The prayers that are generally the first put up and best known in all the temples are, that riches,[563] that wealth may increase; that our chest may be the largest in the whole forum.[564] But no aconite is drunk from earthenware. It is time to dread it when you quaff jeweled cups,[565] and the ruddy Setine blazes in the broad gold. And do you not, then, now commend the fact, that of the two sages,[566] one used to laugh[567] whenever he had advanced a single step from his threshold; the other, with sentiments directly contrary, used to weep. But easy enough to any one is the stern censure of a sneering laugh: the wonder is how the other's eyes could ever have a sufficient supply of tears.[568] Democritus used to shake his sides with perpetual laughter, though in the cities of those regions there were no prætextæ, no trabeæ,[569] no fasces, no litter, no tribunal! What, had he seen the prætor[570] standing pre-eminent in his lofty car, and raised on high in the mid dust of the circus, dressed in the tunic of Jove, and wearing on his shoulders the Tyrian hangings of the embroidered toga; and the circlet of a ponderous crown,[571] so heavy that no single neck could endure the weight:[572] since the official, all in a sweat, supports it, and, that the consul may not be too elated, the slave rides in the same car. Then, add the bird that rises from his ivory sceptre: on one side the trumpeters; on the other, the long train of attendant clients, that march before him, and the Quirites, all in white togas, walking by his horses' heads; men whose friendship he has won by the sportula buried deep in his chest. Even in those days _he_ found subject for ridicule in every place where human beings meet, whose wisdom proves that men of the highest intellect, men that will furnish noble examples, may be born in the country of wether-sheep, and in a foggy[573] atmosphere. He used to laugh at the cares and also the joys of the common herd; sometimes even at their tears: while he himself would bid Fortune, when she frowned, "Go hang!" and point at her his finger[574] in scorn! Superfluous therefore, or else destructive, are all those objects of our prayers, for which we think it right to cover the knees of the gods with waxen tablets.[575]