rge after the death of Pontianus his brother, who was as much
his superior in character as in years, and that he was fiercely
embittered against myself and his mother through no fault of mine:
that he abandoned his study of the liberal arts and cast off all
restraint, and--thanks to the education afforded him by this
villainous accusation--is more likely to resemble his uncle Aemilianus
than his brother Pontianus.

29. I will now, as I promised, take Aemilianus' ravings one by one,
beginning with that charge which you must have noticed was given the
place of honour in the accuser's speech, as his most effective method
of exciting suspicion against me as a sorcerer, the charge that I had
sought to purchase certain kinds of fish from some fishermen. Which of
these two points is of the slightest value as affording suspicion of
sorcery? That fishermen sought to procure me the fish? Would you have
me entrust such a task to gold-embroiderers or carpenters, and, to
avoid your calumnies, make them change their trades so that the
carpenter would net me the fish, and the fisherman take his place and
hew his timber? Or did you infer that the fish were wanted for evil
purposes because I paid to get them? I presume, if I had wanted them
for a dinner-party, I should have got them for nothing. Why do not you
go farther and accuse me on many similar grounds? I have often bought
wine and vegetables, fruit and bread. The principles laid down by you
would involve the starvation of all purveyors of dainties. Who will
ever venture to purchase food from them, if it be decided that all
provisions for which money is given are wanted not for food but for
sorcery? But if there is nothing in all this that can give rise to
suspicion, neither the payment of the fishermen to ply their usual
trade, to wit, the capture of fish--I may point out that the
prosecution never produced any of these fishermen, who are, as a
matter of fact, wholly creatures of their imagination--nor the
purchase of a common article of sale--the prosecution have never
stated the amount paid, for fear that if they mentioned a small sum,
it would be regarded as trivial, or if they mentioned a large sum it
would fail to win belief,--if, I say, there is no cause for suspicion
on any of these grounds, I would ask Aemilianus to tell me what,
failing these, induced them to accuse me of magic.

30. 'You seek to purchase fish,' says he. I will not deny it. But, I
ask you, is any one w