Book 19
9
Then Julianus, filled with anger and indignation, spoke as follows in behalf of his mother tongue, as if for his altars and his fires: I must indeed grant you that in such licentiousness and baseness you would outdo Alcinus Probably (see crit. note) another form of Alcinous, King of the Phaeacians. He is not represented by Homer as licentious and base, but that opinion arose at a later time. Cf. Horace, Epist. i. 2. 28 ff. and that as you outstrip us in the pleasures of adornment and of food, so you do also in the wantonness of your ditties. But lest you should condemn us, that is, the Latin race, as lacking in Aphrodite's charm, just as if we were barbarous and ignorant, allow me, I pray, to cover my head with my cloak (as they say Socrates did when making somewhat indelicate remarks), and hear and learn that our forefathers also were lovers and devoted to Venus before those poets whom you have named.
9
Then lying upon his back with veiled head, he chanted in exceedingly sweet tones some verses of Valerius Aedituus, an early poet, and also of Porcius Licinus and Quintus Catulus; and I think that nothing can be found neater, more graceful, more polished and more terse than those verses, either in Greek or in Latin:
