LENTULUS. Come, what has happened? Wherefore so embittered?

STATILIUS. Have usurers been plaguing you as well?

MANLIUS. Something quite different. As you all know,
I served with honor among Sulla's troops;
A bit of meadow land was my reward.
And when the war was at an end, I lived
Thereon; it furnished me my daily bread.
Now is it taken from me! Laws decree--
State property shall to the state revert
For equal distribution. Theft, I say,--
It is rank robbery and nothing else!
Their greed is all they seek to satisfy.

COEPARIUS. Thus with our rights they sport to please themselves.
The mighty always dare do what they will.

CETHEGUS. [Gaily.] Hard luck for Manlius! Yet, a worse mishap
Has come to me, as I shall now relate.
Listen,--you know my pretty mistress, Livia,--
The little wretch has broken faith with me,
Just now when I had squandered for her sake
The slender wealth that still remained to me.

STATILIUS. Extravagance--the cause of your undoing.

CETHEGUS. Well, as you please; but I will not forego
My own desires; these, while the day is fair,