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The tribes of female flute-players, Ambubaiarum , "Women who played on the flute." It is derived from a Syrian word; for the people of that country usually excelled in this instrument. Pharmacopolae is a general name for all who deal in spices, essence, and perfumes. quacks, vagrants, mimics, blackguards; Mendici, mimae, balatrones . The priests of Isis and Cybele were beggars by profession, and under the vail of religion were often guilty of the most criminal excesses. Mimae were players of the most debauched and dissolute kind; and balatrones, in general, signifies all scoundrels, buffoons, and parasites, who had their name, according to the old commentator, from Servilius Balatro. Balatrones hoc genus omne, for omne hoc balatronum genus, is a remarkable sort of construction. all this set is sorrowful and dejected on account of the death of the singer Tigellius; for he was liberal [toward them]. On the other hand, this man, dreading to be called a spendthrift, will not give a poor friend wherewithal to keep off cold and pinching hunger. If you ask him why he wickedly consumes the noble estate of his grandfather and father in tasteless gluttony, buying with borrowed money all sorts of dainties; he answers, because he is unwilling to be reckoned sordid, or of a mean spirit: he is praised by some, condemned by others. Fufidius, wealthy in lands, wealthy in money put out at interest, is afraid of having the character of a rake and spendthrift. This fellow deducts 5 per cent. interest Quinas hic capiti mercedes exsecat . Caput is the principal; merces the interest; and exsecare is to deduct the interest before the money is lent. For instance, Fufidius lent a hundred pounds, and at the end of the month the borrower was to pay him a hundred and five, principal and interest. But he gives only ninety-five pounds, deducting his interest when he lends the money, which thus increases in twenty months equal to his principal. The laws allowed a usury called usura centesima, which doubled the capital sum in a hundred months, or eight years and four months. from the principal [at the time of lending]; and, the more desperate in his circumstances any one is, the more severely he pinches him: he hunts out the names Nomina sectatur . Nomen signifies a debt, because the borrower gave the lender a note of acknowledgment for the money, signed with his name. The laws forbade lending money to minors, or persons under the age of twenty-five years. of young fellows that have just put on the toga virilis under rigid fathers. Who does not cry out, O sovereign Jupiter! when he has heard [of such knavery]? But [you will say, perhaps,] this man expends upon himself in proportion to his gain. You can hardly believe how little a friend he is to himself: insomuch that the father, whom Terence's comedy introduces as living miserable after he had caused his son to run away from him, did not torment himself worse than he Now if any one should ask, "To what does this matter tend?" To this: while fools shun [one sort of] vices, they fall upon their opposite extremes. Malthinus walks with his garments trailing upon the ground; there is another droll fellow who [goes] with them tucked up even to his middle; Rufillus smells like perfume itself, Gorgonius like a he-goat. There is no mean. There are some who would not keep company with a lady, unless her modest garment perfectly conceal her feet. Another, again, will only have such as take their station in a filthy brothel. When a certain noted spark came out of a stew, the divine Cato [greeted] him with this sentence: "Proceed (says he) in your virtuous course. For, when once foul lust has inflamed the veins, it is right for young fellows to come hither, in comparison of their meddling with other men's wives." I should not be willing to be commended on such terms, says Cupiennius, an admirer of the silken vail.
