c.

52. Yes, Aemilianus, if you would hear the truth, _you_ are the real
sufferer from the falling sickness, so often have your false
accusations failed and cast you helpless to the ground. Bodily
collapse is no worse than intellectual, and it is as important to keep
one's head as to keep one's feet, while it is as unpleasant to be
loathed by this distinguished gathering as to be spat upon in one's
own chamber. But you perhaps think yourself sane because you are not
confined within doors, but follow the promptings of your madness
whithersoever it lead you: and yet compare your frenzy with that of
Thallus; you will find that there is but little to choose between
you, save that Thallus confines his frenzy to himself, while you
direct yours against others; Thallus distorts his eyes, you distort
the truth; Thallus contracts his hands convulsively, you not less
convulsively contract with your advocates; Thallus dashes himself
against the pavement, you dash yourself against the judgement-seat. In
a word, whatever he does, he does in his sickness erring
unconsciously; but you, wretch, commit your crimes with full knowledge
and with your eyes open, such is the vehemence of the disease that
inspires your actions. You bring false accusations as though they were
true; you charge men with doing what has never been done; though a
man's innocence be clear to you as daylight, you denounce him as
though he were guilty.

53. Nay, further, though I had almost forgotten to mention it, there
are certain things of which you confess your ignorance, and which
nevertheless you make material for accusation as though you knew all
about them. You assert that I kept something mysterious wrapped up in
a handkerchief among the household gods in the house of Pontianus. You
confess your ignorance as to what may have been the nature or
appearance of this object; you further admit that no one ever saw it,
and yet you assert that it was some instrument of magic. You are not
to be congratulated on this method of procedure. Your accusation
reveals no shrewdness, and has not even the merit of impudence. Do not
think so for a moment. No! it shows naught save the ill-starred
madness of an embittered spirit and the pitiable fury of cantankerous
old age. The words you used in the presence of so grave and
perspicacious a judge amounted to something very like this. 'Apuleius
kept certain things wrapped in a cloth among the household gods in the
house of Pontia