Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookllainy, and the charge you bring of breach of trust? But it is your good fortune not to have so slender an income, that the weight of a trifling loss can plunge you into ruin; nor is what you are suffering from an unfrequent occurrence. This is a case well known to many--worn threadbare--drawn from the middle of fortune's heap.[821] Let us, then, lay aside all excessive complaints. A _man's_ grief ought not to blaze forth beyond the proper bounds, nor exceed the loss sustained. Whereas _you_ can scarcely bear even the very least diminutive particle of misfortune, however trifling, boiling with rage in your very bowels because your friend does not restore to you the deposit he swore to return. Can _he_ be amazed at this, that has left threescore years behind him, born when Fonteius was consul?[822] Have you gained[823] nothing by such long experience of the world? Noble indeed are the precepts which philosophy, that triumphs over fortune, lays down in her books of sacred wisdom. Yet we deem those happy too who, with daily life[824] for their instructress, have learned to endure with patience the inconveniences of life, and not shake off the yoke.[825] What day is there so holy that is not profaned by bringing to light theft, treachery, fraud--filthy lucre got by crime of every dye, and money won by stabbing or by poison?[826] Since rare indeed are the good! their number is scarce so many as the gates of Thebes,[827] or the mouths of fertilizing Nile. We are now passing through the ninth age of the world: an era far worse than the days of Iron; for whose villainy not even Nature herself can find a name, and has no metal[828] base enough to call it by. Yet we call heaven and earth to witness, with a shout as loud as that with which the Sportula,[829] that gives them tongues, makes his clients applaud Fæsidius as he pleads. Tell me, thou man of many years, and yet more fit to bear the boss[830] of childhood, dost thou not know the charms that belong to another's money? Knowest thou not what a laugh thy simplicity would raise in the common herd, for expecting that no man should forswear himself, but should believe some deity is[831] really present in the temples and at the altars red with blood? In days of old the aborigines perhaps used to live after this fashion: before Saturn in his flight laid down his diadem, and adopted the rustic sickle: in the days when Juno was a little maid; and Jupiter as yet in a private[832] station in the caves of Ida: no banquetings of the celestials above the clouds, no Trojan boy or beauteous wife of Hercules as cup-bearer; or Vulcan (but not till he had drained the nectar) wiping[833] his arms begrimed with his forge in Lipara. Then each godship dined alone; nor was the crowd of deities so great[834] as it is now-a-days: and the heavens, content with a few divinities, pressed on the wretched Atlas with less grievous weight. No one had as yet received as his share the gloomy empire of the deep: nor was there the grim[835] Pluto with his Sicilian bride, nor Ixion's wheel, nor the Furies, nor Sisyphus' stone, nor the punishment of the black vulture,[836] but the shades passed jocund days with no infernal king. In that age villainy was a prodigy! They used to hold it as a heinous sin, that naught but death could expiate, if a young man had not risen up to pay honor to an old one,[837] or a boy to one whose beard was grown; even though he himself gloated over more strawberries at home, or a bigger pile of acorns.[838] So just a claim to deference had even four years' priority; so much on a par with venerated old age was the first dawn of youth! Now, if a friend should not deny the deposit[839] intrusted to him, if he should give back the old leathern purse with all its rusty[840] coin untouched, it is a prodigy of honesty, equivalent to a miracle,[841] fit to be entered among the marvels in the Tuscan records,[842] and that ought to be expiated by a lamb crowned for sacrifice.[843] If I see a man above the common herd, of real probity, I look upon him as a prodigy equal to a child born half man, half brute;[844] or a shoal of fish turned up by the astonished[845] plow; or a mule[846] with foal! in trepidation as great as though the storm-cloud had rained stones;[847] or a swarm of bees[848] had settled in long cluster from some temple's top; as though a river had flowed into the ocean with unnatural eddies,[849] and rushing impetuous with a stream of milk. Do you complain of being defrauded of _ten_ sestertia by impious fraud? What if another has lost in the same way two hundred, deposited without a witness![850] and a third a still larger sum than that, such as the corner of his capacious strong-box could hardly contain! So easy and so natural is it to despise the gods above,[851] that witness all, if no mortal man attest the same! See with how bold a voice he denies it! What unshaken firmness in the face he puts on! He swears by the sun's rays, by the thunderbolts of Tarpeian Jove, the glaive of Mars, the darts of the prophet-god of Cirrha,[852] by the arrows and quiver of the Virgin Huntress, and by thy trident, O Neptune, father of the Ægæan! He adds the bow of Hercules, Minerva's spear, and all the weapons that the arsenals of heaven hold.[853] But if he be a father also, he says, "I am ready to eat my wretched son's head boiled, swimming in vinegar from Pharos."[854] There are some who refer all things to the accidents of fortune,[855] and believe the universe moves on with none to guide its course; while nature brings round the revolutions of days and years. And therefore, without a tremor, are ready to lay their hands[856] on any altar. Another does indeed dread that punishment will follow crime; he thinks the gods _do_ exist. Still he perjures himself, and reasons thus with himself: "Let Isis[857] pass whatever sentence she pleases upon my body, and strike my eyes with her angry Sistrum, provided only that when blind I may retain the money I disown. Are consumption, or ulcerous sores, or a leg shriveled to half its bulk, such mighty matters? If Ladas[858] be poor, let him not hesitate to wish for gout that waits on wealth, if he is not mad enough to require Anticyra[859] or Archigenes.[860] For what avails the honor of his nimble feet, or the hungry branch of Pisa's olive? All-powerful though it be, that anger of the gods, yet surely it is slow-paced! If, therefore, they set themselves to punish all the guilty, when will they come to me? Besides, I may perchance discover that the deity may be appeased by prayers! "It is not unusual with him to pardon[861] such perjuries as these. Many commit the same crimes with results widely different. One man receives crucifixion[862] as the reward of his villainy; another, a regal crown!" Thus they harden their minds, agitated by terror inspired by some heinous crime. Then, when you summon him to swear on the sacred shrine, he will go first![863] Nay, he is quite ready to drag you there |