wealth; and though you are nothing wiser, since you become richer, will you nevertheless use the same monitors as before? But could riches make you wise, could they make you less covetous and mean-spirited, you well might blush, if there lived on earth one more avaricious than yourself.”
If that be any man’s property, which he has bought by the pound and penny,[1] [and] there be some things to which (if you give credit to the lawyers) possession gives a claim,[2] [then] the field that feeds you is your own; and Orbius’ steward, when he harrows the corn which is soon to give you flour, finds you are [in effect] the proper master. You give your money; you receive grapes, pullets, eggs, a hogshead of strong wine: certainly in this manner you by little and little purchase that farm, for which perhaps the owner paid three hundred thousand sesterces, or more. What does it signify, whether you live on what was paid for the other day, or a long while ago? He who purchased the Aricinian and Veientine fields some time since, sups on bought vegetables, however he may think otherwise; boils his pot with bought wood at the approach of the chill evening. But he calls all that his own, as far as where the planted poplar prevents quarrels among neighbors by a determinate limitation: as if anything were a man’s property, which in a moment of the fleeting hour, now by solicitations, now by sale, now by violence, and now by the supreme lot [of all men], may change masters and come into another’s jurisdiction. Thus since the perpetual possession is given to none, and one man’s heir urges on another’s, as wave impels wave, of what importance are houses, or granaries; or what the Lucanian pastures joined to the Calabrian; if Hades, inexorable to gold, mows down the great together with the small?
Gems, marble, ivory, Tuscan[3] statues, pictures, silver-plate, robes dyed with Getulian purple, there are who can
- ↑ Librâ mercatur et cere. In the reign of Servius Tullus, the Romans weighed their money before witnesses, in a bargain of buying and selling. When this custom was afterward changed, yet the same expression continued. Ed. Dubl.
- ↑ Mancipat usus. To prevent the perpetual vexations of law-suits, the laws wisely established, that possession and enjoyment for a certain number of years should confirm a title and ascertain the property of an estate. This right of prescription was called usucapio. Ed. Dubl.
- ↑ The Tuscans were famous for making statues and vases of earth and copper gilt, with which they decorated their temples and apartments. Vestes, in the next line, not only signifies clothes, but all sorts of tapestry, carpets, etc.; and, to show how unnecessary these ornaments are, the poet says there are many people who never give themselves any trouble or concern about them, San.
