II.  The Senator Q. Axius, my fellow tribesman, and I had cast our votes at the comitia for the election of aediles, and, although it was the heat of the day, we wished to be on hand when the candidate whom we were supporting should go home.  So Axius said to me:  “What would you think of taking shelter in the villa publica[158] while the votes are being sorted rather than in the booth of our candidate.”  “I hold,” said I, “not only with the proverb that bad advice is worst for him who gives it, but that good advice is good for both the giver and the taker.”

And so we made our way to the villa publica, where we found Appius Claudius,[159] the Augur, seated on a bench waiting for any call for his services by the Consul:  on his left was Cornelius Merula (blackbird) of the Consular family of that name, and Fircellius Pavo (pea-cock) of Reate, and on his right Minutius Pica (mag-pie) and M. Petronius Passer (sparrow).  When we had approached them Axius, smiling, said to Appius:  “May we come into your aviary where you are sitting among the birds?”

“By all means,” replied Appius, “and especially you who set before me such birds as still make my mouth water, when I was your guest a few days ago at your Reatine villa on my way to lake Velinus to settle the controversy between the people of Interamna and Reate.[160]

“But” he added, “is not this villa, which our ancestors constructed, simpler and so better than that elaborate one of yours at Reate:  do you see any where here any furniture of citrus wood or ormolu, any decorations of vermillion or blue, any tessellations or mosaic work, all of which on the other hand were displayed in your house?  And while this is open to the entire people, yours is available to you alone:  this is the resort for the citizens after the comitia in the Campus Martius, and for all alike, while yours is reserved for mares and asses.  And furthermore it should be considered that this building is useful in carrying on the public business, for here the consuls review the army on parade, here the arms are inspected, here the censors enumerate the people.”

“Tell me,” retorted Axius, “which is useful, this villa of yours giving on the Campus Martius, more extravagantly arrayed with objects of art than all Reate put together, so bedizened is it with pictures and garnished with statues, or mine where there is no trace of the artists Lysippus or Antiphilus, but there are many of the farm hand and the shepherd?

“And since there can be no villa where there is no farm and that well cultivated, how can you call this house of yours a villa which has no land appurtenant to it and no cattle or horses?  Again, tell me, pray, how does your villa compare with that of your grandfather and great grandfather, for one cannot see at yours, as one could always see at theirs, cured hay in the mows, the vintage in the cellar, and the harvest in the granary?  Because, forsooth, a house is situated out of town, it is no more a villa for that reason than the houses of those who dwell beyond the Porta Flumentaria or in the Aemiliana suburb.”