is son, nor even his tomb, which was the cause
of his daily tears. To this misfortune a recent shipwreck had been
added, in which he had lost upwards of two millions of sesterces; not
that he minded the loss but, destitute of a train of servants he could
not keep up his proper dignity! Furthermore, he had, invested in Africa,
thirty millions of sesterces in estates and bonds; such a horde of his
slaves was scattered over the fields of Numidia that he could have even
sacked Carthage! We demanded that Eumolpus cough frequently, to further
this scheme, that he have trouble with his stomach and find fault with
all the food when in company, that he keep talking of gold and silver and
estates, the incomes from which were not what they should be, and of the
everlasting unproductiveness of the soil; that he cast up his accounts
daily, that he revise the terms of his will monthly, and, for fear any
detail should be lacking to make the farce complete, he was to use the
wrong names whenever he wished to summon any of us, so that it would be
plain to all that the master had in mind some who were not present. When
everything had been thus provided for, we offered a prayer to the gods
"that the matter might turn out well and happily," and took to the road.
But Giton could not bear up under his unaccustomed load, and the hired
servant Corax, a shirker of work, often put down his own load and cursed
our haste, swearing that he would either throw his packs away or run away
with his load. "What do you take me for, a beast of burden?" he
grumbled, "or a scow for carrying stone? I hired out to do the work of a
man, not that of a pack-horse, and I'm as free as you are, even if my
father did leave me poor!" Not satisfied with swearing, he lifted up his
leg from time to time and filled the road with an obscene noise and a
filthy stench. Giton laughed at his impudence and imitated every
explosion with his lips, {but Eumolpus relapsed into his usual vein, even
in spite of this.}

CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEENTH.

"Young men," said he, "many are they who have been seduced by poetry;
for, the instant a man has composed a verse in feet, and has woven a more
delicate meaning into it by means of circumlocutions, he straightway
concludes that he has scaled Helicon! Take those who are worn out by the
distressing detail of the legal profession, for example: they often seek
sanctuary in the tranquillity of poetry, as a more sheltere