Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/307

 kind of toil; that knows neither wrath or desire and thinks that the woes and hard labours of Hercules are better than the loves and the banquets and the down cushions of Sardanapalus. What I commend to you, you can give to yourself; for it is assuredly through virtue that lies the one and only road to a life of peace. Thou wouldst have no divinity, O Fortune, if we had but wisdom; it is we that make a goddess of thee, and place thee, in the skies.

Atticus dines sumptuously, he is thought a fine gentleman; if Rutilus does the same, people say he has lost his senses; for at what does the public laugh so loudly as at an Apicius reduced to poverty? Every dinner table, all the baths, lounging-places and theatres have their fling at Rutilus; for while still young, active, and warm-blooded, and fit to wear a helmet, he plunges on till he will have to enrol himself—not compelled indeed, but not forbidden by the Tribune —under the rules and royal mandates of a trainer of gladiators. You may see many of these gentry being waited for by an oft-eluded creditor at the entrance to the meat-market—men whose sole reason for living lies in their palate. The greater their straits—though the house is ready to fall, and the daylight begins to show between the cracks—the more luxuriously and daintily do they dine. Meanwhile they ransack all the elements for new relishes; 221