90

Even if I were a mage, I had no motive to lure Pudentilla into marriage with potions and incantations. In many cases, a person accused of a crime can argue that his good character makes it unlikely that he committed the crime even if he had a possible motive to do so. But if my accusers can find any shred of motive in my case, I will admit to being among the greatest mages in history.

(1)

Missa haec faciō: "I will set these things aside" and move on to a new point. For the idiom missum facere, see OLD mitto 4.b. 

ad ipsam causam maleficiī: "the actual motive for using magic" (Jones), see OLD maleficium 3.

forem: essem (AG 170.a).

pellexissem: "would I have seduced" > pellicio, i.e., won over by insidious means. 

(2)

alicuius facinoris postulātōs: circumstantial, "when accused of some crime."

sī fuisse quaepiam causae probārentur: "even when it could be proved that possible motives existed" (Jones).

hōc ūnō: "with this one (argument)," looking forward to the indirect statements:.

vītam ... abhorrēre (90.2)

id ... dēbēre (90.2)

nōn omnia ... habenda (esse) (90.3)

vicēs variās ēvenīre (90.3)

animum esse (90.3)

vitam suam ... abhorrēre: "that his way of life is inconsistent with" the accusations.  

A common line of defense in antiquity. If objective motives had been established, a defendant could bring up his good character and decent life in general, and so turn the factual discussion into a personal and moral issue. Apuleius says that he could follow this line of reasoning but will not do so. As a matter of fact, it has dominated most of the speech and is crucial for his defense; see chs. 4-27 and 28-65. Notably the consistent portrait of himself as a scientist, a man of letters, and a philosopher serves this purpose (Hunink).

id ... quod: "the fact ... that."

sibi obesse: "to be held against them."

videantur ... fuisse: "there might seem to have been."

maleficiundum: maleficiendum, a common spelling of the gerund in old Latin.

invītāmenta: "incentives."

(3)

prō factīs habenda: supply esse, "ought to be considered fact" (Jones).

rērum vicēs variās ēvenīre: "different situations can have different outcomes" (Jones). OLD vicis 3.

certum indicem: "the reliable witness."

animum: "mind."

eōdem ingeniō ... morātus: "endowed with the same character." The Roman tendency to see a person's ingenium as unchanging can be seem, e.g., in the biographies of Suetonius.

ad virtūtem vel malitiam: "with regard to virtue or wickedness," LS ad I.D.1.

(4)

vōbīs condōnō: "I yield a point to you," "I waive it for your benefit" (Jones).

nec satis mihi dūcō: supply esse, "nor do I think it to be enough for myself" = "nor am I satisfied."

sī: with a sense of etsi: "even if."

mē omnium ... pūrgāvī: "I have cleared myself of all the charges."

<ni>si nusquam passus sum: the slight emendation of si to nisi seems to be required by the sense: "I shall not consider it enough to have refuted your charges, unless I show also that there exists not the slightest ground for suspecting me of sorcery." See B/O.

vel exiguam: "even the slightest."

cōnsistere: "to stand (unrefuted)."

(5)

quantā fīdūciā innocentiae meae: "with what great trust in my innocence" = "how steadfastly trusting in my innocence."

agam: "I am behaving," "I am proceeding," present subjunctive in an indirect question.

sī ... fuerit inventa ... sī ... probāveritis: future perfect indicatives in the protasis of a future more vivid conditional: the apodosis (in 90.6, below) switches to a future less vivid construction: Apuleius generously sets a minimal-effort bar for his accusers to meet, but then injects immediate doubt that they would ever do so.

causa: "motive."

vel minima: "even the teeny-tiniest (motive)."

cūr: "as to why," construe after causa, "a reason why."

dēbuerim: "I ought to have," "I had a reason to."

ob aliquod meum commodum: "on account of any benefit to me," "because of any good that would come to me out of it."

quamlibet modicum ēmolumentum: "a (financial) advantage (that would have come to me from marrying Pudentilla), even as mild a one as you would like."

(6)

ego ille sim: the apodosis of the conditional introduced in 90.5 above, "then I would be," and Apuleius makes a list of famous magic users in history and mythology by way of vivid particularization, conceding that if his accusers find the barest bit of a motive for him to have used magic to seduce Pudentilla that he will happily own up to all the charges.

A daring and highly provocative statement. "If you can point to anything at all, then I may be counted among the greatest of magicians!" Apuleius feels so sure that he even dares to mention the names of the most notorious magicians. Almost inevitably, his list gave rise to confusion in the MSS (Hunink).

ille: "that (notorious)."

Carmendās vel Damigeron vel † hīs † Mōsēs vel Iōhannēs vel Apollobex vel ipse Dardanus vel quīcumque alius post Zōroastren et Hostanēn: Carmendas is unknown; Damigeron is mentioned as the author of a book on stones; Iohannes, or Iannes, is one of the magicians who opposed Moses and Aaron at the court of Pharaoh (Exodus 7:8–12; 2 Timothy 3:8); for Apollobex, Pliny, Natural History 30.9, and Papyri Magicae Graecae 2.66, 12.121; Dardanus is the legendary ancestor of the kings of Troy, also known as a magician (E. Wellmann, Paulys Realencyclopädie 4 [1901]: 2180, Dardanos 11); for Zoroaster, see ch. 25.11; for (H)ostanes, ch. 27.2 (Jones).