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We must also accustom ourselves to the use of any cups indifferently, and not to use one rather than another, as some are wont to single some one cup out of many (as they say Marius used to do) or else a drinking-horn, and to drink out of none but that; and they do the same with oil-glasses and brushes, affecting one above all the rest, and when any one of these chances to be broken or lost, then they take it heinously, and punish severely those that did it. And therefore he that is prone to be angry should refrain from such things as are rare and curiously wrought, such as cups and seals and precious stones; for such things distract a man by their loss more than cheap and ordinary things are apt to do. Wherefore when Nero had made an octagonal tent, a wonderful spectacle for cost and beauty, Seneca said to him: You have proved yourself to be a poor man; for if you chance to lose this, you cannot tell where to get such another. And indeed it so fell out that the ship was sunk, and this tent was lost with it. But Nero, remembering the words of Seneca, bore the loss of it with greater moderation.
