“As for Trimalchio, his lands reach as far as the kites fly, and his money breeds money. I tell you, he has more coin lying idle in his porter’s lodge than would make another man’s whole fortune. Slaves! why, heaven and earth! I don’t believe one in ten knows his own master by sight. For all that, there’s never a one of the fine fellows a word of his wouldn’t send scutting into the nearest rat-hole. And don’t you imagine he ever buys anything; every mortal thing is home grown,—wool, rosin, pepper; call for hen’s milk and he’d supply you! As a matter of fact his wool was not first rate originally; but he purchased rams at Tarentum and so improved the breed. To get home-made Attic honey he had bees imported direct from Athens, hoping at the same time to benefit the native insects a bit by a cross with the Greek fellows. Why! only the other day he wrote to India for mushroom spawn. He has not a single mule but was got by a wild ass. You see all these mattresses; never a one that is not stuffed with the finest wool, purple or scarlet as the case may be. Lucky, lucky dog!

As the dinner party becomes increasingly farcical, Trimalchio requests to see the clothes he will be buried in.

Without a moment’s delay, Stichus produced a white shroud and a magistrate’s gown into the dining-hall, and asked us to feel if they were made of good wool. Then his master added with a laugh, “Mind, Stichus, mice and moth don’t get at them; else I’ll have you burned alive. I wish to be buried in all my bravery, that the whole people may call down blessings on my head.” Immediately afterwards he opened a pot of spikenard, and after rubbing us all with the ointment, “I only hope,” said he, “it will give me as much pleasure when I’m dead as it does now when I’m alive.” Further he ordered the wine vessels to be filled up, telling us to “imagine you are invited guests at my funeral feast.”