In general, you are in a chaotic state and your soul is full of agitation, for you are lost in amazement at everything that goes on. Now you call Dives lucky for his gold and his ivory and all his luxury, and now you pity yourself for imagining that you are alive when you are really nothing at all. Sometimes, too, it comes into your head that you are going to lead an enviable life, since you will revel in all that and share in it equally; you expect to enjoy perpetual Bacchic revels. Perhaps, too, pretty boys waiting upon you and faintly smiling at you paint the picture of your future life in more attractive colours, so that you are forever quoting that line of Homer: Small blame to the fighters of Troy and the brightgreaved men of Achaea

Said of Helen by the Trojan elders. They continue,; That for a woman like this they long have endured tribulations.Iliad 3, 157

Moreover, that toast has made many of his old friends jealous of you, some of whom you had previously offended when the places at table were assigned because you, who had only just come, were given precedence over men who for years had drained the dregs of servitude. So at once they begin to talk about you after this fashion: “That was still left for us in addition to our other afflictions, to play second fiddle to men who have just come into the household, and it is only these Greeks who have the freedom of the city of Rome. And yet, why is it that they are preferred to us? Isn't it true that they think they confer a tremendous benefit by turning wretched phrases?”’ Another says: “Why, didn’t you see how much he drank, and how he gathered in what was set before him and devoured it? The fellow has no manners, and is starved to the limit; even in his dreams he never had his fill of white bread, not to speak of guinea fowl] or pheasants, of which he has hardly left us the bones:”’ A third observes: “You silly asses, in less than five days you will see him here in the midst of us making these same complaints. Just now, like a new pair of shoes, he is receiving acertain amount of consideration and attention, but when he has been used again and again and is smeared with mud, he will be thrown under the bed in a wretched state, covered with vermin like the rest of us.”

Well, as I say, they go on about you indefinitely in that vein, and perhaps even then some of them are getting ready for a campaign of slander.

Anyhow, that whole dinner-party is yours, and most of the conversation is about you. For your own part, as you have drunk more than enough subtle, insidious wine because you ‘were not used to it, you have been uneasy for a long time and are in a bad way: yet it is not good form to leave early and not safe to stay where you are. So, as the drinking is prolonged and subject after subject is discussed and entertainment after entertainment is brought in (for he wants to show you all his wealth!), you undergo great punishment; you cannot see what takes place, and if this or that lad who is held in very great esteem sings or plays, you cannot hear; you applaud perforce while you pray that an earthquake may tumble the whole establishment into a heap or that a great fire may be reported, so that the party may break up at last.

So goes, then, my friend, that first and sweetest of dinners, which to me at least is no sweeter than thyme and white salt eaten in freedom, when I like and as much as I like.

To spare you the tale of the flatulency that follows and the sickness during the night, early in the morning you two will be obliged to come to terms with one another about your stipend, how much you are to receive and at what time of year. So with two or three of his friends present, he summons you, bids you to be seated, and opens the conversation: ‘ You have already seen what our establishment is like, and that there is not a bit of pomp and circumstance in it, but everything is unostentatious, prosaic, and ordiriary. You must feel that we shall have everything in common; for it would be ridiculous if I trusted you with what is most important, my own soul or that of my children”—suppose he has children who need instruction—‘“and did not consider you equally free to command everything else. But there should be some stipulation. I recognise, to be sure, that you are temperate and independent by nature, and am aware that you did not join our household through hope of pay but on account of the other things, the friendliness that we shall show you and the esteem which you will have from everyone. Nevertheless, let there be some stipulation. Say yourself what you wish, bearing in mind, my dear fellow, what we shall probably give you on the annual feast-days. We shall not forget such matters, either, even though we do not now reckon them in, and there are many such occasions in the year, as you know. So, if you take all that into consideration, you will of course charge us with a more moderate stipend. Besides, it would well become you men of education to be superior to money.”

By saying this and putting you all in a flutter with expectations, he has made you submissive to him. You formerly dreamed of thousands and millions and whole farms and tenements, and you are somewhat conscious of his meanness; nevertheless, you welcome his promise with dog-like joy, and think his “We shall have everything in common”’ reliable and truthful, not knowing that this sort of thing “Wetteth the lips, to be sure, but the palate it leaveth unwetted.Iliad22, 495. In the end, out of modesty, you leave it to him. He himself refuses to say, but tells one of the friends who are present to intervene in the business and name a sum that would be neither burdensome to ~ him, with many other expenses more urgent than this, nor paltry to the recipient. The friend, a sprightly old man, habituated to flattery from his boyhood, says: ‘* You cannot say, sir, that you are not the luckiest man in the whole city. In the first place you have been accorded a privilege which many who covet it greatly would hardly be able to obtain from Fortune; I mean in being honoured with his company, sharing his hospitality, and being received into the first household in the Roman Empire. This is better.than the talents of Croesus and the wealth of Midas, if you know how to be temperate. Perceiving that many distinguished men, even if they had to pay for it, would like, simply for the name of the thing, to associate with this gentleman and be seen about* him in the guise of companions and friends, I cannot sufficiently congratulate you on your good luck, since you are actually to receive pay for such felicity. I think, then, that unless you are very prodigal, ~ about so and so much is enough”—and he names a very scanty sum, in striking contrast to those expectations of yours.