Page:Dio's Roman History, tr. Cary - Volume 5.djvu/21

 BOOK XLVI was always trading in grapes and olives, a fellow who b.c. 43 was glad enough to support himself by this and by his wash-tubs, who every day and every night defiled himself with the foulest filth. The son, reared amid these surroundings, not unnaturally tramples and souses his superiors, using a species of abuse prac- tised in the workshops and on the street corners. "Now when you yourself are of such a sort, and have grown up naked among naked companions, collecting clothes stained with sheep dung, pig manure, and human excrement, have you dared, most vile wretch, first to slander the youth of Antony, who had the advantage of attendants and teachers, as his rank demanded, and then to reproach him because in celebrating the Lupercalia, that ancient festival, he came naked into the Forum ? But I ask you, you who always wore nothing but the clothes of others on account of your father's business and were stripped by whoever met you and recognized them, what ought a man who was not only priest but also leader of his fellow-priests to have done ? Not conduct the procession, not celebrate the festival, not sacrifice according to the custom of our fathers, not appear naked, not anoint himself? ' But it is not for this that I censure him,' he answers, 'but because he delivered a speech, and that kind of speech, naked in the Forum.' Of course this fellow has become acquainted in the fuller's shop with all the nice proprieties, so that he may detect a real mistake and may be able to rebuke it properly !