Nigrinus (20-24)

Furthermore, one has cause to admire philosophy when he beholds so much folly, and to despise the gifts of fortune when he sees on the stage of life a play of many réles, in which one man enters first as servant, then as master; another first as rich, then as poor; another now as beggar, now as nabob or king; another as So-and-so’s friend, another as his enemy; another as an exile. And the strangest part of it all is that although Fortune attests that she makes light

“But I have said that there is food for laughter and amusement in what goes on; let me now explain it. To begin with, are not the rich ridiculous? They display their purple gowns and show their rings and betray an unbounded lack of taste. Would you believe it?—they make use of another man’s [*] voice in greeting people they meet, expecting them to be thankful for a glance and nothing more, while some, lordlier than the rest, even require obeisance to be made to them: not at long range, though, or in the Persian style. No, you must go up, bow your head, humbling your soul and showing its feelings by carrying yourself to match them, and kiss the man’s breast or his hand, while those who are denied even this privilege envy and admire you! And the man stands for hours and lets himself be duped! At any rate there is one point in their inhumanity that I commend them for—they forbid us their lips!

“Far more ridiculous, however, than the rich are those who visit them and pay them court. They get up at midnight, run all about the city, let servants bolt the doors in their faces and suffer themselves to be called dogs, toadies and similar names. By way of reward for this galling round of visits they get the much-talked-of dinner, a vulgar thing, the source of many evils. How much they eat there,

“For my part I hold that the toadies are far worse than the men they toady to, and that they alone are to blame for the arrogance of the others. When they admire their possessions, praise their plate, crowd their doorways in the early morning and go up and speak to them as a slave speaks to his master, how can you expect the rich to feel? If by common consent they refrained but a short time from this voluntary servitude, don’t you think that the tables would be turned, and that the rich would come to the doors of the poor and beg them not to leave their happiness unobserved and unattested and their beautiful tables and great houses unenjoyed and unused? It is not so much being rich that they like as being congratulated on it. The fact is, of course, that the man who lives in a fine house gets no good of it, nor of his ivory and gold either, unless someone admires it all. What men ought to do, then, is to reduce and cheapen the rank of the rich in this way, erecting in the face of their wealth a

“That common men who unreservedly admit their want of culture should do such things might fairly be thought reasonable; but that many selfstyled philosophers should act still more ridiculously than they—this is the surprising thing! How do you suppose I feel in spirit when I see one of them, especially if he be well on in years, among a crowd of toadies, at the heels of some Jack-in-office, in conference with the dispensers of his dinner-invitations? His dress only marks him out among the rest and makes him more conspicuous. What irritates me most is that they do not change their costume: certainly they are consistent play-actors in everything else. Take their conduct at dinners—to what ethical ideal are we to ascribe it?