A short Plutarch essay arguing that the love of wealth is an insatiable disease of the soul, not cured by money and not the same as poverty.
De Cupiditate Divitiarum ("On the Love of Wealth") is a brief moral essay from Plutarch's Moralia that diagnoses greed as a psychological sickness rather than a material shortage. Plutarch opens by comparing wealth to a quack doctor's medicine that only worsens the disease it claims to cure: ordinary appetites like hunger and thirst are satisfied by food and drink, but the love of money grows stronger the more it is fed. He builds the case through a chain of vivid comparisons -- misers who eat and drink past satiety and must vomit, a man Aristippus describes buying ten tables when he already owns ten, and doctors who diagnose a patient's ailment as "a sickness of the soul" because no fever explains his refusal to eat.
The essay's central move is separating poverty of goods from poverty of soul: a friend's kindness can relieve the first, but no combination of gold, herds, or land can fill the second, because the disorder is insatiability itself, arising from a false judgment about what happiness requires. Plutarch illustrates the miser's self-defeating logic with anecdotes -- Sophocles gladly relinquishing sexual desire in old age as a release from a savage master, contrasted with the miser's desire for wealth, which compels acquisition but forbids use, so the man never enjoys what he hoards. He distinguishes two types of the greedy: an "ant-like" hoarding type and a more predatory, "beast-like" type that practices false accusation and preys on others' deaths and inheritances, which Plutarch judges worse than mere extravagance because it destroys without even using what it takes.
The essay closes on inheritance and genuine use of wealth. Plutarch mocks the idea that misers save for their heirs, comparing family fortunes to earthenware pipes that pass wealth along without anyone truly possessing it, until it is inherited by "the wickedest of the family" or seized by an outsider; misers' children, he argues, are trained into the same disease before they even inherit. Turning to those who do spend freely, Plutarch uses Homer's Telemachus marveling at Menelaus's gold and ivory to argue that lavish display is not happiness but theater requiring an audience, whereas real virtue and philosophic goods, like geometry and astronomy, retain their value and joy even when no one is watching.
“But no amount of silver or gold quenches the love of money, nor does greed cease from acquiring more the more it acquires.”
— De Cupiditate Divitiarum · read this chapter →
“For no one is poor who has enough; and no man has ever borrowed money in order to buy barley-meal or cheese or bread or olives.”
— De Cupiditate Divitiarum · read this chapter →
“For his condition is not poverty but insatiability and love of wealth, arising from a base and irrational judgment”
— De Cupiditate Divitiarum · read this chapter →
“like a heavy and bitter mistress, it compels one to acquire but forbids one to use, arousing the desire while taking away the pleasure”
— De Cupiditate Divitiarum · read this chapter →
“it has its own private radiance and a great light within the soul, and it creates a joy that dwells together with the soul itself”
— De Cupiditate Divitiarum · read this chapter →
It is a short essay arguing that greed, the love of wealth, is a psychological disease rather than a lack of resources. Plutarch shows that unlike hunger or thirst, the desire for money is never satisfied by getting more money, and diagnoses it as 'poverty of the soul.'
Ordinary material poverty, he says, can be relieved by a single friend's kindness, but the insatiable love of wealth cannot be filled by all men together, living or dead. He treats the miser's condition as a disorder of judgment, not a shortage of goods.
Aristippus contrasts a man who overeats and seeks a doctor's help with a man who has five couches yet seeks ten and is never satisfied; the second man, having more than enough and still craving more, does not even recognize he is sick and needs no doctor -- illustrating unrecognized greed.
He argues misers infect their heirs with the same love of money before they even inherit anything, comparing the passing of family wealth to earthenware pipes that transmit money without anyone actually possessing it, sometimes ending with the estate seized by an outsider or 'the wickedest of the family.'
He distinguishes the miserly ant-like hoarder from a worse, beast-like predatory type who cheats and preys on inheritances, and also critiques lavish spenders like the man modeled on Homer's description of Menelaus's house, arguing real happiness -- unlike wealth's theatrical display -- needs no audience.
He draws on Hippomachus, Aristippus, Sophocles, Stratonicus, Demades, Phocion, Diogenes, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Agathon, Scopas, and Homer's account of Telemachus marveling at Menelaus's gold and ivory, weaving anecdotes and quotations to illustrate the psychology of greed.
Moralia: Ad Principem Ineruditum · Moralia: Adversus Colotem · Moralia: Amatoriae Narrationes · Moralia: Amatorius · Moralia: An Recte Dictum Sit Latenter Esse Vivendum · Moralia: An Seni Respublica Gerenda Sit · Moralia: An Virtus Doceri Possit · Moralia: An Vitiositas Ad Infelicitatem Sufficia · Moralia: Animine An Corporis Affectiones Sint Piores · Moralia: Apophthegmata Laconica · Moralia: Aquane An Ignis Sit Utilior · Moralia: Bruta Animalia Ratione Uti