Convict me through my own deeds, not through someone else's words.
Otherwise, many other men will be arraigned before a court as all sorts of magicians -- if what anyone writes in a letter out of love or hatred becomes accepted as hard and fast truth.
"Pudentilla wrote that you're a magician, so you're a magician."
What if she had written that I was a consul? Would I be a consul?
What if she had written that I was a painter, say, or a doctor?
And what if she had written . . . that I was innocent?
Would you believe any of these things for this reason, because she said it?
I don't think so.
But clearly, it's wrong to trust someone in nasty affairs if you don't trust them in nicer matters, as well. In other words, it's not at all fair that her letter has the power to harm, but not to do good.
"But she was out of her mind," he said. "She loved you desparately."
Yes, ok, I'll grant this. For the moment.
But is every person who is beloved also a magician, if, by chance, his lover has written as much? Now I believe that Pudentilla didn't love me if she wrote this for others to read, because it would harm me in public.
[80] Well, what do you want in the end? Was she of sound mind or insane when she wrote this ?
She was of sound mind? So she didn't suffer from magical arts.
She was insane? So she didn't know what she wrote, in which case she's not to be trusted.
Yes, if she'd been insane, she wouldn't have known that she was insane. This is like a person who says that he's silent and thus speaks foolishly: by saying that he's silent, he's not silent, and he invalidates what he's asserted through this declaration. And in this matter of insanity, a person can be even more contradictory: "I am insane." This isn't true, because a person can only say this knowingly. Furthermore, if you can recognize insanity, you're sane, because insanity can't know itself any more than blindness can see itself.
Therefore, Pudentilla was sane if she didn't think she was sane.
I could continue with more things, if I wanted, but let me end these dialectics. I'll read aloud this letter I've been talking about, which exclaims another thing at length, as if it were intentionally prepared and fitted to this farce. Take it and read it until I begin again.
Let's hold off on the remaining things for a minute -- we've come to a
crucial point in the matter. For as far as I can see, Maximus, until this point,
the woman has mentioned magic nowhere by name. Instead, she's repeated the same
series of events that I mentioned a short while ago:
her widowhood,
the
remedy for her ill-health,
her desire to marry,
my good points, which
she had learned from Pontianus,
his advising her to marry me in particular.
[81] This is what's been read so far. The remaining part of the letter was similarly written on my behalf, but it turns the chief arguments against me. This letter, which was intended to drive the charge of magic away from me, was neglected intentionally. With remarkable praise, Rufinus changed this. He also changed the opinion of certain Oeans toward me into the opposite of what it had been -- as if he'd procured a magician!
Maximus, you've heard much from those speaking, and you've learned even more
by reading, and you've ascertained quite a few things by experience. But I'm
sure you'll say that you've never known such deceitful cunning, composed with
such appalling wickedness.
What Palamedes?
What Sisyphus?
What
Eurybates or Phrynondas?
. . . could have devised such a plan! If any of
these characters (or any others who should be mentioned for their guile) were
measured against this one trick of Rufinus, they'd be pathetic fools.
Such shocking falsehood! Such cunning!
Worthy of prisons and deep dungeons!
Who would believe it? A defense, transformed into an accusation by the same letter? By Hercules!
Unbelievable.
But I'll show you how this unbelievable event happened.
[82] Pudentilla rebuked her son, saying that he'd suddenly decided that I was a magician just as Rufinus said, when he'd insisted before that I was such an excellent guy. Her words ran like this:
*A)POLE/I..OS MA/GOS, KAI] E)GW\ U(P' AU)TOU= MEMA/GEUMAI KAI\ E)RW=. E)LQE\ TOI/NUN PRO\S E)ME/, E(/WS E)'TI SWFRONW=.
"Apuleius is a magician: I've been magicked by him and I'm in love. So come to me, while I'm still of sound mind." [LINK]
These very words which I've quoted in Greek were quoted alone and out of context. Rufinus circulated the woman's "confession" and, leading a sobbing Pontianus through the forum, presented the boy and the letter to the crowd. He allowed this letter to be read in the way that I mentioned, concealing the other parts written above and below his selection: he kept saying that they were more shameful than the parts presented -- and that it was enough that the woman's confession about magic be made public.
Why do you ask about this? They all found it likely enough. And so, the same things which were written for the sake of exonerating me stirred up such strong hatred of me among ignorant people. This wicked man, raving like a Maenad, caused a disturbance in the middle of the forum. Constantly folding and unfolding the letter, he kept proclaiming:
"Apuleius is a magician! The woman who suffers from it says so herself!"
