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Next he touched upon another human comedy, played by the people who occupy themselves with life beyond the grave and with last wills, adding that sons of Rome speak the truth only once in their whole lives (meaning in their wills), in order that they may not reap the fruits of their truthfulness! A famous instance is the case of Petronius, who expressed his opinion of Nero in his will and made the emperor his executor. I could not help interrupting him with laughter when he said that they want to have their follies buried with them and to leave their stupidity on record, inasmuch as some of them leave instructions that clothing be burned with them which they prized in life, others that servants stay by their tombs, and here and there another that his gravestone be wreathed with flowers. They remain foolish even on their deathbeds.
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He thought he could guess what they had done in life when they issued such injunctions touching the hereafter: “It is they,” said he, “who buy expensive dainties and let wine flow freely at dinners in an atmosphere of saffron and perfumes, who glut themselves with roses in midwinter, loving their rarity and unseasonableness and despising what is seasonable and natural because of its cheapness’; it is they who drink myrrh.” And that was the point in which he criticised them especially, that they do not even know how to give play to their desires, but transgress in them and obliterate the boundary-lines, on all sides surrendering their souls to luxury to be trodden under foot, and as they say in tragedy and comedy, “forcing an entrance alongside the door." The phrase does not occur in any of the extant plays. As Greek houses were generally of sun-dried brick, it was not difficult to dig through the wall, but only an inveterate ‘wall-digger’ (housebreaker) would choose that method of entry when the door was unlocked. These he called unidiomatic pleasures.
