But as for merchants, their holdings are increased by false oaths, and the art of becoming rich is to show contempt toward the gods, and they sail to every city, doing this evil, lying, deceiving, and misleading. And whoever knows how to do this best will come away richest.
τοῖς δὲ γε ἐμπόροις ἐν ταῖς ἐπικορίαις τὰ ὄντα αὔξεται καὶ ἡ τέχνη πρὸς τὸ πλουτεῖν τὸ καταφρονεῖν τῶν θεῶν, καὶ ἐπὶ πᾶσαν πόλιν πλέουσι τοῦτο τὸ κακὸν ἐργαζόμενοι, ψευδόμενοι, παράγοντες, παρακρουόμενοι. καὶ ὅστις ἄριστα οἴδε τοῦτο ποιεῖν, οὕτος εὐπορώτατος ἄπεισιν.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Sunday, June 01, 2014
The Art of Becoming Rich
Libanius, Progymnasmata: Comparationes 4.7 (tr. Craig A. Gibson):