What more do you want? There was no one who would step forward on my behalf and respond like this: "Please, let's hear the whole letter! Let me look it over without all this commotion; let me read it through from beginning to end. There are many things which might distort the truth when taken out of context. Any speech at all can be made suspect if the issues which are woven from what comes before them are cheated of their own introduction -- if certain parts of the letter's narrative are concealed on a whim -- and if what was said ironically is read straight." The letter's whole narrative will show how much these things warranted saying.
[83] But Aemelianus, recall now whether you'd transcribed the following with me as a witness:
BOULOME/NHN GA/R ME DI' A(\S EI)=PON AI)TI/AS GAMHQH=NAI, AU)TO\S
E)/PEISAS TOU=TON A)NTI\ PA/NTWN AI(REI=SQAI, QAUMA/ZWN TO\N A)/NDRA KAI\
SPOUDA/ZWN AU)TO\N OI)KEI=ON U(MI=N DI' E)MOU= POIEI=SQAI. NU=N DE\ W(S KAT
"For I wanted to get married for the reasons which I mentioned. Since you admired this man and were eager that a family relationship be forged for you by me, you persuaded me to choose him before all others. But now because our malicious accusers mislead you, suddenly Apuleius has become a magician. I've been bewitched by him and I'm in love. So come to me while I'm still of sound mind." [LINK]
Since letters are sometimes said to have the power of speech, Maximus, I ask you this: if the letter had actually employed its own voice, if words equipped with wings (as the poets say) could fly like this before the whole world -- if this were so, then when Rufinus first made selections from that letter dishonestly, read a few words, and then intentionally omitted many more favorable words, wouldn't the other letters have cried out then that they were being held back by a scoundrel?
Wouldn't the hidden words have flown out of Rufinus's hands?
Wouldn't they have risen up in rebellion and filled the entire forum?
Wouldn't they have said
that they too had been sent by Pudentilla,
that they'd been commanded to say that the crowd should not listen to the
shameless and wicked man trying to make a false accusation with those other
words,
and that the crowd should listen to them instead?
Wouldn't they
have said that Apuleius hadn't been accused of magic by Pudentilla, but that
he'd in fact been acquitted by Rufinus while he was trying to accuse him?
Although all these things weren't said then, they appear brighter than daylight now, when they're even more useful to me.
Your immoral conduct is exposed, Rufinus.
Your deceptions are out in the open.
Your lie has been exposed. Truth, once distorted, now comes forward, and falsehood goes for a little ride . . .
[84] You've appealed to Pudentilla's letter. If you'd also like to hear the conclusion of the letter which gives me the victory, I won't hold out on you. Read the words with which the bewitched, senseless, crazy, lovesick woman finished the letter:
*E)GW\ OU)/TE MEMA/GEUMAI OU)/[TE]T' E)RW=. TH\N EI(MARME/NHN E)KF.
"I have not been bewitched, nor am I in love. This is my destiny." [LINK]
Should there be more? Pudentilla cries out against you and defends her sanity from your tricks through a public proclamation. Moreover, she ascribes the reason for the necessity of marrying to fate. Thus, fate has completely set magic to the side. Or perhaps I should say that it's destroyed it entirely? What power remains in potions and spells if fate, like a violent storm, can't be restrained or urged on?
Of her own free will, then, Pudentilla not only denies that I'm a magician, but also denies that magic exists. It's a good thing that Pontianus tended to keep his mother's letters intact; it's a good thing that the speed of the trial kept you from changing anything in that letter. Maximus, this goodness is your doing -- it's the benefit reaped from your foresight. From the beginning, you anticipated their falsehoods and refuted them with appropriate speed so that they wouldn't be strengthened by time.
Imagine, now, that the mother confessed something to her son in a private letter about love. This isn't uncommon. But Rufinus, was it just, -- I don't mean in the sense of loyalty, but ethically just -- for the letter to be made known and exhibited to everyone . . . and by her own son's proclamation?
But perhaps I'm stupid to demand that you who've lost your own dignity preserve another's.
[85] Anyhow, why do I complain so much about the past when it's no less bitter than the present? To think that this wretched boy of yours has been corrupted by you to such an extent that he reads aloud his mother's letters (which he thinks are amorous) before the proconsular tribunal in the presence of Claudius Maximus, that most virtuous man! To think that a son criticizes the shameful disgrace of his own mother and accuses her of love affairs before these statues of the Emperor Pius! Who is so even-tempered that he wouldn't be angered by this?
Do you examine your parent's mind in these matters?
Do you watch her
eyes?
Do you count her sighs?
Do you explore her state of mind?
Do
you intercept her notes?
Do you subdue her love?
Do you ask what she
does in her bedroom -- not to ensure that your mother isn't a slut, but that she
isn't a woman at all? Or do you think that there's nothing in these matters
except your mother's superstition?
Oh, your unlucky womb, Pudentilla!
