Epigram XLV. — To a rich Degenerate basely born

A FELLOW, purse-proud and swollen-headed, high born in words alone, scorns the illustrious names of the current age, hankering after an ancient pedigree and claiming Mars, Remus, and Romulus our founder as his own special forebears. Their figures he bids be woven in his silken robes, theirs he chases on his massy plate, or paints in encaustic on his threshold and on the ceiling of his halls. True for him! For his father was not known and his mother surely is a bitch.