I, Claudius: from the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius

by Robert Graves

“If you have a wife, in your confidence and honesty, answer!” Cato intoned in his raucous voice. The man felt a little foolish, because after joking about Cato’s wife’s affection for Cato, he had found that his own wife had so far lost her affection for himself that he was now forced to divorce her. So to show good-will and turn the joke decently against himself he replied: “Yes, indeed, I have a wife, but she’s not in my confidence any more, and I wouldn’t give much for her honesty, either.” Cato thereupon expelled him from the Order for irreverence.

If he were ever to find himself at the mercy of a downright wicked character, this generosity of heart would of course be his undoing; but on the other hand if any man had any good in him Germanicus always seemed to bring it out.