Falco was lucky each time. He
plunged again and again.
He also embarked similarly in bidding for unpromising contracts and in
buying up estates thrown unexpectedly on the market. All his ventures
turned out successfully, he gained great resources for indulging his fad
for gems and rare curios, his collection grew and became one of the most
famous private collections in Rome.
Also his mania for speculation grew as fast as his mania for collecting
gems.
This led to my exposure to the oddest and most alarming peril which I had
run since Agathemer and I crawled through the drain-pipe at Villa Andivia;
greater I think, than the risk I ran when I nearly encountered Gratillus
at Placentia. This happened about eleven months after I came to Rome with
Falco, in the spring of the year when Pedo Apronianus and Valerius Bradua
were consuls.
This occurrence and the circumstances which led up to it I cannot forbear
narrating, but I shall not go into details, for it involves at least
allusion to behavior not at all creditable to my owner and I am unwilling
to disparage or seem to disparage one who was to me a dear friend and a
generous benefactor. The truth is that his passion for gem-collecting had
not only undermined his character but had, in a way, sapped the
foundations of his native uprightness.
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