Book IX, Epigram 59 (Ker)

Mamurra, long and often wandering in the Saepta, here where Golden Rome flings about her wealth, inspected and devoured with his eyes dainty boys, not those the outer stalls nir.de public, but those who are guarded by the platforms of a secret stand, and whom the peojile do not see, nor the crowd of such as I. Then, sated with the view, he had tables and round covered table-tops laid bare, and must needs have their high-hung glistening ivory supports brought down; and, after four measurements of a tortoise-shell couch for six, he said with a sigh that it was too small for his citrus-wood table. He took counsel of his nose whether the bronzes smelt of Corinth, and condemned even your statuary, Polyclitus; and, complaining that the crystal vases were disfigured by a small piece of glass, he put his seal on ten murrine articles, and set them aside. He weighed antique tankards, and any cups made precious by Mentor's handiwork, and counted the emeralds set in chased gold, and every larger pearl that tinkles from a snow-white ear. Genuine sardonyxes he looked for on every table, and offered a price for some big jaspers. When at the eleventh hour, fagged out, he was at last departing, for a penny he bought two cups — and bore them off himself