estates in Africa.(758) A portion of his wealth has been engulfed in the storm, but a solid HS.300,000,000, with much besides, still remains. He has a cough, moreover, with other signs of debility. There is no more idiotic person, as our Stock Exchange records show, than a man eager for an unearned fortune. The poor fools flocked around Eumolpus, drinking in every fresh rumour about his will. He was loaded with gifts;(759) great ladies made an easy offer of their virtue and even that of their children.(760) Meanwhile he, or Petronius, plays with their follies or tortures their avidity. In one of his many wills, the heirs of the pretended Croesus are required not to touch their booty till they have devoured his remains before the people!(761) The tales of barbarian tribes in Herodotus, the memories of the siege of Saguntum and Numantia, are invoked in brutal irony to justify the reasonableness of the demand. “Close your eyes,” the cynic enjoins, “and fancy that instead of devouring human flesh, you are swallowing a million of money.” Petronius could be very brutal as well as very refined in his raillery. The combined stupidity and greed of the fortune-hunter of all ages are perhaps best met by such brutality of contempt. The really interesting part of their adventure is the dinner at the house of Trimalchio, a rich freedman, to which these rascals were invited. Trimalchio is probably in many traits drawn from life, but the picture of himself, of his wife and his associates, is a work of genius worthy of Fielding or Smollett or Le Sage. Petronius, it is clear, enjoyed his work, and, in spite of his contempt for the vulgar ambition and the coarseness and commonness of Trimalchio’s class, he has a liking for a certain simplicity and honest good nature in Trimalchio. The freedman tells the story of his own career(762) without reserve, and with a certain pride in the virtue and frugality, according to his standards, which have made him what he is. He also exults in his shrewdness and business capacity. His motto has always been, “You are worth just what you have.” “Buy cheap and sell dear.” Coming as a little slave boy from Asia, probably in the reign of Augustus,(763) he became the favourite of his master, and more than the favourite of his mistress. He found himself in the end the real master of the household, and, on his patron’s death, he was left joint-heir to his property with the emperor. But he had ambitions beyond even such a fortune. He became a ship-owner on a great scale. He lost a quarter of a million in a single storm, and at once proceeded to build more and larger ships. Money poured in; all his ventures prospered. He bought estates in Italy, Sicily, and Africa. Some of his purchases he had never seen.(764) He built himself a stately house, with marble porticoes, four great banqueting-halls, and twenty sleeping-rooms.(765) Everything to satisfy human wants was produced upon his lands. He was a man of infinite enterprise.