Book X, Epigram 75 (Ker)

Galla formerly demanded of me twenty thousand [sesterces, and I allow she was not too dear. A year roes by: "You will give ten thousand?" she said; he appeared to me to be demanding more than jefore. Then after six months, when she demanded 'two thousand, I offered a thousand: she would not accept them. Two, or perhaps three kalends had passed, and voluntarily she herself asked for four gold pieces: I did not give them. She bade me send her a hundred sesterces, but this sum, too, seemed to me stiff. A starveling allowance of a hundred farthings allied me with a patron: this she wanted; I said I had given them to my slave. Could she come down to lower depths? She achieved this. Galla offers me her favours for nothing, offers of her own accord: I decline.