Book IX, Epigram 22 (Ker)

You believe, Pastor, I perhaps ask for riches for the same reasons as the vulgar and the dense-witted crowd ask, in order that Setia's glebe may wear away my hoes, and Tuscan fields clank with countless fettered slaves; that a hundred round Moorish tables may stand on Libyan tusks, and golden plating tinkle on my couches; that none but large crystal cups be rubbed by my lips, and that my Falernian darken the cooling snow;i that Syrian slaves in Canusian wool may sweat beneath my litter-pole, and my chair be crowded by full-dressed clients; that the tipsy guest may be hot for page of mine, whom you would not barter even for a Ganymede; that a mud-bespattered mule may soil my Tyrian cloak, and the rod of a Massylian guide m}' horse. 'Tis none of those things — I call to witness the high gods and heaven! Then what? To make presents. Pastor, and to build.''