Laudator Temporis Acti

Sallust, The War Against Jugurtha 85.39-41 (Marius speaking; tr. William W. Batstone):

They say I am vulgar and uneducated because I do know how to set an elegant dinner table and I do not have an actor or a cook worth more than my foreman.

But I’m pleased to confess that this is true, citizens. For I have learned from my parents and other righteous men that elegance is for women, labour is for men; that good men ought to have more glory than wealth; that armour is the true ornament, not furniture.

Well, then, let them always do what they enjoy, what they consider valuable: let them fall in love, get drunk, continue to do in old age what they did as young men—attend banquets, remain dedicated to their belly and the shameful parts of their body. Let them leave to us the sweat and the dust and other such things; to us these things are sweeter than banquets.

sordidum me et incultis moribus aiunt, quia parum scite convivium exorno neque histrionem ullum neque pluris preti coquum quam vilicum habeo.

quae mihi lubet confiteri, Quirites; nam ex parente meo et ex aliis sanctis viris ita accepi, munditias mulieribus, viris laborem convenire, omnibusque bonis oportere plus gloriae quam divitiarum esse; arma, non supellectilem decori esse.

quin ergo quod iuvat, quod carum aestumant, id semper faciant: ament potent, ubi adulescentiam habuere, ibi senectutem agant, in conviviis, dediti ventri et turpissimae parti corporis; sudorem, pulverem et alia talia relinquant nobis, quibus illa epulis iucundiora sunt.

"From my father," not "from my parents."