XXVI. We must now consider what is the main cause of ingratitude.
It is caused by excessive self-esteem, by that fault innate in all
mortals, of taking a partial view of ourselves and our own acts, by
greed, or by jealousy.

Let us begin with the first of these. Every one is prejudiced in
his own favour, from which it follows that he believes himself to
have earned all that he receives, regards it as payment for his
services, and does not think that he has been appraised at a
valuation sufficiently near his own. "He has given me this," says
he, "but how late, after how much toil? how much more might I have
earned if I had attached myself to So and so, or to So and so? I
did not expect this; I have been treated like one of the herd; did
he really think that I only deserved so little? why, it would have
been less insulting to have passed me over altogether."

XXVII. The augur Cnaeus Lentulus, who, before his freedmen reduced
him to poverty, was one of the richest of men, who saw himself in
possession of a fortune of four hundred millions--I say advisedly,
"saw," for he never did more than see it--was as barren and
contemptible in intellect as he was in spirit. Though very
avaricious, yet he was so poor a speaker that he found it easier to
give men coins than words. This man, who owed all his prosperity to
the late Emperor Augustus, to whom he had brought only poverty,
encumbered with a noble name, when he had risen to be the chief man
in Rome, both in wealth and influence, used sometimes to complain
that Augustus had interrupted his legal studies, observing that he
had not received anything like what he had lost by giving up the
study of eloquence. Yet the truth was that Augustus, besides