d attentions of
courtesy and kindness.

22. But now, in their empty arrogance, some persons look upon everything
as worthless which is born outside of the walls of the city, except only
the childless and the unmarried. Nor can it be conceived with what a
variety of obsequious observance men without children are courted at
Rome.

23. And since among them, as is natural in a city so great as to be the
metropolis of the world, diseases attain to such an insurmountable
degree of violence, that all the skill of the physician is ineffectual
even to mitigate them; a certain assistance and means of safety has been
devised, in the rule that no one should go to see a friend in such a
condition, and to a few precautionary measures a further remedy of
sufficient potency has been added, that men should not readmit into
their houses servants who have been sent to inquire how a man's friends
who may have been seized with an illness of this kind are, until they
have cleansed and purified their persons in the bath. So that a taint is
feared, even when it has only been seen with the eyes of another.

24. But nevertheless, when these rules are observed thus stringently,
some persons, if they be invited to a wedding, though the vigour of
their limbs be much diminished, yet, when gold is offered[10] in the
hollow palm of the right hand, will go actively as far as Spoletum.
These are the customs of the nobles.

25. But of the lower and most indigent class of the populace some spend
the whole night in the wine shops. Some lie concealed in the shady
arcades of the theatres; which Catulus was in his aedileship the first
person to raise, in imitation of the lascivious manners of Campania, or
else they play at dice so eagerly as to quarrel over them; snuffing up
their nostrils and making unseemly noises by drawing back their breath
into their noses; or (and this is their favourite pursuit of all others)
from sunrise to evening they stay gaping through sunshine or rain,
examining in the most careful manner the most sterling good or bad
qualities of the charioteers and horses.

26. And it is very wonderful to see an innumerable multitude of people
with great eagerness of mind intent upon the event of the contests in
the chariot race. These pursuits, and others of like character, prevent
anything worth mentioning or important from being done at Rome.
Therefore we must return to our original subject.

VII.

Sec. 1. His licentiousness havin