§39.43.1Valerius Antias, ut qui nec orationem Catonis legisset et fabulae tantum sine auctore editae credidisset, aliud argumentum, simile tamen et libidine et crudelitate peragit.
Valerius Antias, as one who had neither read the speech of Cato and had merely believed a story published without any authority, sets forth another version, similar however both in lust and in cruelty.
Placentiae famosam mulierem, §39.43.2cuius amore deperiret, in convivium arcessitam scribit.
He writes that at Placentia, a notorious woman, with love for whom he was desperately dying, was summoned to a banquet.
ibi iactantem sese scorto inter cetera rettulisse, quam acriter quaestiones exercuisset, et quam multos capitis damnatos in vinculis haberet, quos securi percussurus esset.
There, boasting of himself to the courtesan, he related among other things how severely he had conducted investigations, and how many men condemned to death he had in chains, whom he was about to strike with the axe.
§39.43.3tum illam infra eum accubantem negasse umquam vidisse quemquam securi ferientem, et pervelle id videre.
Then she, reclining below him, said she had never seen anyone striking with an axe, and that she was very eager to see it.
hic indulgentem amatorem unum ex illis miseris attrahi iussum securi percussisse.
Thereupon, the indulgent lover ordered one of those miserable men to be dragged in and struck him with the axe.
§39.43.4facinus, sive eo modo, quo censor ohiecit, sive, ut Valerius tradit, commissum est, saevum atque atrox: inter pocula atque epulas, ubi libare diis dapes, ubi bene precari mos esset, ad spectaculum scorti procacis, in sinu consulis recubantis, mactatam humanam victimam esse et cruore mensam respersam!
The deed, whether committed in the way the censor objected, or as Valerius relates, was savage and atrocious: amidst cups and feasting, where it was the custom to pour libations of food to the gods and to pray for good fortune, for the spectacle of a wanton courtesan reclining on the consul's bosom, a human victim was slaughtered and the table sprinkled with blood!
§39.43.5in extrema oratione Catonis condicio Quinctio fertur, ut si id factum negaret ceteraque, quae obiecisset, sponsione defenderet sese: sin fateretur, ignominiane sua quemquam doliturum censeret, cum ipse vino et venere amens sanguine hominis in convivio lusisset?
At the end of Cato's speech, a challenge is said to have been offered to Quinctius: that if he denied that deed and the other things which he had charged, he should defend himself by a legal wager; but if he confessed, did he think that anyone would grieve over his disgrace, since he himself, mad with wine and lust, had played with the blood of a human being at a banquet?