Lucian Navigium 13

All the same I looked at everything and then asked one of the sailors what income the ship brought in to its owner in an average year. “A minimum of twelve Attic talents,” he replied. Then I went back on shore and mused on what a happy life I should have had if of a sudden some god had made the ship mine: I would have helped my friends, and sailed in her myself some-times, and sometimes sent my servants. Then with some of the twelve talents I had already built myself a house in a good spot just above the Painted Arcade, ¹ giving up the family house by the Ilissus; and I was buying servants and clothes and carriages and horses. Just now I was at sea, the envy of the passengers and the terror of the crew; they thought me almost a king. I was still settling her affairs and gazing at the harbour in the distance when you turned up, Lycinus. You sank my wealth and capsized my bark just when she was sailing well before the fair wind of my wish.

However, I went on and saw evérything, and then I asked one of the sailors how much the vessel brought in to her owner in an average year. Three thousand pounds, he said, was the lowest reckoning. So afterwards, on the way back, I was thinking: Suppose some God took it into his head to make me a present of that ship; what a glorious life I should have of it, and my friends too! Sometimes I could make the trip myself, at other times I could send my men. On the strength of that three thousand, I had already built myself a house, nicely situated just above the Poecile—I would have nothing more to say to my ancestral abode on the banks of the Ilissus,—and was in treaty for my wardrobe and slaves and chariots and stable. And now behold me on board, the envy of every passenger, and the terror of my crew, who regarded me as next thing toa king; I was getting matters shipshape, and taking last look at the port in the distance, when up comes Lycinus, capsizes the vessel, just as she is scudding before a wishing wind, and sends all my wealth to the bottom.