In his treatise on a Happy Life he is obliged to introduce a sort of indirect autobiographical apology for his wealth and position.[37] In spite of his lofty pretensions to simplicity, in spite of that sort of amateur asceticism which, in common with other wealthy Romans, he occasionally practised, in spite of his final offer to abandon his entire patrimony to the Emperor, we fear that he cannot be acquitted of an almost insatiable avarice.

We need not indeed believe the fierce calumnies which charged him with exhausting Italy by a boundless usury, and even stirring up a war in Britain by the severity of his exactions; but it is quite clear that he deserved the title of _Proedives_, "the over-wealthy," by which he has been so pointedly signalized.

It is strange that the most splendid intellects should so often have sunk under the slavery of this meanest vice.

In the Bible we read how the "rewards of divination" seduced from his allegiance to God the splendid enchanter of Mesopotamia: "In outline dim and vast Their fearful shadows cast The giant form of Empires on their way To ruin:--one by one They tower and they are gone, Yet in the prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay.
"No sun or star so bright, In all the world of light, That they should draw to heaven his downward eye: He hears the Almighty's word, He sees the angel's sword, Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie." [Footnote 37: See _Ad.Polyb_.

37: _Ep_.