you leave them to be devoured to-day by the hogs.”  The prodigal and fool gives away what he despises and hates; the reaping of favors like these has produced, and ever will produce, ungrateful men.  A good and wise man professes himself ready to do kindness to the deserving; and yet is not ignorant, how true coins differ from lupines.  I will also show myself deserving of the honor of being grateful.  But if you would not have me depart any whither, you must restore my vigorous constitution, the black locks [that grew] on my narrow forehead:  you must restore to me the power of talking pleasantly:  you must restore to me the art of laughing with becoming ease, and whining over my liquor at the jilting of the wanton Cynara.

A thin field-mouse had by chance crept through a narrow cranny into a chest of grain; and, having feasted itself, in vain attempted to come out again, with its body now stuffed full.  To which a weasel at a distance cries, “If you would escape thence, repair lean to the narrow hole which you entered lean.”  If I be addressed with this similitude, I resign all; neither do I, sated with delicacies, cry up the calm repose of the vulgar, nor would I change my liberty and ease for the riches of the Arabians.  You have often commended me for being modest; when present you heard [from me the appellations of] king and father, nor am I a word more sparing in your absence.  Try whether I can cheerfully restore what you have given me.  Not amiss [answered] Telemachus, son of the patient Ulysses:  “The country of Ithaca is not proper for horses, as being neither extended into champaign fields, nor abounding with much grass:  Atrides, I will leave behind me your gifts, [which are] more proper for yourself.”  Small things best suit the small.  No longer does imperial Rome please me, but unfrequented Tibur, and unwarlike Tarentum.

Philip, active and strong, and famed for pleading causes, while returning from his employment about the eighth hour, and now of a great age, complaining that the Carinae were too far distant from the forum; spied, as they say, a person clean shaven in a barber’s empty shed, composedly paring his own nails with a knife.  “Demetrius,” [says he,] (this slave dexterously received his master’s orders,) “go inquire, and bring me word from what house, who he is, of what fortune, who is his father, or who is his patron.”  He goes, returns, and relates, that “he is by name, Vulteius Maena, an auctioneer, of small fortune, of a character perfectly unexceptionable, that he could upon occasion ply busily, and take his ease, and get, and spend; delighting in humble companions and a settled dwelling, and (after business ended) in the shows, and the Campus Martius.”