They graft with the bakers, scratch-my-arse-and-I'll-scratch-yours!
That's the way it always is, the poor devils are out of luck, but the
jaws of the capitalists are always keeping the Saturnalia. If only we
had such lion-hearted sports as we had when I first came from Asia! That
was the life! If the flour was not the very best, they would beat up
those belly-robbing grafters till they looked like Jupiter had been at
them. How well I remember Safinius; he lived near the old arch, when I
was a boy. For a man, he was one hot proposition! Wherever he went, the
ground smoked! But he was square, dependable, a friend to a friend, you
could safely play mora with him, in the dark. But how he did peel them
in the town hall: he spoke no parables, not he! He did everything
straight from the shoulder and his voice roared like a trumpet in the
forum. He never sweat nor spat. I don't know, but I think he had a
strain of the Asiatic in him. And how civil and friendly-like he was,
in returning everyone's greeting; called us all by name, just like he was
one of us! And so provisions were cheap as dirt in those days. The loaf
you got for an as, you couldn't eat, not even if someone helped you, but
you see them no bigger than a bull's eye now, and the hell of it is that
things are getting worse every day; this colony grows backwards like a
calf's tall! Why do we have to put up with an AEdile here, who's not
worth three Caunian figs and who thinks more of an as than of our lives?
He has a good time at home, and his daily income's more than another
man's fortune. I happen to know where he got a thousand gold pieces.
If we had any nuts, he'd not be so damned well pleased with himself!
Nowadays, men are lions at home and foxes abroad. What gets me is, that
I've already eaten my old clothes, and if this high cost of living keeps
on, I'll have to sell my cottages! What's going to happen to this town,
if neither gods nor men take pity on it? May I never have any luck if I
don't believe all this comes from the gods! For no one believes that
heaven is heaven, no one keeps a fast, no one cares a hang about Jupiter: