The Discourse to the Greeks

I have come to hate your public gatherings. They are filled with excessive feasting, seductive music that incites lustful actions, pointless and extravagant anointings, and adornment with garlands. You drive away shame with such a mass of evils, filling your minds with them and being swept away by excess, engaging commonly in wicked and senseless fornication. Moreover, why are you, as a Greek, angry at your son when he imitates Jupiter, rebels against you, and wrongs you by taking your wife? Why do you consider him an enemy while worshipping one like him? Why do you criticize your wife for living unchastely, yet honor Venus with shrines? If others had recounted these things, they might have seemed merely slanderous accusations rather than truth. But now, your own poets sing of these things, and your histories loudly proclaim them.