s neither wanton nor voluptuous, but serious and
unadorned, and wins her lovers to the pursuit of virtue by revealing
to them how fair a thing is nobility of soul. Or, if ever she commends
beautiful persons to their admiration, she puts a bar upon all
indecorous conduct. For the only claim that physical beauty has upon
the admiration is that it reminds those whose souls have soared above
things human to things divine, of that beauty which once they beheld
in all its truth and purity enthroned among the gods in heaven.
Wherefore let us admit that Afranius shows his usual beauty of
expression when he says:

_Only the sage can love, only desire
Is known to others_;

although if you would know the real truth, Aemilianus, or if you are
capable of ever comprehending such high matters, the sage does not
love, but only remembers.

13. I would therefore beg you to pardon the philosopher Plato for his
amatory verse, and relieve me of the necessity of offending against
the precepts put by Ennius into the mouth of Neoptolemus by
philosophizing at undue length; on the other hand if you refuse to
pardon Plato, I am quite ready to suffer blame on this count in his
company. I must express my deep gratitude to you, Maximus, for
listening with such close attention to these side issues, which are
necessary to my defence inasmuch as I am paying back my accusers in
their own coin. Your kindness emboldens me to make this further
request, that you will listen to all that I have to say by way of
prelude to my answer to the main charge with the same courtesy and
attention that you have hitherto shown.

I beg this, since I have next to deal with that long oration, austere
as any censor's, which Pudens delivered on the subject of my mirror.
He nearly exploded, so violently did he declaim against the horrid
nature of my offence. 'The philosopher owns a mirror, the philosopher
actually possesses a mirror.' Grant that I possess it: if I denied it,
you might really think that your accusation had gone home: still it is
by no means a necessary inference that I am in the habit of adorning
myself before a mirror. Why! suppose I possessed a theatrical
wardrobe, would you venture to argue from that that I am in the
frequent habit of wearing the trailing robes of tragedy, the saffron
cloak of the mimic dance, or the patchwork suit of the harlequinade? I
think not. On the contrary there are plenty of things of which I enjoy
the use without th