Letters 90.9

All this sort of thing was born when luxury was being born,—this matter of cutting timbers square and cleaving a beam with unerring hand as the saw made its way over the marked-out line.

The primal man with wedges split his wood.

For they were not preparing a roof for a future banquet-ball; for no such use did they carry the pine-trees or the firs along the trembling streets with a long row of drays—merely to fasten thereon panelled ceilings heavy with gold.

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 90.9, translated by Richard Mott Gummere