y are you changed towards me? Because
I lie with a queen? She is my wife. Is this a new thing with me, or
have I not done so for these nine years? And do you take freedoms with
Drusilla only? May health and happiness so attend you, as when you read
this letter, you are not in dalliance with Tertulla, Terentilla, Rufilla
[210], or Salvia Titiscenia, or all of them. What matters it to you
where, or upon whom, you spend your manly vigour?"

LXX. A private entertainment which he gave, commonly called the Supper
of the Twelve Gods [211], and at which the guests (123) were dressed in
the habit of gods and goddesses, while he personated Apollo himself,
afforded subject of much conversation, and was imputed to him not only by
Antony in his letters, who likewise names all the parties concerned, but
in the following well-known anonymous verses:

Cum primum istorum conduxit mensa choragum,
Sexque deos vidit Mallia, sexque deas
Impia dum Phoebi Caesar mendacia ludit,
Dum nova divorum coenat adulteria:
Omnia se a terris tunc numina declinarunt:
Fugit et auratos Jupiter ipse thronos.

When Mallia late beheld, in mingled train,
Twelve mortals ape twelve deities in vain;
Caesar assumed what was Apollo's due,
And wine and lust inflamed the motley crew.
At the foul sight the gods avert their eyes,
And from his throne great Jove indignant flies.

What rendered this supper more obnoxious to public censure, was that it
happened at a time when there was a great scarcity, and almost a famine,
in the city. The day after, there was a cry current among the people,
"that the gods had eaten up all the corn; and that Caesar was indeed
Apollo, but Apollo the Tormentor;" under which title that god was
worshipped in some quarter of the city [212]. He was likewise charged
with being excessively fond of fine furniture, and Corinthian vessels, as
well as with being addicted to gaming. For, during the time of the
proscription, the following line was written upon his statue:--

Pater argentarius, ego Corinthiarius;
My father was a silversmith [213], my dealings are in brass;

because it was believed, that he had put some persons upon the list of
the proscribed, only to obtain the Corinthian vessels in (124) their
possession. And afterwards, in the Sicilian war, the following epigram
was published:--

Postquam bis classe victus naves perdidit,
Aliquando ut vincat, lu