39 Lewis believed there to be some truth in the accusations he was making, but he was primarily having fun with a friend who he knew would understand the exaggeration. There is an instance of Faex Romuli–dregs of Romulus–in Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, 21.8: ‘[Cato] speaks in the Senate as though he were living in Plato’s Republic instead of Romulus’s cesspool [Romuli faece].’