[871] "[Greek: mignymenon], Turn, et Bong.," _Reiske._
Surely the right reading.

[872] Latin Puteoli.

[873] Vespasian. See Suetonius, "Vespasian," ch. 24, as
to the particulars of his death.

[874] The reading is very doubtful. I have followed
Wyttenbach in reading [Greek: tribomenen triben atele].

[875] Such as that of the Danaides. So Wyttenbach.

[876] Adopting the arrangement of Wyttenbach.

[877] Compare Homer, "Odyssey," xxiv. 5-10.

[878] See Pausanias, vii. 17, for a sneaking kindness
for Nero.

[879] See Athenaeus, 687 B.

[880] Reading [Greek: dia] with Reiske.

AGAINST BORROWING MONEY.

Sec. I. Plato in his Laws[881] does not permit neighbours to use one
another's water, unless they have first dug for themselves as far as the
clay, and reached ground that is unsuitable for a well. For clay, having
a rich and compact nature, absorbs the water it receives, and does not
let it pass through. But he allows people that cannot make a well of
their own to use their neighbour's water, for the law ought to relieve
necessity. Ought there not also to be a law about money, that people
should not borrow of others, nor go to other people's sources of income,
until they have first examined their own resources at home, and
collected, as by drops, what is necessary for their use? But nowadays
from luxury and effeminacy and lavish expenditure people do not use
their own resources, though they have them, but borrow from others at
great interest without necessity. And what proves this very clearly is
the fact that people do not lend money to the needy, but only to those
who, wanting an immediate supply, bring a witness and adequate security
for their credit, so that they can be in no actual necessity of
borrowing.[882]

Sec. II. Why pay court to the banker or trader? Borrow from your own table.
You have cups, silver dishes, pots and pans. Use them in your need.
Beautiful Aulis or Tenedos will furnish you with earthenware instead,
purer than silver, for they will not smell strongly and unpleasantly of
interest, a kind of rust that daily soils your sumptuousness, nor will
they remind you of the calends and the new moon, which, though the most
holy of days, the money-lenders make ill-omened and hateful. For those
who instead of selling them put their goods out at pawn cannot be saved
even by Zeus the Protector of Property: they are ashamed to sell, th