What day is there so holy that is not profaned by bringing to light theft, treachery, fraud—filthy lucre got by crime of every dye, and money won by stabbing or by poison?[826] Since rare indeed are the good! their number is scarce so many as the gates of Thebes,[827] or the mouths of fertilizing Nile. We are now passing through the ninth age of the world: an era far worse than the days of Iron; for whose villainy not even Nature herself can find a name, and has no metal[828] base enough to call it by. Yet we call heaven and earth to witness, with a shout as loud as that with which the Sportula,[829] that gives them tongues, makes his clients applaud Fæsidius as he pleads. Tell me, thou man of many years, and yet more fit to bear the boss[830] of childhood, dost thou not know the charms that belong to another's money? Knowest thou not what a laugh thy simplicity would raise in the common herd, for expecting that no man should forswear himself, but should believe some deity is[831] really present in the temples and at the altars red with blood? In days of old the aborigines perhaps used to live after this fashion: before Saturn in his flight laid down his diadem, and adopted the rustic sickle: in the days when Juno was a little maid; and Jupiter as yet in a private[832] station in the caves of Ida: no banquetings of the celestials above the clouds, no Trojan boy or beauteous wife of Hercules as cup-bearer; or Vulcan (but not till he had drained the nectar) wiping[833] his arms begrimed with his forge in Lipara. Then each godship dined alone; nor was the crowd of deities so great[834] as it is now-a-days: and the heavens, content with a few divinities, pressed on the wretched Atlas with less grievous weight. No one had as yet received as his share the gloomy empire of the deep: nor was there the grim[835] Pluto with his Sicilian bride, nor Ixion's wheel, nor the Furies, nor Sisyphus' stone, nor the punishment of the black vulture,[836] but the shades passed jocund days with no infernal king.
In that age villainy was a prodigy! They used to hold it as a heinous sin, that naught but death could expiate, if a young man had not risen up to pay honor to an old one,[837] or a boy to one whose beard was grown; even though he himself gloated over more strawberries at home, or a bigger pile of acorns.[838]
So just a claim to deference had even four years' priority; so much on a par with venerated old age was the first dawn of youth! Now, if a friend should not deny the deposit[839] intrusted to him, if he should give back the old leathern purse with all its rusty[840] coin untouched, it is a prodigy of honesty, equivalent to a miracle,[841] fit to be entered among the marvels in the Tuscan records,[842] and that ought to be expiated by a lamb crowned for sacrifice.[843] If I see a man above the common herd, of real probity, I look upon him as a prodigy equal to a child born half man, half brute;[844] or a shoal of fish turned up by the astonished[845] plow; or a mule[846] with foal! in trepidation as great as though the storm-cloud had rained stones;[847] or a swarm of bees[848] had settled in long cluster from some temple's top; as though a river had flowed into the ocean with unnatural eddies,[849] and rushing impetuous with a stream of milk.
Do you complain of being defrauded of ten sestertia by impious fraud? What if another has lost in the same way two hundred, deposited without a witness![850] and a third a still larger sum than that, such as the corner of his capacious strong-box could hardly contain! So easy and so natural is it to despise the gods above,[851] that witness all, if no mortal man attest the same! See with how bold a voice he denies it! What unshaken firmness in the face he puts on! He swears by the sun's rays, by the thunderbolts of Tarpeian Jove, the glaive of Mars, the darts of the prophet-god of Cirrha,[852] by the arrows and quiver of the Virgin Huntress, and by thy trident, O Neptune, father of the Ægæan! He adds the bow of Hercules, Minerva's spear, and all the weapons that the arsenals of heaven hold.[853] But if he be a father also, he says, "I am ready to eat my wretched son's head boiled, swimming in vinegar from Pharos."[854]
There are some who refer all things to the accidents of fortune,[855] and believe the universe moves on with none to guide its course; while nature brings round the revolutions of days and years. And therefore, without a tremor, are ready to lay their hands[856] on any altar. Another does indeed dread that punishment will follow crime; he thinks the gods do exist. Still he perjures himself, and reasons thus with himself: "Let Isis[857] pass whatever sentence she pleases upon my body, and strike my eyes with her angry Sistrum, provided only that when blind I may retain the money I disown. Are consumption, or ulcerous sores, or a leg shriveled to half its bulk, such mighty matters? If Ladas[858] be poor, let him not hesitate to wish for gout that waits on wealth, if he is not mad enough to require Anticyra[859] or Archigenes.[860] For what avails the honor of his nimble feet, or the hungry branch of Pisa's olive? All-powerful though it be, that anger of the gods, yet surely it is slow-paced! If, therefore, they set themselves to punish all the guilty, when will they come to me? Besides, I may perchance discover that the deity may be appeased by prayers! "It is not unusual with him to pardon[861] such perjuries as these. Many commit the same crimes with results widely different. One man receives crucifixion[862] as the reward of his villainy; another, a regal crown!"
