Book 3
1
A discussion of the question why Sallust said that avarice rendered effeminate, not only a manly soul, but also the very body itself.
1
WHEN winter was already waning, we were walking with the philosopher Favorinus in the court of the Titian baths, Otherwise unknown. The Baths of Titus were Thermae and the adj. is Titianae. enjoying the mild warmth of the sun; and there, as we walked, Sallust's Catiline was being read, a book which Favorinus had seen in the hands of a friend and had asked him to read. The following passage from that book had been recited: xi. 3. Avarice implies a desire for money, which no wise man covets; steeped as it were with noxious poisons, it renders the most manly body and soul effeminate; it is ever unbounded, nor can either plenty or want make it less. Then Favorinus looked at me and said: How does avarice make a man's body effeminate? For I seem to grasp in general the meaning of his statement that it has that effect on a manly soul, but how it also makes his body effeminate I do not yet comprehend. I too, said I, have for a long time been putting myself that question, and if you had not anticipated me, I should of my own accord have asked you to answer it.
