Octavius rebukes Marcus for leaving Caecilius in vulgar ignorance
Octavius speaks to Marcus, the narrator, after Caecilius has kissed an idol of Serapis, and the three friends continue walking to the shore.
Then Octavius said: "It is not the mark of a good man, my brother Marcus, to abandon a friend who clings to your side at home and abroad in such blindness of vulgar ignorance, and on so bright a day to allow him to dash against stones—stones that are shaped into images and anointed and crowned—when you know that the disgrace of this error redounds no less to you than to him."
With this conversation we had traversed the middle stretch of the city and were now holding to the open shore. There the gentle wave was spreading over the outermost sands, as if it were spreading a carpet for walking, and since the sea is always restless even when the winds are still, even if it did not come out to the land with white and foaming waves, we nevertheless took great delight in its rippling and winding wanderings in that same place, as we dipped our feet at the very edge of the water—the wave now playfully dashing against our feet as it came in, now flowing back and drawing its traces into itself as it receded.
And so, advancing slowly and peacefully, we traced the path of the gently curving shore with stories beguiling the way. These stories were Octavius's account, as he discoursed about navigation. But when we had consumed a sufficiently proper stretch of walking with conversation, we turned our steps back and wore the same path in reverse, and when we came to the place where small boats had been drawn up and were resting on supporting timbers, lifted clear of the earth's stain, we saw boys eagerly competing in a game of throwing potsherds into the sea.
The game is this: they pick up from the shore a potsherd smoothed by the tossing of the waves, take hold of the potsherd flatwise with their fingers, and spin it as low and as close to the water as they can over the waves, so that the missile either skims the sea's back or swims along as it glides with gentle force, or leaps up as it clips the tops of the waves and emerges, lifted by its constant bouncing. The boy whose potsherd ran farthest and skipped most frequently claimed the victory among them.
Latin
Tunc Octauius ait: Non boni uiri est, Marce frater, hominem domi forisque lateri tuo inhaerentem sic m hac inperitiae uulgaris caecitate deserere, ut tam luculento die in lapides eum patiaris inpingere, effigiatos sane et unctos et coronatos, cum scias huius erroris non minorem ad te quam ad ipsum infamiam redundare.
cum hoc sermone eius medium spatium civitatis emensi iam liberum litus tenebamus.
ibi harenas extimas, uelut sterneret ambulacro, perfundens lenis unda tendebat, et ut semper mare etiam positis flatibus inquietum est, etsi non canis spumosisque fluctibus exibat ad terram, tamen crispis tortuosisque ibidem erroribus delectati perquam sumus, cum in ipso aequoris limine plantas tingueremus, quod uicissim nunc adpulsum nostris pedibus adluderet fluctus, nunc relabens ac uestigia retrahens in sese resorberet.
sensim itaque tranquilleque progressi oram curui molliter litoris iter fabulis fallentibus legebamus. hae fabulae erant Octaui disserentis de nauigatione narratio.
sed ubi eundi spatium satis iustum cum sermone consumpsimus, eandem emensi uiam rursus uersis uestigiis terebamus, et cum ad id loci uentum est, ubi subductae nauiculae substratis roboribus a terrena labe suspensae quiescebant, pueros uidimus certatim gestientes testarum in mare iaculationibus ludere.
is lusus est testam teretem iactatione fluctuum leuigatam legere de litore, eam testam plano situ digitis conprehensam inclinem ipsum atque humilem quantum potest super undas inrotare, ut illud iaculum uel dorsum maris raderet [uel enataret], dum leni impetu labitur, uel summis fluctibus tonsis emicaret [emergeret, dum adsiduo saltu subleuatur. is se in pueris uictorem ferebat, cuius testa et procurreret longius et frequentius exsiliret.