Book XI, Epigram 70 (Ker)

Can you endure to sell, Tucca, those you bought for a hundred thousand sesterces? Can you endure, Tucca, to sell your weeping masters? Do not their caresses, or their prattle or artless plaints, or the necks wounded by your tooth, move you .'' Ah, shame! Lift up the tunic of either, and his nakedness is seen, and there is revealed the manhood, fashioned by your hand. If money paid down is your attraction, sell silver plate, tables, porcelain cups, land, town-house; sell aged slaves — they will pardon — sell paternal slaves: to avoid selling your boys, sell, wretched man, everything. 'Twas extravagance to buy these boys — for who either doubts or denies it? — but much greater extravagance is it to sell them.