The hearts of all men after gold aspire;
Few study to be wise, more to acquire:
Thus, Science! all thy virgin charms are sold,
Whose chaste embraces should disdain their gold,
Who seek not thee thyself, but pelf through thee,
Longing for riches, not philosophy.

And further on:

Thus Philosophy is seen
Exiled, and Philopecuny is queen,

which is known to be the most violent poison of learning.

How the ancients indeed regarded life as the only limit of study,
is shown by Valerius, in his book addressed to Tiberius, by many
examples. Carneades, he says, was a laborious and lifelong
soldier of wisdom: after he had lived ninety years, the same day
put an end to his life and his philosophizing. Isocrates in his
ninety-fourth year wrote a most noble work. Sophocles did the
same when nearly a hundred years old. Simonides wrote poems in
his eightieth year. Aulus Gellius did not desire to live longer
than he should be able to write, as he says himself in the
prologue to the Noctes Atticae.

The fervour of study which possessed Euclid the Socratic, Taurus
the philosopher used to relate to incite young men to study, as
Gellius tells in the book we have mentioned. For the Athenians,
hating the people of Megara, decreed that if any of the