Book 34
4
"You have often heard me complain of the expensive habits of women and often, too, of those of men, not only private citizens but even magistrates, and I have often said that the community suffers from two opposite vices-avarice and luxury-pestilential diseases which have proved the ruin of all great empires. The brighter and better the fortunes of the republic become day by day, and the greater the growth of its dominion-and now we are penetrating into Greece and Asia, regions filled with everything that can tempt appetite or excite desire, and are even laying hands on the treasures of kings-so much the more do I dread the prospect of these things taking us captive rather than we them. It was a bad day for this City, believe me, when the statues were brought from Syracuse. I hear far too many people praising and admiring those which adorn Athens and Corinth and laughing at the clay images of our gods standing in front of their temples. I for my part prefer these gods who are propitious to us, and I trust that they will continue to be so as long as we allow them to remain in their present abodes.
