On Salaried Posts in Great Houses (35-36)

That is the way they make free with their dependants, yes, make game of them, gradually rendering them submissive to their effrontery. I know a sharp-

tongued rhetorician who made a speech by request at dinner in a style that was not by any means uncultivated, but very finished and studied. He was applauded, however, because his speech, which was delivered while they were drinking, was timed by flasks of wine instead of measures of water! And he took this venture on, it was said, for two hundred drachmas.[*]

All this is not so bad, perhaps. But if Divesf himself has a turn for writing poetry or prose and recites his own compositions at dinner, then you must certainly split yourself applauding and flattering him and excogitating new styles of praise. Some of them wish to be admired for their beauty also, and they must hear themselves called an Adonis or a Hyacinthus, although sometimes they have a yard of nose. If you withhold your praise, off you go at once to the quarries of Dionysius because you are jealous and are plotting against your master. They must be philosophers and rhetoricians, too, and if they happen to commit a solecism, precisely on that account their language must seem full of the flavour of Attica and of Hymettus, and it must be the law to speak that way in future.

After all, one could perhaps put up with the conduct of the men. But the women—! That is another thing that the women are keen about—to have men of education living in their households on a salary

and following their litters. They count it as one among their other embellishments if it is said that they are cultured and have an interest in philosophy and write songs not much inferior to Sappho’s. To that end, forsooth, they too trail hired rhetoricians and grammarians and philosophers about, and listen to their lectures—when? it is ludicrous!—either while their toilet is being made and their hair dressed, or at dinner; at other times they are too busy! And often while the philosopher is delivering a discourse the maid comes up and hands her a note from her lover, so that the lecture on chastity is kept waiting until she has written a reply to the lover and hurries back to hear it.