Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/255

 the philosopher, Seneca; Mallonia preferred to die in torments rather than give herself up to the odious he-goat of Capri. Who does not admire the noble independence, the conjugal love, and the matronly virtues of Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus? Moreover, men began to avow their love for women, and we have here occasion to observe the rapid progress of gallantry among the Romans. However, the love for boys was no less universally in vogue in Rome, and Cicero charges, in his letters to Atticus, that the judges who had so scandalously white-washed Clodius of the accusation of having profaned the mysteries of the “Good Goddess,” had been publicly promised the favors of the most illustrious women and the finest young men of the first families. Cæsar himself, in his early youth had yielded to the embraces of Nicomedes, King of Bithynia; moreover, after his triumph over the Gauls, on the solemn occasion when it was customary to twit the victor with all his faults, the soldiers sang: ‘‘Cæsar subdued the Gauls, Nicomedes subdued Cæsar. But Cesar who subdued the Gauls, triumphed, and Nicomedes, who subdued Cæsar did not.’’ Cato said of him that he was loved by the King, in his youth and that, when he was older, he loved the queen and, one day, in the senate, while he was dwelling on I know not what Rh