Tertullian's treatiseDe palliois the briefest and most difficult of the North African's works. Its purpose, ostensibly, is to advocate for a change in clothing from the toga to the pallium. This sartorial shift functions, in turn, as a metaphor for conversion to the philosophical life, which, at the end of the treatise, is revealed to be the Christian life. Towards the centre of the work, Tertullian turns to nature to support his argument, citing the example of five different animals. This essay analyses his description of the chameleon, arguing that it is a riddle: drawing on the natural historians, Tertullian paints a realistic picture of the small lizard, but at the same time, skews the description of these features to depict the philosopher. The purpose of this central sketch is to alert listeners to the nature of the speech as a guessing game, and to point to the complex identity of the speaker.

中文翻译：

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特图连变色龙

特图良的论文德帕里奥是北非人作品中最简短、难度最高的作品。从表面上看，它的目的是倡导将服装从长袍改为披肩。反过来，这种服装转变也隐喻了皈依哲学生活，在论文的结尾，哲学生活被揭示为基督教生活。在作品的中心，特图良以五种不同动物的例子转向自然来支持他的论点。这篇文章分析了他对变色龙的描述，认为这是一个谜：特图良借鉴自然历史学家，描绘了小蜥蜴的真实画面，但同时歪曲了对这些特征的描述，以描绘哲学家。这个中心草图的目的是提醒听众注意演讲的性质是一种猜谜游戏，