But that story you will perhaps have heard.
"From Tyre I sailed for Italy, but was cast away upon the coasts of Melita, where many of us were drowned.

By the favour of some god, however--ah! what god I wonder--I escaped, and taking another ship came safely to Brundisium, whence I travelled as fast as horses would carry me to Rome.

Here I arrived but just in time, for I found my uncle Caius very will.

Believing, moreover, that I had been drowned in the shipwreck at Melita, he was about to make a will bequeathing his property to the Emperor Nero, but by good fortune of this he had said nothing.

Had he done so I should, I think, be as poor to-day as when I left you, dear, and perhaps poorer still, for I might have lost my head with my inheritance.
"As it was I found favour in the sight of my uncle Caius, who a week after my arrival executed a formal testament leaving to me all his land, goods, and moneys, which on his death three months later I inherited.
Thus I have become rich--so rich that now, having much money to spend, by some perversity which I cannot explain, I have grown careful and spend as little as possible.