43. Valerius Antias, as he was one who never read Cato’s speech, and only gave credit to a tale published without authority, tells the story in another manner, but similar to this in lust and cruelty. He writes, that, at Placentia, the consul invited to an entertainment a woman of ill fame, with whom he was desperately enamoured. There, displaying his importance to this courtesan, he told her, among other matters, with what severity he had conducted the inquisitions, and how many he had then in prison under sentence of death, whom he intended to behead. Then she, being next him on the couch, said, that having never seen an executioner perform his office, she was very desirous of seeing such a thing; on which, the indulgent lover ordered one of those wretches to be dragged to the spot, and there cut off his head. The deed of death, whether committed as the censor or as Valerius reports it, was barbarous and inhuman; that in the midst of feasting and cups, when it is customary to offer libations to the gods, and to pray for happiness, a human victim should be butchered, and the table stained with his blood, and this for the entertainment of an acknowledged wanton. In the latter part of Cato’s speech, he proposes to Quintius, that if he denied this fact, and the others of which he accused him, he should give security to abide a legal trial; but if he confessed them, could he suppose, he asked him, that any one would be sorry for his disgrace; the disgrace of him who, in the midst of a feast, being intoxicated with wine and lust, had sported with the blood of a human being.