The Handbook

The measure of possession (property) is to every man the body, as the foot is of the shoe.[*](Cui non conveniet sua res, ut calceus olim,Si pede major erit, subvertet; si minor, uret.Horat. Epp. i. 10, 42, and Epp. i. 7, 98.) If then you stand on this rule (the demands of the body), you will maintain the measure: but if you pass beyond it, you must then of necessity be hurried as it were down a precipice. As also in the matter of the shoe, if you go beyond the (necessities of the) foot, the shoe is gilded, then of a purple colour, then embroidered:[*](The word is κεντητόν acu pictum, ornamented by needlework.) for there is no limit to that which has once passed the true measure.