Laudator Temporis Acti

Martial 5.20 (tr. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, with his notes):

Could but you and I, dear Martialis, enjoy carefree days and dispose our time in idleness, and both alike have leisure for true living, we should know nothing of the halls and mansions of the mighty, nor sour lawsuits and the gloomy Forum, nor haughty deathmasks: but riding,^a chatting, books, the Field, the colonnade,^b the shade, the Virgin,^c the baths — these should be our daily haunts, these our labors. As things are, neither of us lives for himself. We feel our good days slip away and leave us; they are wasted, and put to our account. Does any man, knowing the way to live, defer it?

^a Gestatio also covers conveyance in a carriage or litter.
^b There were several; cf. 11.1.9-12.
^c Aqueduct.

Si tecum mihi, care Martialis,
securis liceat frui diebus,
si disponere tempus otiosum
et verae pariter vacare vitae,
nec nos atria nec domos potentum        5
nec litis tetricas forumque triste
nossemus nec imagines superbas;
sed gestatio, fabulae, libelli,
campus, porticus, umbra, Virgo, thermae,
haec essent loca semper, hi labores.        10
nunc vivit necuter sibi, bonosque
soles effugere atque abire sentit,
qui nobis pereunt et imputantur.
quisquam vivere cum sciat, moratur?

11 necuter sibi Schneidewin: nec ut eius ibo γ: neuter sibi β

Edwin Post ad loc.: Peter Howell ad loc.: