We avoid those who are lame in the right foot, especially if we should see them early in the morning; and if anyone should see a cut priest or a eunuch or a monkey immediately upon leaving the house, he returns upon his tracks and goes back, auguring that his daily business for that day will not be successful, thanks to the bad and inauspicious omen at the start. But in the beginning of the whole year, at its door, on its first going forth, in its early morning, if one should see a profligate who commits and submits to unspeakable practices, notorious for it, broken in health, and all but called by the name of his actions themselves, a cheat, a swindler, a perjurer, a pestilence, a pillory, a pit,

That is to say, approximately, a whipping-stock, a gallowsbird; hurling into a pit was a form of capital punishment in many cities of Greece.

Well, are you not such a person? You will not deny it, if I know your boldness; indeed, it seems to me that you are actually vain over the fact that you have not lost the glory of your exploits, but are conspicuous to all and have made a great noise. If, however, you should offer opposition and should deny that you are such a person, who will believe what you say? The people of your native city (for it is fitting to begin there)? No, they knew about your first source of livelihood, and how you gave yourself over to that pestilential soldier and shared his depravity, serving him in every way until, after reducing you to a torn rag, as the saying goes, he thrust you out.