J.P.V.D. Balsdon,
Romans and Aliens (London: Duckworth, 1979), p. 42, with note on p. 267:
A healthy
young man,
in
the
Hellenistic tradition, had three commendable interests: horses, dogs
and philosophy; and though philosophers were scorned by the crude
soldiery and the common man in Lucilius might declare that a horse
and a good warm cloak were better value as possessions than a
philosopher,
cultured
Romans
in general were not so basely
materialistic.68
68. Terence, Andr. 55-7; Pers. 5, 189-91 (cf. 6, 38); Lucil. XV, 515f. Marx.
Terence,
Andria 55-57 (tr. John Sargeaunt):
As for the usual doings of young men, such as
interesting themselves in keeping horses or hounds,
or in philosophical lectures...
quod plerique omnes faciunt adulescentuli,
ut animum ad aliquod studium adiungant, aut equos
alere aut canes ad venandum aut ad philosophos...
Persius 5.189-191 (tr. G.G. Ramsay):
If you talk
in this fashion among your varicose
Centurions, the hulking Pulfennius straightway bursts
into a huge guffaw, and bids a clipped hundred-penny
piece for a lot of a hundred Greeks.
dixeris haec inter varicosos centuriones,
continuo crassum ridet Pulfenius ingens
et centum Graecos curto centusse licetur.
Lucilius, fragment 515-516 Marx (tr. E.H. Warmington):
If you ask me, an over-cloak, a gelding, a slave,
a straw-coat—I have more use for any one of these
than I have for a wiseacre.
paenula, si quaeris, cantherius servus segreste
utilior mihi quam sapiens.