Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Brutus

is cum tribunus plebis Curionem et Octavium consules produxisset Curioque multa dixisset sedente Cn. Octavio conlega, qui devinctus erat fasciis et multis medicamentis propter dolorem artuum delibutus, numquam, inquit, Octavi, conlegae tuo gratiam referes: qui nisi se suo more iactavisset, hodie te istic muscae comedissent. Memoria autem ita fuit nulla, ut aliquotiens, tria cum proposuisset, aut quartum adderet aut tertium quaereret; qui in iudicio privato vel maximo, cum ego pro Titinia Cottae peroravissem, ille contra me pro Ser. Naevio diceret, subito totam causam oblitus est idque veneficiis et cantionibus Titiniae factum esse dicebat.

When he, as tribune of the plebs, had brought the consuls Curio and Octavius before the people, and Curio had spoken at length while his colleague Gnaeus Octavius sat by — who was bound up in bandages and smeared with many ointments because of pain in his joints — he said: 'Octavius, you will never be able to repay your colleague: if he had not thrown himself about in his usual way, the flies would have eaten you up there today.' His memory, moreover, was so nonexistent that sometimes, when he had set out three points, he would either add a fourth or be looking for the third; and in a private trial, one of the very greatest, when I had made the closing speech for Cotta's Titinia, and he was to speak against me for Servius Naevius, he suddenly forgot the whole case, and he said that this had been brought about by Titinia's potions and spells.