Barreness would be better than children!
Oh, those lamentable ten months!
Fourteen thankless years of widowhood!
I'm told that a viper creeps forward into the light after its mother's womb has been destroyed and is thus born by parricide: in truth, though, harsher stings are inflicted on you by your adult son while you still live to see them. Your silence is ripped through, your dignity is torn away, your breast is wounded, and your innmost organs are exposed. Do you, as a good son, repay these thanks to your mother because she gave you life, acquired your inheritance for you, and supported you for fourteen years? Did your uncle teach you so well that if you could be sure that your sons would be similar to you, you wouldn't dare to marry?
There is that well-known verse which goes: "I hate little boys with wisdom before their time." But really, who wouldn't oppose and hate such a boy -- evil before his time -- when they view him as a monster, hardened by sin (not by the passage of time), hurtful (without yet being in command of himself), practicing ancient evil (while still in the bloom of youth)?
And even more painful is the fact that he causes such harm and yet is immune
to the consequences of his attacks: the boy who is too young to be punished is
still old enough to harm. To harm? Let me correct myself! To commit this
unmentionable,
insufferable,
grievous crime against his parent.
[86] Because of the common law of humanity, the Athenians didn't allow one of the letters captured from their enemy Philip of Macedon to be read (when each letter was going to be read in public), because it was written to his wife Olympia. Instead, they spared their enemy rather than divulge a marital secret, considering the rights common to all mankind preferable to the right of private vengeance.
This is how enemies acted against their enemy. And how do you act, as a son opposing your mother? You see the similarity.
And yet, you, the son, read your mother's letters -- written out of love, as you say -- in this assembly. You wouldn't dare, if you were instructed, to read, say, dirty poems in this assembly; no, you'd be restrained by some sense of decency. So if you'd really gotten your mother's letters, you'd never have gotten them here.
Moreover, you've even dared to give a letter of your very own to this assembly, a letter about your mother written most irreverently, abusively and dishonorably, when you were being nourished at her breast. You had sent it secretly to Pontianus -- apparently, so that you wouldn't have sinned only once and so that your great good deed might not have been snatched away from close scrutiny. Poor kid, you don't even understand why your uncle allowed this. He wanted to clear himself, and he could, if it were known from your letters that even before you had moved to his house -- even while you were treating your mother to your soft words -- that even then you were as shifty as a fox and just as disloyal.
[87] Anyhow, I can't wrap my mind around the idea that Aemilianus is such a fool -- to conclude that the letters of a boy who is also my accuser would be damaging to me?!
Then there was that planned letter which I didn't write and which wasn't credibly constructed. With this letter, they wanted it to seem that the woman was tempted by me with flattery. But why should I flatter, if I put my trust in magic? And how did the letter come to them, considering that it was surely sent to Pudentilla through some trusted agent, which is usual in such a case? Moreover, why would I write with such corrupt language, with such barbaric speech -- I, the man they say is not the least bit ignorant in Greek? Again, why would I tease her with such absurd language and flattery as befits a shopkeeper -- I, the man they say frolics nimbly enough with erotic poetry? It's clear to whoever may be listening that the one who was not able to read the more refined Greek of Pudentilla's letter, reads his own letter more easily and might more appropriately recommend it for examination.
But about the letters, I'll have said enough already -- if I should add this one thing, that Pudentilla, who had written in a sarcastic and ironic manner --
E)LQE\ TOI/NUN, E(/WS E)/TI SWFRONW=
"Come now, while I am still of sound mind"[LINK]
-- after these very letters, called to herself her sons and her daughter-in-law, and lived with them for almost two months. Let this pious son tell what he saw his mother doing or saying differently at that time on account of insanity.
Let him deny that she saw to the affairs of the bailiffs, the shepherds, and the groomsmen with the sharpest skill.
Let him deny that she gravely warned his own brother Pontianus to beware the wickedness of Rufinus.
Let him deny that he was rightly rebuked because he circulated the letters which she had sent to him and did not read them in good faith.
Let him deny next that his mother married me at her estate, in the place previously agreed on. In fact, it pleased us to be married in her estate away from the city so that citizens wouldn't flock to the wedding seeking gifts, since not too long ago, on the day when Pontianus took his wife and this boy was garbed in his toga signifying his manhood, Pudentilla gave fifty thousand coins to the crowd from her own pocket. Also, we were married in her estate so that we could avoid the myriad and irritating parties, at which the attendance of newlyweds is practically required by law.
