Ancient Latin Writers on Agriculture, Vol. II: Columella

...and it is clear that they cannot be fed. Therefore, it is the more like a prodigy that it has happened that an art most appropriate to our bodies and the utility of life has held the least degree of perfection up to this time; and that this method of increasing and retaining a patrimony, which is free from all reproach, should be despised. For other pursuits are diverse and, as it were, repugnant, differing from justice—unless we consider it more equitable to have taken spoils from military service, which brings us nothing without bloodshed and the disasters of others. Or is the gamble of the sea and trade more desirable to those who abhor war, so that, having broken the bond of nature, man, a terrestrial animal, should dare to trust himself to the waves, exposed to the wrath of winds and sea, and, always after the manner of birds, a stranger to a distant shore, wander through an unknown world? Or is money-lending more honorable—a pursuit hated even by those it seems to assist? But not even that "dog-like" pursuit, as the ancients called it, is more excellent: the practice of barking at every wealthiest person and, against the innocent and on behalf of the guilty, engaging in a type of robbery inside the city walls and in the very forum, a practice neglected by our ancestors but permitted by us. Or should I consider the most lying trade of the mercenary greeter, who flits around the thresholds of the powerful and divines the dreams of his master from rumors, to be more honest? For the servants do not even deign to answer him when he asks what is happening inside. Or should I think it more fortunate to lie late at night before ungrateful doors, having been repelled by a chained porter, and to purchase the glory of the fasces the Roman symbol of authority and command through the most wretched slavery and disgrace, while meanwhile squandering one's patrimony? For honor is repaid not to voluntary servitude, but to gifts. And if these things, and others like them...