But the manners which are consequent to wealth may be easily seen by all men. For rich men are insolent and proud, and these manners they derive from the possession of wealth; since they are affected in the same manner as if they possessed every good. For wealth is as it were the test by which the worth of other things is estimated; on which account it appears that all things may be purchased by it. Rich men also are luxurious and boastful; luxurious, indeed, from their delicate mode of living, and the ostentation of their felicity; but they are boastful and of barbarous manners, because all men are accustomed to dwell upon that which is beloved and admired by them; and because they fancy that others are emulous of that which is the object of their emulation. At the same time, however, they are deservedly thus affected; for many are in want of the riches which they possess, whence, also, that saying of Simonides respecting wise and rich men, in answer to the wife of king Hiero who asked him whether it was better to become a rich than a wise man; for he replied, that it was better to be a rich man; because wise men, said he, are seen waiting at the doors of the rich. They are also thus affected because they fancy themselves worthy to govern; for they fancy they possess those things for the sake of which government is thought worthy of being obtained. And in short, the manners of the rich are the manners of one who is stupidly happy. The manners of the wealthy, however, who have recently become rich, differ from the manners of those who have derived their wealth from their ancestors in this, that the former have all vices in a greater degree, and with more depravity; for wealth recently acquired is at it were a certain inerudition of riches. Rich men also injure others not from malevolence, but partly from insolence, and partly from intemperance; as when from the former they strike others, and from the latter commit adultery.
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