r man among their guilty authors. On the other hand,
it is rare to find wealthy men among the great figures of history. All
those at whom we marvel for their great deeds were the nurslings of
poverty from their very cradles, poverty that founded all cities in
the days of old, poverty mother of all arts, witless of all sin,
bestower of all glory, crowned with all honour among all the peoples
of the world. Take the history of Greece: the justice of poverty is
seen in Aristides, her benignity in Phocion, her force in Epaminondas,
her wisdom in Socrates, her eloquence in Homer. It was this same
poverty that established the empire of the Roman people in its first
beginnings, and even to this day Rome offers up thanksgivings for it
to the immortal gods with libations poured from a wooden ladle and
offerings borne in an earthen platter. If the judges sitting to try
this case were Caius Fabricius, Cnaeus Scipio, Manius Curius, whose
daughters on account of their poverty were given dowries from the
public treasury and so went to their husbands bringing with them the
honour of their houses and the wealth of the state; if Publicola, who
drove out the Kings, or Agrippa, the healer of the people's strife,
men whose funerals were on account of their poverty enriched by the
gift of a few farthings per man from the whole Roman people; if
Atilius Regulus, whose lands on account of his own poverty were
cultivated at the public expense; if, in a word, all the heroes of the
old Roman stock, consuls and censors and triumphant generals, were
given a brief renewal of life and sent back to earth to give hearing
to this case, would you dare in the presence of so many poor consuls
to reproach a philosopher with poverty?

19. Perhaps Claudius Maximus seems to you to be a suitable person
before whom to deride poverty, because he himself is in enjoyment of
great wealth and enormous opulence. You are wrong, Aemilianus, you are
wholly mistaken in your estimate of his character, if you take the
bounty of his fortune rather than the sternness of his philosophy as
the standard for your judgement and fail to realize that one, who
holds so austere a creed and has so long endured military service, is
more likely to befriend a moderate fortune with all its limitations
than opulence with all its luxury, and holds that fortunes, like
tunics, should be comfortable, not long. For even a tunic, if it be
not carried high, but is allowed to drag, will entangle and