Apuleius married a rich widow, her family charged him with winning her by magic, and he read her will aloud in court to show her son was the heir

Pudentilla of Oea was a widow worth 4,000,000 sesterces, owing part of it to her sons Pontianus and Pudens. Pontianus had studied with Apuleius at Athens and urged him to marry his mother. He did. Pontianus died. Sicinius Aemilianus, of her first husband's family, and Pontianus's father-in-law, Herennius Rufinus, brought a charge in Pudens's name that Apuleius had won her by magic for her money. The case was heard at Sabratha before the proconsul Claudius Maximus. Apuleius's defence survives as the Apologia. He said the dowry was 300,000 sesterces and was held in trust: if she died childless it went to her sons. He said he had pressed her to give her sons farms, a house, grain, wine, oil, about 400 slaves and cattle. He quoted her letter: "I am not bewitched, I am not in love; it is my destiny." He said that when she was ill she had written a clause disinheriting Pudens, and he had persuaded her to remove it. He had the will opened in court and read: "Let Sicinius Pudens, my son, be my heir." His own legacy was a small token. The Encyclopédie berbère says he left the court acquitted.