One must know one's own measure, and keep it in view, in the greatest and in most trifling matters; even when a fish is to be bought. Do not long for a mullet,[709] when you have only a gudgeon in your purse. For what end awaits you, as your purse[710] fails and your gluttony increases: when your patrimony and whole fortune is squandered[711] upon your belly, what can hold your money out at interest, your solid plate, your flocks, and lands?
By such proprietors as these, last of all[712] the ring is parted with, and Pollio[713] begs with his finger bare. It is not the premature funeral pile, or the grave, that is luxury's horror, but old age,[714] more to be dreaded than death itself. These are most commonly the steps: money, borrowed at Rome, is spent before the very owners' faces; then when some trifling residue is left, and the lender of the money is growing pale, they give leg-bail[715] and run to Baiæ and Ostia. For now-a-days to quit the forum[716] is not more discreditable to you than to remove to Esquiline from hot[717] Suburra. This is the only pain that they who flee their country feel, this their only sorrow, to have lost the Circensian games[718] for one[719] year. Not a drop of blood remains in their face; few attempt to detain modesty, now become an object of ridicule and fleeing from the city.
You shall prove to-day by your own experience, Persicus, whether all these things, which are very fine to talk about, I do not practice in my life, in my moral conduct, and in reality: but praise vegetables,[720] while in secret I am a glutton: in others' hearing bid my slave bring me water-gruel,[721] but whisper "cheese-cakes" in his ear. For since you are my promised guest, you shall find me an Evander:[722] you shall come as the Tirynthian, or the guest, inferior indeed to him, and yet himself akin by blood to heaven: the one sent to the skies by water,[723] the other by fire.
Now hear your bill of fare,[724] furnished by no public market.[725]
From my farm at Tibur there shall come a little kid, the fattest and tenderest of the whole flock, ignorant of the taste of grass, that has never yet ventured to browse even on the low twigs of the willow-bed, and that has more milk than blood in his veins: and asparagus[726] from the mountains, which my bailiff's wife, having laid down her spindle, gathered. Some huge eggs besides, and still warm in their twisted hay, shall be served up together with the hens themselves: and grapes kept a portion of the year, just as they were when fresh upon the vines: pears from Signia[727] and Syria: and, from the same basket, apples rivaling those of Picenum,[728] and smelling quite fresh; that you need not be afraid of, since they have lost their autumnal moisture, which has been dried up by cold, and the dangers to be feared from their juice if crude. This would in times gone by have been a luxurious supper for our senate. Curius[729] with his own hands used to cook over his little fire pot-herbs which he had gathered in his little garden: such herbs as now the foul digger in his heavy chain rejects with scorn, who remembers the flavor of the vile dainties[730] of the reeking cook-shop. It was the custom formerly to keep against festival days the flitches of the smoked swine, hanging from the wide-barred rack, and to set bacon as a birthday treat before one's relations, with the addition of some fresh meat, if a sacrificial victim furnished any. Some one of the kin, with the title of "Thrice consul," that had held command in camps, and discharged the dignity of dictator, used to go earlier[731] than his wont to such a feast as this, bearing his spade over his shoulder from the mountain he had been digging on. But when men trembled at the Fabii,[732] and the stern Cato, and the Scauri and Fabricii;[733] and when, in fine, even his colleague stood in dread of the severe character of the strict Censor; no one thought it was a matter of anxiety or serious concern what kind of tortoise[734] floated in the wave of ocean, destined to form a splendid and noble couch for the Trojugenæ. But with side devoid of ornament, and sofas of diminutive size, the brazen front displayed the mean head of an ass wearing a chaplet,[735] at which the country lads laughed in wantonness.