AGAINST BORROWING MONEY.

But why need I mention these? since the lyric poet Philoxenus, obtaining by lot in a Sicilian colony much substance and a house abounding in every kind of comfort, but finding that luxury and pleasure and absence of refinement was the fashion there, said, "By the gods these comforts shall not undo me, I will give them up," and he left his lot to others, and sailed home again. But debtors have to put up with being dunned, subjected to tribute, suffering slavery, passing debased coin, and like Phineus, feeding certain winged Harpies, who carry off and lay violent hands on their food, not at the proper season, for they get possession of their debtors' corn before it is sown, and they traffic for oil before the olives are ripe; and the money-lender says, "I have wine at such and such a price," and takes a bond for it, when the grapes are yet on the vine waiting for Arcturus to ripen them.