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Fri, 31 Jan 2014 15:54:13 -0500 |
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This just a sidebar to the ongoing debate touching on hoarding – might be of
interest to those who suspect some basic aspects of human nature are rather
constant. Two passages, both appear rather grimly jocular to me:
1) An ancient and I suppose quite well know line in Petronius concerning
the boorish plutocrat Trimalchio:
"Seventh of Kalends……returned to treasury ten million sesterces, no
investment being forthcoming for the sum.”
2) From al-‘Umarī, 1300–1384 AD
“I must add, that the inhabitants of India have the character of liking to
make money and hoard it. If one of them is asked how much property he has,
he replies, ‘I don't know, but I am the second or third (generation) of my
family who has laboured to increase the treasure which an ancestor deposited
in a certain cavern, or in certain holes, and I do not know how much it
amounts to.’ ”
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