country." I have been shamefully treated by this Eubulides"—so he begins; "and I pray you, considering the great importance of the present trial, and the disgrace and ruin which attend conviction, to hear me, as you have my opponent, in silence." Further on in his speech he touches on his poverty, and the humble way in which his family maintain themselves.
"We confess that we sell ribbons, and live not in the way we could wish. We are so low down in the world that our opponent may go out of his way to abuse us. It seems to me that our trafficking in the market-place is the strongest proof of the falsity of this man's charges. My mother, he says, sold ribbons in the market-place. Well, if she was an alien, they should have inspected the market tolls, and shown whether she paid the alien's toll, and to what country she belonged. If she was a slave, the person who bought her, or the person who sold her, should have been called to give evidence. Then he has said she was a nurse. We do not deny she was, in those evil days[1] when all our people were badly off. But you will find many women who are citizens taking children to nurse. Of course, if we had been rich, we should not have sold ribbons, or have been at all in distress. But what has that to do with my descent? Pray do not scorn the poor (their poverty is a sufficient misfortune for them), much less those who try to get an honest livelihood. Poverty compels free men to do many mean and servile acts, for which they deserve to be
- ↑ The last years of the Peloponnesian War.
