Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 2.djvu/127

 tience of the fortune-hunters is worn out and they have already cut down their liberality so that, either I am mistaken, or else our usual luck is about to return to punish you!”

  (“I have thought up a scheme,” replied Eumolpus, “which will embarrass our fortune-hunting friends sorely,” and as he said this, he drew his tablets from his wallet and read his last wishes aloud, as follows:) “All who are down for legacies under my will, my freedmen only excepted, shall come into what I bequeath them subject to this condition, that they do cut my body into pieces and devour said pieces in sight of the crowd: nor need they be inordinately shocked for among some peoples, the law ordaining that the dead shall be devoured by their relatives is still in force; nay, even the sick are often abused because they render their own flesh worse! I admonish my friends, by Rh