TO CRISPUS SALLUSTIUS.
Horace
O Crispus Sallustius, thou foe to bullion, unless it derives splendor
from a moderate enjoyment, there is no luster in money concealed in the
niggard earth. Proculeius shall live an extended age, conspicuous for
fatherly affection to brothers; surviving fame shall bear him on an
untiring wing. You may possess a more extensive dominion by controlling
a craving disposition, than if you could unite Libya to the distant
Gades, and the natives of both the Carthages were subject to you alone.
The direful dropsy increases by self-indulgence, nor extinguishes its
thirst, unless the cause of the disorder has departed from the veins,
and the watery languor from the pallid body. Virtue, differing from the
vulgar, excepts Phraates though restored to the throne of Cyrus, from
the number of the happy; and teaches the populace to disuse false names
for things, by conferring the kingdom and a safe diadem and the
perpetual laurel upon him alone, who can view large heaps of treasure
with undazzled eye.
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