I am reading Petronius now but must jump ahead to this chapter. LOL
Here is the entire chapter-
He was getting tiresome, and Phileros broke in: "Let's talk of living. He's got his deserts, whatever they were; he lived well and died well, what has he to complain about? He started with next to nothing, and was ready to the last to pick a farthing out of a dunghill with his teeth. So he grew and grew, like a honeycomb. Upon my word I believe he left a round hundred million behind him, and all in ready money. But I'll tell you the actual facts, for I'm the soul of truth, as they say. He had a rough tongue, and a ready one, and was quarrelsomeness personified. Now his brother was a fine fellow and a true friend, with a free hand and keeping a liberal table. Just at the beginning he had a bad bird to pluck, but the very first vintage set him on his legs, for he sold his wine at his own price. But the thing that chiefly made him lift up his head in the world was getting an inheritance, out of which he managed to prig a good deal more than was really left him. And that log Chrysanthus, falling out with his brother, has positively left all his property to I don't know what scum of the earth. He goes too far, say I, who goes outside his own kith and kin. But he had a lot of overwise interfering servants, who proved his ruin. A man will never do well, who believes all he's told too readily, especially a man in business. Yet it's fair to say he did well enough all his life, getting what was never meant for him. Evidently one of Fortune's favorites, in whose hands lead turns to gold. But that's simple enough, when everything runs on wheels exactly as you want it to. How old, think you, was he when he died? Seventy and over. But he was as tough as horn; he carried his age well, and he was still as black as a crow. I knew him when he was a pretty loose fish, and he was lecherous to the last. Upon my soul I don't believe he left a living thing in his house alone, down to the dog. A great lover of lads, indeed a man of universal talents and tastes. Not that I blame him; this was all he got out of life."
