the Campus
Martius." Does any disheartening report spread from the rostrum through
the streets, whoever comes in my way consults me [concerning it]: "Good
sir, have you (for you must know, since you approach nearer the gods)
heard any thing relating to the Dacians?" "Nothing at all for my part,"
[I reply]. "How you ever are a sneerer!" "But may all the gods torture
me, if I know any thing of the matter." "What? will Caesar give the
lands he promised the soldiers, in Sicily, or in Italy?" As I am
swearing I know nothing about it, they wonder at me, [thinking] me, to
be sure, a creature of profound and extraordinary secrecy.

Among things of this nature the day is wasted by me, mortified as I am,
not without such wishes as these: O rural retirement, when shall I
behold thee? and when shall it be in my power to pass through the
pleasing oblivion of a life full of solicitude, one while with the books
of the ancients, another while in sleep and leisure? O when shall the
bean related to Pythagoras, and at the same time herbs well larded with
fat bacon, be set before me? O evenings, and suppers fit for gods! with
which I and my friends regale ourselves in the presence of my household
gods; and feed my saucy slaves with viands, of which libations have been
made. The guest, according to every one's inclination, takes off the
glasses of different sizes, free from mad laws: whether one of a strong
constitution chooses hearty bumpers; or another more joyously gets
mellow with moderate ones. Then conversation arises, not concerning
other people's villas and houses, nor whether Lepos dances well or not;
but we debate on what is more to our purpose, and what it is pernicious
not to know--whether men are made happier by riches or by virtue; or
what leads us into intimacies, interest or moral rectitude; and what is
the nature of good, and what its perfection. Meanwhile, my neighbor
Cervius prates away old stories relative to the subject. For, if any one
ignorantly commends the troublesome riches of Aurelius, he thus begins:
"On a time a country-mouse is reported to have received a city-mouse
into his poor cave, an old host, his old acquaintance; a blunt fellow
and attentive to his acquisitions, yet so as he could [on occasion]
enlarge his narrow soul in acts of hospitality. What need of many words?
He neither grudged him the hoarded vetches, nor the long oats; and
bringing in his mouth a dry plum, and nibbled scraps of bacon, presented