The muscled body of Postumus Mallius Congrio rippled as he stood to present the case for the defence, in the case of Octavius versus Galba. Though an immaculate toga covered his magnificent frame, his calves stood out in perfect definition, while his proud Roman nose jutted out from a sculpted face of heroic grandeur. Roman matrons from the highest echelons of society, and of the greatest probity, had been known to swoon in his presence, and he had inspired jealous husbands to make many a dire threat against him.

Sadly, his magnificent appearance had fostered in him a sense of inordinate superiority over everyone else, and his temper was quick to rise against those he considered beneath him, which was, basically, everyone. Even his techniques of seduction, relying on the fact that any woman would be mad not to bed the most handsome man in the known world, was blunt to the point of crudity. His mood today had been darkened by the upstart Tribune's over-prompt start of proceedings - Agrippa being a man so far below Congrio that he was not visible to the naked eye. And so, with irritation rising, Congrio responded to the call from the Iudex to present his case.

"Jury. Judge. Fellow Romans. What a bloody mess this is! Some squabbling over some lowlifes over a bunch of cows out in the middle of bloody nowhere. What a joke! And a damn unfunny one too! If it wasn't for the fact that I'm going to run for Tribune of the Plebs next year, I wouldn't even have thought of taking it on. But what the heck, here goes.

"Bloody shame Agrippa chappy can't wait for the case to begin before making his speech. Almost made me miss it, damn his eyes! Although part of me wished I had, it was so bloody awful. Haven't heard such a lot of horse dung since my old dad on his death bed. And at least he died at the end of it! Though he did free all his household slaves and none of the idiots wanted to carry on working for me after that. Bloody ingrates!" A cough from one his gang of supporters alerted Congrio that he was digressing from the point at hand.

"Oh yeah, the bloody case. That's a lot of horse dung, too. Who the heck is this uptight Octavius anyway? And look at that face! Looks like the horse that shed all this bloody dung in the first place. Haha, look at those teeth! What an idiot he looks, eh? Now, according to this in front of me someone's written down for me so it looks like I know what I'm talking about, Octavius said these cows were wandering around his farm and they were Galba's.

"Well, first of all, how does he know they were Galba's cattle? They all look the same anyway, if you ask me, and it seems like if they're on a farm they're in the right place. Is Octavius sure they weren't his own cows that deposited the faeces and urine, or maybe his own wife? Those country women are dirty sluts, so I've heard. Maybe I should visit the country! If I didn't mind humping a woman that looked like my granny, that is. Which I don't, thank goodness, or granny wouldn't have died peacefully in her bed! Ha!

"Secondly, it was a bloody accident if it did happen, which it says here Galba says it did. So they were his cattle after all. Oh well. Anyway, so what? Yeah, they were his. That's probably against the law, that Lex Aquifer and Actio de Pasta Pesto sound plausible enough, though they're probably very old laws, so who in the hell cares about them these days? Anyway, so yeah they were Galba's cows, but dammit he offered some cheese as compensation, which Octavius refused and has chosen to ignore. So even if Galba does look like the result of a union between a horse radish and a badly-deformed cabbage, he's done the decent thing and offered some cheese. I love cheese! Bloody Octavius - no don't look at him, not with that disgusting face! - is the one being a bloody idiot wasting all of our time, when I could be in bed with a virgin of my choice. Galba should win. I think. Yeah that's right. Defence over. Now give me my bloody verdict!"