Yet why do they delay? since long ago they ought after the Phrygian custom to have removed with their knives the superfluous flesh. Gracchus[94] gave four hundred sestertia as his dowry, with himself, to a bugler, or else one that blew the straight trumpet. The marriage deeds were duly signed, the blessing invoked, a great dinner provided, the he-bride lay in the bridegroom's arms. O nobles! is it a censor we need, or an aruspex? You would without doubt be horrified, and deem it a prodigy of portentous import, if a woman gave birth to a calf, or a cow to a lamb. The same Gracchus puts on flounces, the long robe and flame-colored[95] veil, who, when bearing the sacred shields swinging with mysterious thong, sweated beneath the Ancilia! Oh! father of our city! whence came such heinous guilt to the shepherds of Latium? Whence, O Gradivus, came this unnatural lust that has tainted thy race? See! a man illustrious in birth and rank is made over to a man! Dost thou neither shake thy helmet, nor smite the earth with thy lance? Dost thou not even appeal to thy father Jove? Begone then! and quit the acres of the Campus once so severe, which thou ceasest to care for! "I have some duty-work to perform to-morrow at break of day in the Quirinal valley." "What is the occasion?" "Why ask? my friend is going to be married; only a few are invited!" If we only live to see it, these things will be done in the broad light of day, and claim to be registered in the public acts. Meanwhile, there is one grievous source of pain that clings to these male-brides, that they are incapable of bearing, and retaining their lords' affections by bringing them children. No! better is it that nature in this case gives their minds no power over their bodies! They must die barren! Vain, in their case, is fat Lyde with her medicated box; vain the holding out their hands to the nimble Luperci. Yet even this prodigy of crime is surpassed by the trident of Gracchus in his gladiator's tunic,[96] when in full flight he traverses the middle of the arena. Gracchus! more nobly born than the Manlii, and Marcelli, and Catulus' and Paulus' race, and the Fabii, and all the spectators in the front row. Ay, even though you add to these the very man himself, at whose expense he cast his net as Retiarius.