rnianus acted as
middlemen and arranged the bargain.[20] The former carried out the
task with all the more readiness because he was certain that his wife,
at whose misconduct he knowingly connives, would be sure to recover
from Crassus a large proportion of his fee for perjury. I noticed that
you also, Maximus, suspected with your usual acuteness that they, as
soon as this written evidence was produced, had formed a league and
conspiracy against me; and I saw from your face that the whole affair
excited your disgust. Finally my accusers, in spite of their being
paragons of audacity and monsters of shamelessness, did not dare to
read out Crassus' evidence in full or to build anything upon it; for
they saw that at the mention of his name you smelt a rat. I have
mentioned these facts not because I am afraid of these dreadful
feathers and stains of soot--least of all with you to judge me--but
that Crassus might meet with due punishment for having sold mere smoke
to a helpless rustic like Aemilianus.

[Footnote 20: _depectoribus_ (Kronenberg).]

61. Their next[21] charge concerns the manufacture of a seal which
they produced when they read Pudentilla's letters. This seal, they
assert, I had fashioned of the rarest wood by some secret process for
purposes of the black art. They add that, although it is loathly and
horrible to look upon, being in the form of a skeleton, I yet give it
especial honour and call it in the Greek tongue, [Greek: basileus], my
king. I think I am right in saying that I am following the various
stages of their accusation in due order and reconstructing the whole
fabric of their slander detail by detail.

[Footnote 21: _inde_ (Acidalius).]

Now how can the manufacture of this seal have been secret, as you
assert, when you are sufficiently well acquainted with the maker to
have summoned him to appear in court? Here is Cornelius Saturninus,
the artist, a man whose skill is famous among his townsfolk and whose
character is above reproach. A little while back, in answer, Maximus,
to your careful cross-examination, he explained the whole sequence of
events in the most convincing and truthful manner. He said that I
visited his shop and, after looking at many geometrical patterns all
carved out of boxwood in the most cunning and ingenious manner, was so
much attracted by his skill that I asked him to make me certain
mechanical devices and also begged him to make me the image of some
god to which I might p