When I came to any of the loose passages he would smile, and say, 'It was pity his matter was not as pure as his style;' of which latter he was so immoderately fond that, notwithstanding the detestation he expressed for obscenity, he hath made me repeat those passages ten times over.

The character of this good man hath been very unjustly attacked by his heathen contemporaries, particularly with regard to women; but his severe invectives against that sex are his sufficient justification.
"From the service of this saint, from whom I received manumission, I entered into the family of Timasius, a leader of great eminence in the imperial army, into whose favor I so far insinuated myself that he preferred me to a good command, and soon made me partaker of both his company and his secrets.

I soon grew intoxicated with this preferment, and the more he loaded me with benefits the more he raised my opinion of my own merit, which, still outstripping the rewards he conferred on me, inspired me rather with dissatisfaction than gratitude.

And thus, by preferring me beyond my merit or first expectation, he made me an envious aspiring enemy, whom perhaps a more moderate bounty would have preserved a dutiful servant.
"I fell now acquainted with one Lucilius, a creature of the prime minister Eutropius, who had by his favor been raised to the post of a tribune; a man of low morals, and eminent only in that meanest of qualities, cunning.

This gentleman, imagining me a fit tool for the minister's purpose, having often sounded my principles of honor and honesty, both which he declared to me were words without meaning, and finding my ready concurrence in his sentiments, recommended me to Eutropius as very proper to execute some wicked purposes he had contrived against my frend Timasius.