Whoever grows pale with evil ambition, or the love of money:  whoever is heated with luxury, or gloomy superstition, or any other disease of the mind, I command him to adjust his garment and attend:  hither, all of ye, come near me in order, while I convince you that you are mad.

By far the largest portion of hellebore is to be administered to the covetous:  I know not, whether reason does not consign all Anticyra to their use.  The heirs of Staberius engraved the sum [which he left them] upon his tomb:  unless they had acted in this manner, they were under an obligation to exhibit a hundred pair of gladiators to the people, beside an entertainment according to the direction of Arrius; and as much corn as is cut in Africa.  Whether I have willed this rightly or wrongly, it was my will; be not severe against me, [cries the testator].  I imagine the provident mind of Staberius foresaw this.  What then did he moan, when he appointed by will that his heirs should engrave the sum of their patrimony upon his tomb-stone?  As long as he lived, he deemed poverty a great vice, and nothing did he more industriously avoid:  insomuch that, had he died less rich by one farthing, the more Iniquitous would he have appeared to himself.  For every thing, virtue, fame, glory, divine and human affairs, are subservient to the attraction of riches; which whoever shall have accumulated, shall be illustrious, brave, just—­What, wise too?  Ay, and a king, and whatever else he pleases.  This he was in hopes would greatly redound to his praise, as if it had been an acquisition of his virtue.  In what respect did the Grecian Aristippus act like this; who ordered his slaves to throw away his gold in the midst of Libya; because, encumbered with the burden, they traveled too slowly?  Which is the greater madman of these two?  An example is nothing to the purpose, that decides one controversy by creating another.  If any person were to buy lyres, and [when he had bought them] to stow them in one place; though neither addicted to the lyre nor to any one muse whatsoever:  if a man were [to buy] paring-knives and lasts, and were no shoemaker; sails fit for navigation, and were averse to merchandizing; he every where deservedly be styled delirious, and out of his senses.  How does he differ from these, who boards up cash and gold [and] knows not how to use them when accumulated, and is afraid to touch them as if they were consecrated?  If any person before a great heap of corn should keep perpetual watch with a long club, and, though the owner of it, and hungry, should not dare to take a single grain from it; and should rather feed upon bitter leaves:  if while a thousand hogsheads of Chian, or old Falernian, is stored up within (nay, that is nothing—­three hundred thousand), he drink nothing, but what is mere sharp vinegars again—­if, wanting but one year of eighty, he should lie upon straw, who has bed-clothes rotting in his chest, the food of worms and moths; he would seem mad, belike, but to few persons:  because the greatest part of mankind labors, under the same malady.