Thus they harden their minds, agitated by terror inspired by some heinous crime. Then, when you summon him to swear on the sacred shrine, he will go first![863] Nay, he is quite ready to drag you there himself, and worry you to put him to this test. For when a wicked cause is backed by impudence, it is believed by many to be the confidence[864] of innocence. He acts as good a farce as the runaway slave, the buffoon in Catullus'[865] Vision! You, poor wretch, cry out so as to exceed Stentor,[866] or, rather, as loudly as Gradivus[867] in Homer: "Hearest thou[868] this, great Jove, and openest not thy lips, when thou oughtest surely to give vent to some word, even though formed of marble or of brass? Or, why then do we place on thy glowing altar the pious[869] frankincense from the wrapper undone, and the liver of a calf cut up, and the white caul of a hog?[870] As far as I see, there is no difference to be made between your image and the statue of Vagellius!"[871]
Now listen to what consolation on the other hand he can offer, who has neither studied the Cynics, nor the doctrines of the Stoics, that differ from the Cynics only by a tunic,[872] and pays no veneration to Epicurus,[873] that delighted in the plants of his diminutive garden. Let patients whose cases are desperate be tended by more skillful physicians; you may trust your vein even to Philippus' apprentice. If you can show me no act so heinous in the whole wide world, then, I hold my tongue; nor forbid you to beat your breast with your fists, nor thump your face with open palm. For, since you really have sustained loss, your doors must be closed; and money is bewailed with louder lamentations from the household, and with greater tumult,[874] than deaths. No one, in such a case, counterfeits sorrow; or is content with merely stripping[875] down the top of his garment, and vexing his eyes for forced rheum.[876] The loss of money is deplored with genuine tears.
But if you see all the courts filled with similar complaints, if, after the deeds have been read ten times over, and each time in a different quarter,[877] though their own handwriting,[878] and their principal signet-ring,[879] that is kept so carefully in its ivory casket, convicts them, they call the signature a forgery and the deed not valid; do you think that you, my fine fellow, are to be placed without the common pale? What makes you the chick of a white hen, while we are a worthless brood, hatched from unlucky eggs? What you suffer is a trifle; a thing to be endured with moderate choler, if you but turn your eyes to crimes of blacker dye. Compare with it the hired assassin, fires that originate from the sulphur of incendiaries,[880] when your outer gate is the first part that catches fire. Compare those who carry off the ancient temple's massive cups,[881] incrusted with venerable rust—the gifts of nations; or, crowns[882] deposited there by some king of ancient days. If these are not to be had, there comes some sacrilegious wretch that strikes at meaner prey; who will scrape the thigh of Hercules incased in gold, and Neptune's face itself, and strip off from Castor his leaf-gold. Will he, forsooth, hesitate, that is wont to melt down whole the Thunderer[883] himself? Compare, too, the compounders and venders of poisons;[884] or him that ought to be launched into the sea in an ox's hide,[885] with whom the ape,[886] herself innocent, is shut up, through her unlucky stars. How small a portion is this of the crimes which Gallicus,[887] the city's guardian, listens to from break of day to the setting of the sun! Would you study the morals of the human race, one house is quite enough. Spend but a few days there, and when you come out thence, call yourself, if you dare, a miserable man!
Who is astonished at a goitred throat[888] on the Alps? or who, in Meroë,[889] at the mother's breast bigger than her chubby infant? Who is amazed at the German's[890] fierce gray eyes, or his flaxen hair with moistened ringlets twisted into horns? Simply because, in these cases, one and all are alike by nature.