CHAP. X.
IT pleaseth me to aske: Why rig you and lanch you your ships? Why arme you your hands both against wilde beasts and men?* 1.1 why runne you hither and thither so tumultuously? why heape you riches vpon riches? will you not thinke how litle your bodies are? Is it not a desperate furie and extreme folly when as thou canst hold so little, to desire so much? Although therefore you increase your rents, and enlarge the bounds of your lands, yet shall you neuer make your bo∣di••s greater. When your traffique hath beene prosperous, your warfare hath brought home rich spoiles, when all the dainties you haue sought for from all places are gathered together: where will you bestow all this prouision? why heape you vp so many things?* 1.2 vndoubtedly your ancestors whose vertues at this time sustayne your vices were vnhappie, who prepared their meat with their owne hands, whose bed was the earth, whose houses as yet shined not with gold, whose temples as yet shined not with precious stones. In these daies they sware religiously by Gods made of earth, and those that had sworne by such Images returned to the enemie with resolution to die, to the end they would not violate their plighted Faith. By this accompt lesse blessedly liued our Dictator who gaue audience to the Embassadours of the Samnites, at such time as he dressed his homely victuals by the fire with his owne hands. Yea such hands as had alreadie oftentimes defeated the Enemie, and put the c••owne of Laurell in the lap of I••piter Capitoline. Better then Apicius liued in our me∣morie, who in the same Citie out of which sometimes Philosophers were com∣manded to depart, as if corrupters of youth, made profession of the science of gourmandise, and infected the whole age with his discipline, whose death it shall not be amisse to consider and know. After he had gathered together into his Kitchin the summe of two millions and a halfe in gold, after hee had in his particular banquets consumed all the presents that were giuen him by Princes, and the great reuenue of the Capitoll, finding himselfe very much in debt, he beganne at that time to consider in what estate his affaires stood, and finding that there remained as yet the summe of two hundreth and fiftie thousand crownes, supposing that it was too litle, and that he should be in danger to die for hunger, he killed himselfe by poison. How great was his dissolution that