For instance, let me put aside generalities and speak
of my own case.



After raising so many Athenians
to high station and making them rich when they
were wretchedly poor before and helping all who
were in want, nay more, pouring out my wealth in
floods to benefit my friends, now that I have become
poor thereby I am no longer recognized or even
looked at by the men who formerly cringed and
kowtowed and hung upon my nod. On the contrary,
if I chance to meet any of them in the road, they
treat me as they would the gravestone of aman long
dead which time has overturned, passing by without even a curious glance..-- Indeed, some of them,
on catching sight of me in the distance, turn off in
another direction, thinking that the man who not
long ago showed himself their saviour and benefactor
will be an unpleasant and repulsive spectacle.

 

Therefore

 

my wrongs have driven me to this outlying
farm, where, dressed in skins, I till the soil as a
hired labourer at four obols a day, philosophizing
with the solitude and with my pick. By so doing, I
expect to gain at least thus much, that I shall no
longer see a great many people enjoying undeserved
success; for that, certainly, would be more painful.
Come then, son of Cronus and Rhea, shake off at
length that deep, sound sleep, for you have slumbered
longer than Epimenides; Epimenides of Crete fell asleep in a cave and did not wake for forty years or more. fan your thunderbolt
into flame or kindle it afresh from Aetna, and make
a great blaze, evincing anger worthy of a stalwart
and youthful Zeus—unless indeed the tale is true
that the Cretans tell about you and your tomb in
their island.
 ZEUS 
Who is that, Hermes, who is shouting from Attica,
near Hymettus, in the foot-hills, all dirty and
squalid and dressed in skins? He is digging, I
think, with his back bent. A mouthy fellow and an
impudent one. Very likely he is a philosopher,
otherwise he would not talk so impiously against
us.
 HERMES 
What, father! Don’t you know Timon of Collytus, the son of Echecratides? He is the man who
often treated us to perfect sacrifices; the one who
had just come into a fortune, who gave us the complete hecatombs and used to entertain us brilliantly
at his house during the Diasia.

 

 ZEUS 
Ah, what a reverse! He the fine gentleman, the
rich man, who had all the friends about him? What
has happened to him to make hin like this, poor
man, a dirty fellow digging ditches and working for
wages, it seems, with such a heavy pick to swing?