slippers, or barbarian mantle. And even now you keep looking at me;
and, as it seems, with great anger. Surely you would be reconciled
to me if you knew how ashamed I am of your worthlessness, which you
yourself are not ashamed of. Of all the profligate conduct of all the
world, I never saw, I never heard of any more shameful than yours. You
who fancied yourself a master of the horse, when you were standing
for, or I should rather say begging for the consulship for the
ensuing year, ran in Gallic slippers and a barbarian mantle about the
municipal towns and colonies of Gaul from which we used to demand the
consulship when the consulship was stood for and not begged for.

XXXI. But mark now the trifling character of the fellow. When about
the tenth hour of the day he had arrived at Red Rocks, he skulked into
a little petty wine-shop, and, hiding there, kept on drinking till
evening. And from thence getting into a gig and being driven rapidly
to the city, he came to his own house with his head veiled. "Who are
you?" says the porter. "An express from Marcus." He is at once taken
to the woman for whose sake he had come; and he delivered the letter
to her. And when she had read it with tears, (for it was written in
a very amorous style, but the main subject of the letter was that he
would have nothing to do with that actress for the future; that he
had discarded all his love for her, and transferred it to his
correspondent,) when she, I say, wept plentifully, this soft-hearted
man could bear it no longer; he uncovered his head and threw himself
on her neck. Oh the worthless man! (for what else can I call him?
there is no more suitable expression for me to use,) was it for this
that you disturbed the city by nocturnal alarms, and Italy with
fears of many days' duration, in order that you might show yourself
unexpectedly, and that a woman might see you before she hoped to do
so? And he had at home a pretence of love; but out of doors a cause