[39]
Thus I acted in this manner under compulsion; but in order that they might gain no advantage over me by alleging to you that I bore no part of the funeral expenses, I consulted the interpreter of the sacred law and by his advice I paid for at my own expense and offered the ninth-day offerings in the most sumptuous manner possible, in order that I might confound their sacrilegious tricks, and that it might not seem that they had paid for everything and I for nothing, but that I might be thought to have done my share.