IV.  The sharpness of that reproof, replied Maternus, would, perhaps, have disconcerted me, if, by frequent repetition, it had not lost its sting.  To differ on this subject is grown familiar to us both.  Poetry, it seems, is to expect no quarter:  you wage an incessant war against the followers of that pleasing art; and I, who am charged with deserting my clients, have yet every day the cause of poetry to defend.  But we have now a fair opportunity, and I embrace it with pleasure, since we have a person present, of ability to decide between us; a judge, who will either lay me under an injunction to write no more verses, or, as I rather hope, encourage me, by his authority, to renounce for ever the dry employment of forensic causes (in which I have had my share of drudgery), that I may, for the future, be at leisure to cultivate the sublime and sacred eloquence of the tragic muse.

V. Secundus desired to be heard:  I am aware, he said, that Aper may refuse me as an umpire.  Before he states his objections, let me follow the example of all fair and upright judges, who, in particular cases, when they feel a partiality for one of the contending parties, desire to be excused from hearing the cause.  The friendship and habitual intercourse, which I have ever cultivated with Saleius Bassus [a], that excellent man, and no less excellent poet, are well known:  and let me add, if poetry is to be arraigned, I know no client that can offer such handsome bribes.

My business, replied Aper, is not with Saleius Bassus:  let him, and all of his description, who, without talents for the bar, devote their time to the muses, pursue their favourite amusement without interruption.  But Maternus must not think to escape in the crowd.  I single him out from the rest, and since we are now before a competent judge, I call upon him to answer, how it happens, that a man of his talents, formed by nature to reach the heights of manly eloquence, can think of renouncing a profession, which not only serves to multiply friendships, but to support them with reputation:  a profession, which enables us to conciliate the esteem of foreign nations, and (if we regard our own interest) lays open the road to the first honours of the state; a profession, which, besides the celebrity that it gives within the walls of Rome, spreads an illustrious name throughout this wide extent of the empire.

If it be wisdom to make the ornament and happiness of life the end and aim of our actions, what can be more advisable than to embrace an art, by which we are enabled to protect our friends; to defend the cause of strangers; and succour the distressed?  Nor is this all:  the eminent orator is a terror to his enemies:  envy and malice tremble, while they hate him.  Secure in his own strength, he knows how to ward off every danger.  His own genius is his protection; a perpetual guard, that watches him; an invincible power, that shields him from his enemies.