Book V, Epigram 25 (Ker)

"You don't possess four hundred thousand, Chaerestratus; get up; see, Leitus is coming! Stand up, fly, run, hide!" Ho, there! does anyone call him back, and bring him back as he departs? Ho, there! does any friend unlock his abounding wealth? Whom am I to give to my pages, and to fame and the tongues of nations? Who is loth to pass, all unknown, to the lake of Styx? Is not this, I ask, better than to sprinkle the stage with a ruddy shower, and be drenched with streams of saffron? Than to give four hundred thousand sesterces to an unconscious horse, that the nose of Scorpus I may twinkle everywhere in gold? O man uselessly rich, O disguiser of your friendship! Read you these words, and praise them? What renown you are losing!