Laudator Temporis Acti

Plutarch, That We Ought Not to Borrow 5 (Moralia 829D-E; tr. Harold North Fowler):

For they do not till the fields which they take from their debtors, nor do they live in their houses after evicting them, nor do they eat at their tables or wear their clothes, but they ruin one man first, then hunt a second, using the other as bait. For the savage practice spreads like fire, growing by the ruin and destruction of those who fall into it, consuming one after another. And the money-lender who fans and feeds this fire to the ruin of many men gains nothing, except that from time to time he can take his account-books and read how many men he has sold out, how many he has driven from their homes, and, in general, the sources from which his hoard of money, rolling in and piling up, has made such gains.

οὔτε γὰρ ἀγροὺς οὓς ἀφαιροῦνται τῶν χρεωστῶν γεωργοῦσιν, οὔτ᾽ οἰκίας αὐτῶν, ἐκβαλόντες ἐκείνους, οἰκοῦσιν, οὔτε τραπέζας παρατίθενται οὔτ᾽ ἐσθῆτας ἐκείνων· ἀλλὰ πρῶτός τις ἀπόλωλε, καὶ δεύτερος κυνηγετεῖται ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου δελεαζόμενος. νέμεται γὰρ ὡς πῦρ τὸ ἄγριον αὐξόμενον ὀλέθρῳ καὶ φθορᾷ τῶν ἐμπεσόντων, ἄλλον ἐξ ἄλλου καταναλίσκον ὁ δὲ τοῦτο ῥιπίζων καὶ τρέφων ἐπὶ πολλοὺς δανειστὴς οὐδὲν ἔχει πλέον ἢ διὰ χρόνου λαβὼν ἀναγνῶναι πόσους πέπρακε καὶ πόσους ἐκβέβληκε καὶ πόθεν που κυλινδόμενον καὶ σωρευόμενον διαβέβηκε τὸ ἀργύριον.

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