27.
When, therefore, this fellow had begun to wallow in the treasures of that great
man, he began to exult like a buffoon in a play, who has lately been a beggar,
and has become suddenly rich.
[66]
But, as some
poet or other says,—“
“Ill-gotten gains come quickly to an end.”
”
It is an incredible thing, and almost a miracle, how he in a few, not months, but
days, squandered all that vast wealth. There was an immense quantity of wine, an
excessive abundance of very valuable plate, much precious apparel, great
quantities of splendid furniture, and other magnificent things in many places,
such as one was likely to see belonging to a man who was not indeed luxurious
but who was very wealthy. Of all this in a few days there was nothing left.
[67]
What Charybdis was ever so voracious?
Charybdis, do I say? Charybdis, if she existed at all, was only one animal. The
ocean I swear most solemnly, appears scarcely capable of having swallowed up
such numbers of things so widely scattered and distributed in such different
places with such rapidity. No thing was shut up, nothing sealed up, no list was
made of any thing. Whole storehouses were abandoned to the most worthless of men
Actors seized on this, actresses on that; the house was crowded with gamblers,
and full of drunken men; people were drinking all day, and that too in many
places; there were added to all this expense (for this fellow was not invariably
fortunate) heavy gambling losses. You might see in the cellars of the slaves,
couches covered with the most richly embroidered counterpanes of Cnaeus
Pompeius. Wonder not, then, that all these things were so soon consumed. Such
profligacy as that could have devoured not only the patrimony of one individual,
however ample it might have been (as indeed his was), but whole cities and
kingdoms. And then his houses and gardens!
[68]
Oh the cruel audacity! Did you dare to enter into that house? Did you dare to
cross that most sacred threshold? and to show your most profligate countenance
to the household gods who protect that abode? A house which for a long time no
one could behold, no one could pass by without tears! Are you not ashamed to
dwell so long in that house? one in which, stupid and ignorant as you are, still
you can see nothing which is not painful to you.
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