Most of the outcry is about money. It is this which wearies the courts, pits father against son, brews poisons, and gives swords alike to the legions and to cut-throats it is daubed with our blood; because of it husbands and wives make night hideous with their quarrels, crowds swarm to the tribunals of the magistrates, kings rage and plunder and overthrow states that have been built by the long labor of centuries, in order that they may search for gold and silver in the very ashes of cities. It is a pleasure, you say, to see money-bags lying in the corner. But these are what men shout for until their eyeballs start; for the sake of these the law-courts resound with the din of trials, and jurors summoned from distant parts sit in judgment to decide which man’s greed has the juster claim. But what if it is not even a bag of money, but only a handful of copper or a silver piece, reckoned by a slave, which causes an heirless old man on the verge of the grave to split with rage? And what if it is only a paltry one percent of interest17 that causes the moneylender, sick though he be, with crippled feet and with gnarled hands that no longer serve for counting money, to shout aloud, and in the very throes of his malady to require securities for his pennies? If you were to offer me all the money from all the mines, which we are now so busy in digging, if you were to cast before my eves all the money that buried treasures hold — for greed restores to earth what it once in wickedness drew forth — I should not count that whole assembled hoard worth even a good man’s frown. With what laughter should we attend the things that now draw tears from our eyes!