Note 32 — Chapter VII

I frankly confess that, in the midst of the sorrow that was occasioned in me by the extreme barbarism and mental stupidity of this people when I knew by experience their mode of life, at the same time not only were presented before me those golden ages, so celebrated, of which Ovid treats at length in his Metamorphoses, Cicero in his Aratus, Lactantius Firmianus in his Institutiones, and Seneca in his Epistolæ, but I also saw how true is that Epicurean maxim, which, distinguishing human necessities, says, Naturales necessitates satiari pene nihilo. To which Pythocles adds, Si vis hominem divitem facere, non pecuniæ adjice, sed cupiditatibus detrahe.32 It is worth while to see the said people going about naked, without house or shelter, without land, and even without desire for it, yet living contented, happy, plump, and satisfied; without having any anxieties beyond that of searching for enough to get through the day with—which, as it is but little, they soon provide from what is yielded by nature in those mountains …. Again I say that their mode of life arouses my admiration, and that if they were enlightened by our holy faith, and were enduring for God’s sake the sufferings that they experience, I believe that not even the most austere monk of the Thebaid could equal them. It is, however, true that they avail themselves of the “bill of divorce,” although before marriage a false step is hardly heard of among them; and that in some districts they are cruel and murderous.