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Non duco contentionis funern, dum constet inter nos, quod fere totus mundus exerceat histrioniam. -- Petronius Arbiter. I do not draw the rope of contention,{1} while it is agreed amongst us, that almost the whole world practises acting.
1 A metaphor apparently taken from persons pulling in opposite directions at each end of a rope. I cannot see, as some have done, that it has anything in common with Horace's _Tortum digna sequi potius quant ducere funern_: 'More worthy to follow than to lead the tightened cord': which is a metaphor taken from a towing line, or any line acting in a similar manner, where one draws and another is drawn. Horace applies it to money, which he says should be the slave, and not the master of its possessor.