And when was the crop of vices more abundant? When were the sails of avarice more widely spread? When had gambling its present spirits? For now men go to the hazard of the gaming-table not simply with their purses, but play with their whole chest[64] staked. What fierce battles will you see there, while the steward supplies the weapons for the contest! Is it then mere common madness to lose a hundred sestertia, and not leave enough for a tunic for your shivering slave![65] Which of our grandsires erected so many villas? Which of them ever dined by himself[66] on seven courses? In our days the diminished sportula is set outside the threshold, ready to be seized upon by the toga-clad crowd.[67] Yet he (that dispenses it), before giving, scans your features, and dreads lest you should come with counterfeit pretense and under a false name. When recognized you will receive your dole. He bids the crier summon the very Trojugenæ themselves. For even they assail the door with us. "Give the prætor his! Then to the tribune." But the freedman must first be served! "I was before him!" he says. "Why should I fear or hesitate to stand up for my turn, though I was born on the banks of Euphrates, which the soft windows[68] in my ears would attest, though I myself were to deny the fact. But my five shops bring me in four hundred sestertia. What does the Laticlave[69] bestow that's worth a wish, since Corvinus keeps sheep for hire in the Laurentine fields? I own more than Pallas[70] and the Licini. Let the tribunes wait then!" Let Riches carry the day, and let not him give place even to the sacrosanct magistrate, who came but the other day to this city with chalked feet.[71] Since with us the most revered majesty is that of riches; even though as yet, pernicious money, thou dwellest in no temple, nor have we as yet reared altars to coin, as we worship Peace and Faith, Victory and Virtue, and Concord, whose temple resounds with the noise of storks returning to their nests.[72] But when a magistrate of the highest rank reckons up at the end of the year, what the sportula brings him in, how much it adds to his revenue, what shall the poor retainers do, who look to this for their toga, for their shoes, their bread and fire at home? A closely-wedged crowd of litters is clamorous for the hundred quadrantes, and his wife, though sick or pregnant, accompanies and goes the rounds with her husband. One practicing a crafty trick now worn threadbare, asks for his wife though really absent, displaying in her stead an empty and closed palanquin: "My Galla is inside," he says, "dispatch us with all speed. Why hesitate?" "Put out your head, Galla!" "O don't disturb her! she's asleep!"