Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 1.djvu/171

 over, but he was as tough as horn, carried his age well, and was as black as a crow. I knew the fellow for years and years, and he was a lecher to the very last. I don’t believe that even the dog in his house escaped his attentions, by Hercules, I don’t; and what a boy-lover he was! Saw a virgin in every one he met! Not that I blame him though, for it’s all he could take with him.”

  Phileros had his say and Ganymedes exclaimed, “You gabble away about things that don’t concern heaven or earth: and none of you cares how the price of grain pinches. I couldn’t even get a mouthful of bread today, by Hercules, I couldn’t. How the drought does hang on! We’ve had famine for a year. If the damned Ædiles would only get what’s coming to them. They graft with the bakers, scratch-my-arse-and-I’ll-scratch-yours! That’s the way it always is, the poor devils are out of luck, but the jaws of the capitalists are always Rh