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behind a book? Impossible: the other earmarks of your sort will betray and reveal you.

You are completely unaware, it seems to me, that good expectations are not to be sought from the booksellers but derived from one’s self and one’s daily life. Do you expect to find public advocates and character-witnesses in the scribes Atticus and Callinus? No: you will find them heartless fellows, bent upon ruining you, if the gods so will it, and reducing you to the uttermost depths of poverty. Even now you ought to come to your senses, sell these books to some learned man, and your new house along with them, and then pay the slave dealers at least a part of the large sums you owe them.

For mark this, you have had a tremendous passion for two things, the acquisition of expensive books and the purchase of well-grown, vigorous slaves, and you are showing great zeal and persistence in the thing; but being poor, you cannot adequately manage both. See now what a precious thing advice is! I urge you to drop what does not concern you, cultivate your other weakness, and buy those menials of yours, so that your household may not be depleted and you may not for that reason have to send out for free men, who, if they do not get all they want, can safely go away and tell what you do after your wine. For instance, only the other day a vile fellow told a most disgraceful story about you when he came away, and even showed marks. I can prove by those who were there at the time that I was indignant and came near giving him a thrashing in my anger on your behalf,