Damasippus is mad for purchasing antique statues: but is Damasippus ' creditor in his senses? Well, suppose I should say to you: receive this, which you can never repay: will you be a madman, if you receive it; or would you be more absurd for rejecting a booty, which propitious Mercury offers? Take bond, like the banker Nerius, for ten thousand sesterces; it will not signify: add the forms of Cicuta, so versed in the knotty points of law: add a thousand obligations: yet this wicked Proteus will evade all these ties. When you shall drag him to justice, laughing as if his cheeks were none of his own; he will be transformed into a boar, sometimes into a bird, sometimes into a stone, and when he pleases Into a tree. If to conduct one 's affairs badly be the part of a madman; and the reverse, that of a man well in his senses; brain of Perillius( believe me), who orders you[ that sum of money], which you can never repay, is much more unsound[ than yours]. 