Page:Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto volume 1 Haines 1919.djvu/341

 slaves would declare your property as less and I who received them as more. For the item of these two slaves is no negligible one, either in valuation of goods or in exchange of properties or in assessment for taxation or in payment of tribute.

7. He that sends too heavy a gift offends no less than he who sends his fellow ball-player too heavy a return or toasts his fellow guest with a big cup. For he would seem to toast him for debauch not for delight. But just as in temperate banquets we see the wine mixed in the proportion of a great deal of water to quite a little wine, so should gifts be a blend of much loving-kindness and very little outlay. For whom can we say that costly gifts befit? The poor? But they cannot send them. The rich? But they do not need them. Moreover, great gifts cannot be given continuously; or, if a man send great gifts and often, he must come to the end of his resources. But small gifts admit of being given continuously and with no compunction, since a man need make but a small acknowledgment to one who has sent a small gift.

8. This too you would confess, that a man acts unjustly, if he so acquire praise for himself as to rob another of his. But you in sending great gifts acquire to yourself praise for large-hearted generosity, but you rob me of praise by constraining me to accept favours. For I too might shew large-heartedness by refusing to accept such. But in small gifts the apportionment of praise is equal, in that the 277