Book 28
4.26
In another place a wife by hammering day and night on the same anvil—as the old proverb has itCf. Cic., De Orat. ii. 39, 162, and xviii. 4, 2. —drives her husband to make a will, and the husband insistently urges his wife to do the same. Skilled jurists are brought in on both sides, one in a bedroom, the other, his rival, in the dining-room to discuss disputed points. These are joined by opposing interpreters of horoscopes,Cf. Lucian, Dial. Mort., 11, 1. on the one side making profuse promises of prefectures and the burial of rich matrons, on the other telling women that for their husbands’ funerals now quietly approaching they must make the necessary preparations. And a maid-servant bears witness, by nature somewhat pale,. . .The rest of this sentence seems hopelessly corrupt and unintelligible. As Cicero says: De Amic. 21, 79. They know of nothing on earth that is good unless it brings gain. Of their friends, as of their cattle, they love those best from whom they hope to get the greatest profit.
4.27
When these people seek any loan, you will see them in slippers like a Micon or a Laches;Characters in comedy; i.e., they are humble and obsequious. when they are urged to pay, they wear such lofty buskins and are so arrogant that you would think them Cresphontes and Temenus, the famous Heraclidae.Rulers respectively of Messene and of Argos, hence characters in tragedy, contrasted with Micon and Laches. So much for the senate.
