of the most abandoned youths to shut
you out of the house which you yourself had given him, who is so
deeply and bitterly incensed to find that his brother left you co-heir
with himself, who hastened to desert you when you were plunged in
grief and mourning, and fled from your bosom to Aemilianus and
Rufinus, who afterwards uttered many insults against you to your face,
and manufactured others with the help of his uncle, who has dragged
your name through the law-courts, has attempted by using your own
letters publicly to besmirch your fair fame, and has accused upon a
capital charge the husband of your choice, with whom, as Pudens
himself objected, you were madly in love! Open the will, my good boy,
open it, I beg you. You will find it easier then to prove your
mother's insanity.

Why do you draw back? Why do you refuse to look at it, now that you
are free from all anxiety about the inheritance of your mother's
fortune?

101. He may do as he likes, Maximus, but for my part I cast these
tablets at your feet and call you to witness that henceforth I shall
show greater indifference as to what Pudentilla may write in her will.
He may approach his mother himself for the future; he has made it
impossible for me to plead for him again. He is now a man and his own
master; henceforth let him himself dictate to his mother the terms[34]
of an unpalatable will, himself smooth away her anger. He who can
plead in court, will be able to plead with his mother. I am more than
satisfied not only to have refuted the miscellaneous accusations
brought against myself, but also to have utterly swept away the
hateful charge on which the whole trial is based, the charge of having
attempted to secure the inheritance for myself.

[Footnote 34: Omit _qui_ inserted by Helm after _ut_.]

I will bring one final proof to show the falsity of that last charge
before I bring my speech to a close. I wish to pass nothing over in
silence. You asserted that I bought a most excellent farm in my own
name, but with a large sum of money which belonged to my wife. I say
that a tiny property was bought for 60,000 sesterces, and bought not
by me but by Pudentilla in her own name, that Pudentilla's name is in
the deed of sale, and that the taxes paid on the land are paid in the
name of Pudentilla. The honourable Corvinus Celer, the state treasurer
to whom the tax is paid, is here in court. Cassius Longinus also is
present, my wife's guardian and trustee, a man