honoured the gods and did what was right, and yet I was none the less poor and unfortunate.
Cario.
I know it but too well.
Chremylus.
Others amassed wealth—the sacrilegious, the demagogues, the informers,[1] indeed every sort of rascal.
Cario.
I believe you.
Chremylus.
Therefore I came to consult the oracle of the god, not on my own account, for my unfortunate life is nearing its end, but for my only son; I wanted to ask Apollo, if it was necessary for him to become a thorough knave and renounce his virtuous principles, since that seemed to me to be the only way to succeed in life.
Cario.
And with what responding tones did the sacred tripod resound?[2]
Chremylus.
You shall know. The god ordered me in plain terms to follow the first man I should meet upon leaving the temple and to persuade him to accompany me home.
Cario.
And who was the first one you met?
- ↑ Literally sycophants, i.e. denouncers of figs. The Senate, says Plutarch, in very early times had made a law forbidding the export of figs from Attica; those who were found breaking the edict were fined to the advantage of the sycophant (φαίνειν, to denounce, and σῦκον, fig). Since the law was abused in order to accuse the innocent, the name sycophant was given to calumniators and to the too numerous class of informers at Athens who subsisted on the money their denunciations brought them.
- ↑ A parody of the tragic style.
