FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  
eep you informed of people's names--although, I admit, Crassus is better known to the keepers of taverns--yet ask them, I say, whether they have ever seen Junius Crassus, a citizen of Oea, in this place. They will answer 'yes'. Let Aemilianus then produce this most admirable young man on whose testimony he relies. You notice the time of day. I tell you that Crassus has long since been snoring in a drunken slumber or has taken a second bathe and is now evaporating the sweat of intoxication at the bath that he may be equal to a fresh drinking bout after supper. He presents himself in writing only. That is the way he speaks to you, Maximus. Even he is not so dead to sense of shame as to be able to lie to your face without a blush. But there is perhaps another reason for his absence. He may have been unable to abstain from the wine-cup[17] sufficiently long to keep sober against this moment; or it may be that Aemilianus took good care not to subject him to your severe and searching gaze, lest you should damn the brute with his close-shaven cheeks and his disgusting appearance by a mere glance at his face, when you saw a young man with his features stripped of the beard and hair that should adorn them, his eyes heavy with wine, his lids swollen, his broad[18] grin, his slobbering lips, his harsh voice, his trembling hands, his breath[19] reeking of the cook-shop. He has long since devoured his fortune; nothing is left him of his patrimony save a house that serves him for the sale of his false witness, and never did he make a more remunerative contract than he has done with regard to this evidence he offers to-day. For he sold Aemilianus his drunken fictions for 3,000 sesterces, as every one at Oea is aware. [Footnote 17: _a bria_ (Hildebrand).] [Footnote 18: _rictum diductum_ (Jahn).] [Footnote 19: _ructus popinam_ (Pricaeus).] 60. We all knew of this before it actually took place. I might have prevented the transaction by denouncing it, but I knew that so foolish a lie would be prejudicial to Aemilianus, who wasted his money to secure it, rather than to myself, who treated it with the contempt it deserved. I wished not only that Aemilianus should lose his money, but that Crassus should have his reputation ruined by his disgraceful perjury. It was but the day before yesterday that the transaction took place in the most open manner at the house of Rufinus, of whom I shall soon have something to say. Rufinus and Calpu
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Aemilianus

 

Crassus

 

Footnote

 
drunken
 
transaction
 

Rufinus

 
witness
 

remunerative

 

contract

 

swollen


reeking
 

breath

 

fortune

 

devoured

 

regard

 
patrimony
 

slobbering

 

serves

 

trembling

 
Hildebrand

deserved

 
contempt
 

wished

 

reputation

 

treated

 

prejudicial

 

wasted

 
secure
 

ruined

 

disgraceful


manner

 

perjury

 

yesterday

 

foolish

 

denouncing

 

sesterces

 

offers

 

fictions

 

rictum

 

prevented


Pricaeus

 

diductum

 

ructus

 

popinam

 

evidence

 

severe

 
informed
 

snoring

 

slumber

 

notice