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?