hoc natura negat. te grandibus India gemmis, 225
te foliis Arabes ditent, te vellere Seres:
nullus inops adeo, nullum sic urget egestas,
ut velit Eutropii fortunam et membra pacisci.
Iamque oblita sui nec sobria divitiis mens
prices: so much for Galatia, for Pontus so much, so much will buy one Lydia. Would you govern Lycia? Then lay down so many thousands. Phrygia? A little more. He wishes everything to be marked with its price to console him for his own fortune and, himself so often sold, he wants to sell everything. When two are rivals he suspends in the balance their opposed payment; along with the weight the judge inclines, and a province hangs wavering in a pair of scales.
Ye gods, are ye not ashamed that whole peoples are sold beneath the hammer? At least let it shame you of the seller, when a slave, a chattel the law counts dead, possesses so many kingdoms and retails so many cities. Did Cyrus’ victory oust mighty Croesus from his throne that Pactolus and Hermus should roll their waves for a eunuch? Did Attalus make you, Rome, his heir, was Antiochus confined within the appointed bounds of Taurus, did Servilius enjoy a triumph over the hitherto unconquered Isaurians, did Egypt fall before Augustus, and Crete before Metellus, to ensure Eutropius a sufficient income?[90] Cilicia, Judaea, Sophene, all Rome’s labours and Pompey’s triumphs, are there to sell.
Why heap up these riches? Hast thou children to succeed to them? Marry or be married, thou canst never be a mother or a father: the former nature hath denied thee, the latter the surgeon’s knife. India may enrich thee with enormous jewels, Arabia with her spices, China with her silks; none so needy, none so poverty-stricken as to wish to have Eutropius’ fortune and therewith Eutropius’ body.
And now his mind, forgetful of its true nature and