[88] Aemilianus, you have the whole reason why our nuptials were not contracted in town but at her estate: so that another fifty thousand coins wouldn't have to be dumped out and so that we wouldn't have to dine with you or at your house. Isn't this reason enough? But I'm a little surprised that you destest a country estate so strongly. After all, you live so much in the country. Indeed, the Julian law in its sections on marriage carries no such prohibitions: "Marry not in a country villa." On the contrary, it's more auspicious for children if a wife is taken in the country than in the city, on fertile ground rather than in a sterile place, in the sod of a field rather than on the cobblestones of the market. A woman who is about to be a mother should be wed in the maternal bosom itself, among the full-grown corn, above the fruitful earth. And once married, she should recline beneath an elm, in the very bosom of her mother the earth, among the herbal sprouts and layers of grape vines and the shoots of trees. And then that well-known verse in that comedy closely corresponds to this:
PAI/DWN E)P' A)RO/TW| GNHSI/WN [E)PI\ SPORA=|].
"to the field of legitimate children." [LINK]
Moreover, not only wives, but also consulships and dictatorships were conferred in the fields for the ancient Romans, the Quintii and Serranii and many others similarly. I should restrain myself in so luxuriant a place so that I don't praise you by praising the estate.
[89] Now, let's talk about the true age of Pudentilla, which you lied about so confidently after all those other things, that you said that she married me when she was sixty years old. I'll answer you with just a few words, since more aren't necessary in such a plain matter.
Her father publicly acknowledged her as his daughter, by the custom of the land. Her birth records are preserved partly in the public archives and partly at home, and these records will be cast against you. You over there, take the records to Aemelianus:
Let him inspect the thread which binds the letter, and let him recognize the markings impressed on it.
Let him read who the consuls were and then compute the years, which he assigned to the woman as sixty.
Let him prove fifty-five!
Clearly, he has lied.
This isn't enough -- let me deal with him more freely. He lavished many years upon Pudentilla, so I'll give back ten years in turn. Mezentius has wandered with Ulysses: let him at least show that the woman is fifty.
What else? Here's how I would deal with someone who magnifies by four: I'll make the five-year period twice double; I'll subtract twenty years at once. Maximus, order the consuls to be counted. Unless I'm mistaken, you'll now discover that Pudentilla is no more than forty.
What a bold and exceeding falsehood!
What a lie! -- One which should be punished by twenty years of exile!
You're lying, Aemilianus, by as much as fifty percent, and you're venturing falsehoods at 150 percent. If you had suggested thirty years for ten, you might have appeared to goof up on a counting gesture -- that is, you'd have seemed to have touched your fingers when you should have circled them. But indeed forty, which is more easily indicated than the rest by the outstretched palm, this forty you increase by half. It's impossible that you've erred with a gesture of your fingers, unless, by chance, having calculated that Pudentilla is thirty, you've counted twice for the consuls of each year.
[90] But I'm through with these things. I'm coming now to the heart of the accusation, to the very charge of doing evil. Let Aemilianus and Rufinus tell us: even if I had been the greatest magician, for what profit would I have forced Pudentilla to marry me with poetry and potions? I know many defendants who were prosecuted for some crime, when a motive seemed to exist. By this one fact, though, they easily defended themselves: that their lives shrink away from this sort of scandal. And a crime shouldn't be suspected of them, just because there seem to have existed certain openings to committing this crime. For in fact, not everything which could have been should be held as fact -- changes of events do happen.
I would point out that the nature of each person is fixed. A person is always saddled with the same character; his life is disposed towards either moral strength or weakness. This is the strongest argument for accepting or rejecting the charge.
Although I'd be able to claim this deservedly, nevertheless I concede this privilege to you. Even if I've thoroughly cleared myself of all the things which you have falsely accused me of, I wouldn't have a strong enough case for myself -- unless I didn't tolerate even the slightest suspicion of magic. Discuss amongst yourselves the faith I show in my innocence and the contempt I show of you. If one reason, even the slightest, had been found as to why I should have sought marriage with Prudentilla for any sort of advantage -- if you'd have proved even the tiniest bit of profit, I'd be a
Carmendas or a Damigeron or that Moses or John or Apollobex or Dardanus himself or whatever other celebrated magicians there were after Aoroaster and Hostanes.
[91] I beg you, Maximus, see what a ruckus they've stirred up, because I've numbered a few magicians by name. What should I do with such crude types, such barbarians? Should I teach them yet again that I have read these names, and many others, in the public library in the writings of the most famous authors, or should I argue at length that it's one thing to know these names, and something quite different to take part in this same art? Possessing the instruments of scholarship and memory for text shouldn't be considered a confession of crime.
Or should I do what's far better, Claudius Maximus, and relying on your learning, on your complete erudition, refrain from responding to these accusations emanating from these foolish and uncouth men? That's what I'd rather do. What they esteem highly, I won't think worthless, and what I've begun, I'll continue to dispute.
There was no reason for me to have enticed Pudentilla to marry by using love potions.