Therefore we are not fairly matched; he has the best of it, who can at any time, either by night or day, assume a fictitious face; kiss his hands in ecstasy, quite ready, to praise his patron's grossest acts; if the golden cup has emitted a sound, when its bottom is inverted. Besides, there is nothing that is held sacred by these fellows, or that is safe from their lust. Neither the mistress of the house, nor your virgin daughter, nor her suitor, unbearded as yet, nor your son, heretofore chaste. If none of these are to be found, he assails his friend's grandmother. They aim at learning the secrets of the house, and from that knowledge be feared. And since we have begun to make mention of the Greeks, pass on to their schools of philosophy, and hear the foul crime of the more dignified cloak.[130] It was a Stoic that killed Bareas--the informer, his personal friend--the old man, his own pupil--bred on that shore[131] on which the pinion of the Gorgonean horse lighted. There is no room for any Roman here, where some Protogenes, or Diphilus, or Erimanthus reigns supreme; who, with the common vice of his race, never shares a friend, but engrosses him entirely to himself. For when he has infused into his patron's too ready ear one little drop of the venom of his nature and his country, I am ejected from the door; all my long-protracted service goes for naught. Nowhere is the loss of a client of less account. Besides (not to flatter ourselves) what service can the _poor man_ render, what merit can _he_ plead, even though he be zealous enough to hasten in his toga[132] before break of day, when the very _prætor_ himself urges on his lictor, and bids him hurry on with headlong speed, since the childless matrons have been long awake, lest his colleague[133] be beforehand with him in paying his respects to Albina and Modia. Here, by the side of a slave, if only rich, walks the son of the free-born;[134] for the other gives to Calvina, or Catiena (that he may enjoy her once or twice), as much as the tribunes in the legion receive;[135] whereas you, when the face of a well-dressed harlot takes your fancy, hesitate to hand Chione from her exalted seat.