and emulate, does not
borrow money." And Musonius smilingly answered, "Neither does he lend."
For you must know Rutilius, himself a lender, was bantering Musonius for
being a borrower. What Stoic inflatedness was all this! What need was
there to bring in Zeus Soter? For all nature teaches the same lesson.
Swallows do not borrow money, nor do ants, although nature has given
them no hands, or reason, or profession. But men have intellect in
excess, and so ingenious are they that they keep near them horses, and
dogs, and partridges, and jackdaws. Why then do you despair, who are as
impressible as a jackdaw, have as much voice as a partridge, and are as
noble as a dog, of getting some person to befriend you, by looking after
him, winning his affections, guarding him, fighting his battles? Do you
not see how many opportunities there are both on land and sea? As Crates
says,

"Miccylus and his wife, to ward off famine
In these bad times, I saw both carding wool."

And King Antigonus asked Cleanthes, when he saw him at Athens after a
long interval, "Do you still grind, Cleanthes?" And he replied, "I do, O
king, but for my living, yet so as not to desert philosophy." Such was
the admirable spirit of the man who, coming from the mill and
kneading-trough, wrote with the hand that had baked and ground about the
gods, and the moon, and stars, and the sun. But those kinds of labour
are in our view servile! And so that we may appear free we borrow money,
and flatter and dance attendance on slaves, and give them dinners and
presents, and pay taxes as it were to them, not on account of our
poverty (for no one lends money to a poor man), but from our love of
lavish expenditure. For if we were content with things necessary for
subsistence, the race of money-lenders would be as extinct as Centaurs
and Gorgons are; it is luxury that has created them as much as
goldsmiths, and silversmiths, and perfumers, and dyers in bright
colours. For we do not owe money for bread and wine, but for estates,
and slaves, and mules, and dining-rooms, and tables, and for our lavish
public entertainments, in our unprofitable and thankless ambition. And
he that is once involved in debt remains in it all his time, like a
horse bitted and bridled that takes one rider after another, and there
is no escape to green pastures and meadows, but they wander about like
those demons who were driven out of heaven by the gods who are thus
described by Empedocles:--