Ecclesiastes 5:11

When goods increase, they are increased that eat them The fact is one which has met the gaze of the moralists of all countries. A large household, numerous retainers, these are but so many elements of trouble. In the dialogue of Crœsus and Solon (Herod. i. 32), yet more closely in that of Pheraulas and Sacian (quoted by Ginsburg) in Xenophon (Cyrop. viii. 3, pp. 35 44), we have distinct parallels. The latter presents so striking a resemblance as to be worth quoting, "Do you think, Sacian, that I live with the more pleasure the more I possess.… By having this abundance, I gain merely this, that I have to guard more, to distribute more to others, and to have the trouble of taking care of more; for a great many domestics now demand of me their food, their drink, and their clothes … Whosoever, therefore, is greatly pleased with the possession of riches will, be assured, feel much annoyed at the expenditure of them."

saving the beholding of them with their eyes So Horace paints the miser:

"Congestis undique saccis

Indormis inhians, et tanquam parcere sacris

Cogeris, aut pictis tanquam gaudere tabellis."

"Sleepless thou gazest on thy heaped-up bags,

And yet art forced to hold thy hand from them,

As though they were too sacred to be touched,

Or were but painted pictures for thine eyes."

Sat. i. 1. 66.