Letters 90.37

Indeed, there is no other condition of the human race that anyone would regard more highly; and if God should commission a man to fashion earthly creatures and to bestow institutions upon peoples, this man would approve of no other system than that which obtained among the men of that age, when

No ploughman tilled the soil, nor was it right To portion off or bound one’s property. Men shared their gains, and earth more freely gave Her riches to her sons who sought them not.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 90.37, translated by Richard Mott Gummere