Augustus kept a jester, Gabba, and patronised mimes, and among other diversions with which he amused himself and his friends, was that of giving presents by lottery; each drew a ticket upon which something was named, but on applying for the article a totally different thing was received, answering to a second meaning of the name. This occasioned great merriment, a man who thought he was to get a grand present was given a little sponge, or rake, or a pair of pincers; another who seemed to have no claim whatever, obtained something very valuable. The humour was not great, but a little refreshing distraction was thus obtained from the cares of state. There is no loss in light literature so much to be deplored as that of the correspondence between Augustus and Mecaenas. The latter prided himself upon his skill in poetry and humour, and we may be sure that he sent some of his choicest productions to Augustus, who in turn exerted himself to send something worthy of the eye of so celebrated a critic. It is not impossible that the Emperor showed himself equal, if not superior to the friend of Horace. Those who succeeded to the imperial purple proved very different from their illustrious predecessor, and in Persius the severity of Roman satire re-appears. We could scarcely expect a man who lived under Nero, and after the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius to write with the mild placidity of the Augustan poet. Moreover, the satires of Persius were written at an early age--twenty-eight, and youth always feels acutely, and expresses strongly. Some of his attacks are evidently aimed at Nero, but his principal object is to denounce the vices of the times. Hence, indolence and prurient literature are stigmatised. He ridicules the extremes of extravagance, and of that parsimony by which it is usually accompanied. "Am I on a festive day to have a nettle dressed for me, and a smoked pig's cheek with a hole in its ear, in order that that grandson of yours may be surfeited with goose liver, and indulge in patrician amours. Am I to be a living anatomy that his pope's stomach may shake with fat."[23] Alluding to the absurdity of the prayers generally offered up, he uses language worthy of a Christian. "You ask for vigour, but rich dishes and fat sausages prevent the gods from granting your behest. You ask what your fleshly mind suggests. What avails gold in sacrifice? Offer justice to God and man--generous honour, and a soul free from pollution."