The desire for gold, doubtless, had its potence in old Egypt and Babylonia, and most certainly in old Tyre and Carthage, but never has the fierce passion burned much keener than along the Seven Hills. Go into many a pretentious vestibule; in the mosaic pavement are set as mottoes, “_Salve Lucrum!_” (“Hail, Profit!”) or “_Lucrum Gaudium!_” (“Profit is pure joy!”). Hearken also to the cynical poets of society, for example, to Juvenal: “No deity among us is held in such reverence as _Riches_; though as yet, O baneful Money, thou hast no temple of thine own! Not yet have we reared fanes to Money in like manner we have to Peace and Honor, Virtue, Victory, and Concord.” And he speaks again: “No human passion has mingled more poison bowls, none has more often plied the murderer’s dagger than the violent craving for unbounded wealth.” His less sedate but not less cynical contemporary, Martial, echoes his words. He recommends that an honest friend should leave Rome; he cannot succeed for he is neither a rake nor a parasite; he cannot tell lies like an auctioneer, wheedle old ladies out of their property, sell “smoke” (“empty rumors,” in other words political, gaming, or commercial tips), nor otherwise earn a corrupt living. Martial tells us too of despicable misers who, as their vast fortunes increase, let their togas become even more dirty, their tunics still worse, their wine mere dregs, and their main diet one of half-cooked peas. Perhaps such sordid creatures, however, are no worse than the others who struggle for riches simply to enjoy gross material vanities; who desire “that their Tuscan estates may clink with the fetters of innumerable toiling slaves in order that they may own a hundred tables of Moorish marble supported pedestals, that gold ornaments may jingle from their couches, that they may never drink anything but Falernian cooled with snow from large crystal goblets, and that a crowd of clients may follow their litters; etc., etc.” And long before Martial, Horace has asserted, “All the arches of Janus [the typical Latin deity] from end to end teach one lesson to young and old ‘Oh, fellow citizens, fellow citizens, _money is the first thing to seek--virtue after money_!’”