Laudator Temporis Acti

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 21.10 (tr. Richard M. Gummere):

Go to his [Epicurus'] Garden and read the motto carved there: "Stranger, here you will do well to tarry; here our highest good is pleasure." The care-taker of that abode, a kindly host, will be ready for you; he will welcome you with barley-meal and serve you water also in abundance, with these words: "Have you not been well entertained?" "This garden," he says, "does not whet your appetite; it quenches it. Nor does it make you more thirsty with every drink; it slakes the thirst by a natural cure, a cure that demands no fee. This is the 'pleasure' in which I have grown old."

cum adieris eius hortulos et inscriptum hortulis <legeris>:

'hospes, hic bene manebis, hic summum bonum voluptas est,'

paratus erit istius domicilii custos hospitalis, humanus, et te polenta excipiet et aquam quoque large ministrabit et dicet, 'ecquid bene acceptus es?' 'non inritant,' inquit 'hi hortuli famem sed exstinguunt, nec maiorem ipsis potionibus sitim faciunt, sed naturali et gratuito remedio sedant; in hac voluptate consenui.'

legeris add. Buecheler

C. Brakman, "Annaeana," Mnemosyne 56 (1928) 139-158 (at 140), conjectured portulis for hortulis, but he was anticipated by T.G. Tucker, "Notes and Suggestions on Latin Authors," Classical Quarterly 7 (1913) 54-57 (at 56).