Bacchides, or The Twin Sisters (414b-437b)

Immortal Gods! he names my friend.

What means this, that Lydus is thus exciting his master, Pistoclerus?

’Tis but a little time, Lydus, that a man has a desire to indulge his inclinations; the time will soon come, when he will hate himself even. Humour him; so that care is taken that he offends not beyond the line of honor, e’en suffer him.

I’ll suffer him not, nor, for my part, while I’m alive, will I allow him to be corrupted.

But you, who are pleading his cause for a son so profligate, was this same your own training, when you were a young man? I declare that for your first twenty years you had not even this much liberty, to move your foot out of the house even a finger’s length away from your tutor.

When it did happen so, this evil, too, was added to the evil; both pupil and preceptor were esteemed disgraced.

Before the rising of the sun had you not come to the school for exercise[*], no slight punishment would you have had at the hands of the master of the school.

There did they exercise themselves rather with running, wrestling, the quoit, the javelin, boxing, the ball, and leaping, rather than with harlots or with kissing;

there did they prolong their lives[*], and not in secret-lurking holes. Then, when from the hippodrome[*] and school of exercise you had returned home, clad in your belted frock[*], upon a stool by your masters[*] would you sit; and there, when you were reading your book, if you made a mistake in a single syllable, your skin would be made as spotted as your nurse’s gown[*].

I’m sorely vexed, to my sorrow, that on my account these things should be said about my friend. In his innocence he incurs this suspicion for my sake.

The manners, Lydus, now are altered.

That, for my part, I know full well. For formerly, a man used to receive public honors by the votes of the people, before he ceased to be obedient to one appointed his tutor.