11 Aper having said this with
his usual spirit and with vehemence of utterance, Maternus replied
good-humouredly with something of a smile. I was preparing to attack the
orators at as great length as Aper had praised them, for I thought that he
would leave his praises of them and go on to demolish poets and the pursuit of
poetry, but he appeased me by a sort of stratagem, granting permission to those
who cannot plead causes, to make verses. For myself, though I am perhaps able
to accomplish and effect something in pleading causes, yet it was by the public
reading of tragedies that I first began to enter the path of fame, when in
Nero’s time I broke the wicked power of Vatinius by which even the sanctities
of culture were profaned, and if at this moment I possess any celebrity and
distinction I maintain that it has been acquired more by the renown of my poems
than of my speeches. And so now I have resolved to throw off the yoke of my labours
at the bar, and for trains of followers on my way to and from the court and for
crowded receptions I crave no more than for the bronzes and busts which have
invaded my house even against my will. For hitherto I have upheld my position
and my safety better by integrity than by eloquence, and I am not afraid of
having ever to say a word in the senate except to avert peril from another.
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