Greek Texts & Translations

But do you—you who are so proud and so contemptuous of others— compare your fortune with mine. In your childhood you were reared in abject poverty. You helped your father in the drudgery of a grammar-school, grinding the ink, sponging the benches, and sweeping the school-room, holding the position of a menial, not of a free-born boy. 18.259On arriving at manhood you assisted your mother in her initiations, ^note reading the service-book while she performed the ritual, and helping generally with the paraphernalia. At night it was your duty to mix the libations, to clothe the catechumens in fawn-skins, to wash their bodies, to scour them with the loam and the bran, and, when their lustration was duly performed, to set them on their legs, and give out the hymn:

Here I leave my sins behind,

Here the better way I find; and it was your pride that no one ever emitted that holy ululation so powerfully as yourself. I can well believe it! When you hear the stentorian tones of the orator, can you doubt that the ejaculations of the acolyte were simply magnificent? 18.260In day-time you marshalled your gallant throng of bacchanals through the public streets, their heads garlanded with fennel and white poplar; and, as you went, you squeezed the fat-cheeked snakes, or brandished them above your head, now shouting your Euoi Saboi! now footing it to the measure of Hyes Attes! Attes Hyes!—saluted by all the old women with such proud titles as Master of the Ceremonies, Fugleman, Ivy-bearer, Fan-carrier; and at last receiving your recompense of tipsy-cakes, and cracknels, and currant-buns. With such rewards who would not rejoice greatly, and account himself the favorite of fortune?

18.261After getting yourself enrolled on the register of your parish—no one knows how you managed it; but let that pass—anyhow, when you were enrolled, you promptly chose a most gentlemanly occupation, that of clerk and errand-boy to minor officials. After committing all the offences with which you now reproach other people, you were relieved of that employment; and I must say that your subsequent conduct did no discredit to your earlier career. 18.262You entered the service of those famous players Simylus and Socrates, better known as the Growlers. You played small parts to their lead, picking up figs and grapes and olives, like an orchard-robbing costermonger, and making a better living out of those missiles than by all the battles that you fought for dear life. For there was no truce or armistice in the warfare between you and your audiences, and your casualties were so heavy, that no wonder you taunt with cowardice those of us who have no experience of such engagements.

18.263However, passing by things for which your poverty may be blamed, I will address myself to actual charges against your way of living. When in course of time it occurred to you to enter public life, you chose such a line of political action that, so long as the city prospered, you lived the life of a hare, in fear and trembling and constant expectation of a sound thrashing for the crimes that burdened your conscience: although, when every one else is in distress, your confidence is manifest to all men. ^note 18.264What treatment does a man, who recovered his high spirits on the death of a thousand of his fellow-citizens, deserve at the hands of the survivors? I shall omit a great many other facts that I might relate; for I do not think that I ought to recount glibly all his discreditable and infamous qualities, but only such as I may mention without discredit to myself.

18.265And now, Aeschines, I beg you to examine in contrast, quietly and without acrimony, the incidents of our respective careers: and then ask the jury, man by man, whether they would choose for themselves your fortune or mine. You were an usher, I a pupil; you were an acolyte, I a candidate; you were clerk-at-the-table, I addressed the House; you were a player, I a spectator; you were cat-called, I hissed; you have ever served our enemies, I have served my country. 18.266Much I pass by; but on this very day, I am on proof for the honor of a crown, and acknowledged to be guiltless; you have already the reputation of an informer, and the question at hazard for you is, whether you are still to continue in that trade, or be stopped for ever by getting less than your quota of votes. And that is the good fortune enjoyed by you, who denounce the shabbiness of mine!