Letters 119.13

Why need you ask how your food should be served, on what sort of table, with what sort of silver, with what well-matched and smooth-faced young servants? Nature demands nothing except mere food.

Dost seek, when thirst inflames thy throat, a cup of gold? Dost scorn all else but peacock’s flesh or turbot When the hunger comes upon thee?

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 119.13, translated by Richard Mott Gummere