On Salaried Posts in Great Houses (11-15)

if he sees you, calls you up and asks you a casual question, then, ah! then you sweat profusely, your head swims confusedly, you tremble inopportunely, and the company laughs at you for your embarrassment. Many a time, when you should reply to the question: “Who was the king of the Achaeans,” you say, “They had a thousand ships!” Good men call this modesty, forward men cowardice, and unkind men lack of breeding. So, having found the beginning of friendly relations very unstable footing, you go away doomed by your own verdict to great despair.

When “many a sleepless night you have pillowed” and have lived through “many a blood-stained day,”[*] not for the sake of Helen or of Priam’s Trojan citadel, but the five obols that you hope for, and when you have secured the backing of a tragedy god,[*] there follows an examination to see if you are learned in the arts. For the rich man that way of

No doubt there are many who side against you and favour others in your stead, and each of them stealthily shoots at you, so to speak, from ambush. Then too imagine a man with a long beard and grey hair undergoing examination to see if he knows anything worth while, and some thinking that he does, others that he does not!

Then a period intervenes, and your whole past life is pried into. If a fellow-countryman. out of jealousy or a neighbour offended for some insignificant reason says, when questioned, that you are a follower of women or boys, there they have it! the witness speaks by the book of Zeus; but if all with one accord commend you, they are considered questionable, dubious, and suborned. You must have great good fortune, then, and no opposition at all; for that is the only way in which you can win.

Well, suppose you have been fortunate in everything beyond your fondest hopes. The master himself has commended your discussions, and those of

You have won, then, lucky man, and have gained the Olympic crown—nay, you have taken Babylon or stormed the citadel of Sardis; you shall have the horn of Plenty and fill your pails with pigeon’s milk. It is indeed fitting that in return for all your labours you should have the very greatest of blessings, in order that your crown may not be mere leaves; that your salary should be set at a considerable figure and paid you when you need it, without ado; that in other ways you should be honoured beyond ordinary folk; that you should get respite from your former exertions and muddiness and running about and loss of sleep, and that in accordance with your prayer you should “sleep with your legs stretched out,”[*] doing only what you were engaged for at the outset and what you are paid for. That ought to be the way of it, Timocles, and there would be no great harm in stooping and bearing the yoke if it were light and comfortable and, best of all, gilded' But the case is very different—yes, totally different. There are thousands of things insupportable to a free man that take place even after one has entered the household. Consider for yourself, as you hear a list of them, whether anyone could put up with them who is even to the slightest degree cultured.

I shall begin, if you like, with the first dinner which will be

Very soon, then, someone calls, bringing an invitation to the dinner, a servant not unfamiliar with the world, whom you must first propitiate by slipping at least five drachmas into his hand casually so as not to appear awkward. He puts on airs and murmurs: “Tut, tut! I take money from you?” ane: “Heracles! I hope it may never come to that!"; but in the end he is prevailed upon and goes away with a broad grin at your expense. Providing yourself with clean clothing and dressing yourself as neatly as you can, you pay your visit to the bath and go, afraid of getting there before the rest, for that would be gauche, just as to come last would be ill-mannered. So you wait until the middle moment of the right time, and then go in. He receives you with much distinction, and someone takes you in charge and gives you a place at table a little above the rich man, with perhaps two of his old friends.

As though you had entered the mansion of Zeus, you admire everything and are amazed at all that is done, for everything is strange and unfamiliar to you. The servants stare at you, and everybody in the company keeps an eye on you to see what you are going to do. Even the rich man himself is not without concern on this score; he has previously directed some of the servants to watch whether you often gaze from afar at his sons or his wife. The attendants of your fellow-guests, seeing that you are impressed, crack jokes about your unfamiliarity with what is doing and conjecture