Apuleius: Apology and Florida

Apologia

...such was his mad fury—in defiance of the award given by the voice of that most distinguished citizen, to assert with oaths that the will was a forgery. It was only with difficulty that Lollius Urbicus Quintus Lollius Urbicus was a prominent Roman general and official who served as the City Prefect of Rome under Emperor Antoninus Pius. He was known for his strictness. refrained from making him suffer for it.

3. I rely, Maximus Claudius Maximus, the Proconsul of Africa and the presiding judge of this trial. Apuleius frequently appeals to his intelligence and sense of justice., on your sense of justice and on my own innocence, but I hope that in this trial also we shall hear the voice of Lollius raised impulsively in my defence; for Aemilianus is deliberately accusing a man whom he knows to be innocent, a course which comes the more easy to him, since, as I have told you, he has already been convicted of lying in a most important case, heard before the Prefect of the city The City Prefect (Praefectus Urbi) was the highest-ranking judicial authority in Rome, responsible for maintaining order and handling criminal cases.. Just as a good man studiously avoids the repetition of a sin once committed, so men of depraved character repeat their past offence with increased confidence, and, I may add, the more often they do so, the more openly they display their impudence. For honour is like a garment; the older it gets, the more carelessly it is worn. Apuleius uses this vivid metaphor to suggest that once a man's reputation is "tattered" by lies, he loses the motivation to act with integrity. I think it my duty, therefore, in the interest of my own honour, to refute all my opponent’s slanders before I come to the actual indictment itself. For I am pleading not merely my own cause, but that of philosophy as well—philosophy, whose grandeur is such that she resents even the slightest slur cast upon her perfection as though it were the most serious accusation. Knowing this, Aemilianus’ advocates, only a short time ago, poured forth with all their usual loquacity a flood of drivelling accusations, many of which were specially invented for the purpose of—