On The Crown   

too can make this noble boast that Cephalus made. For he has never yet
preferred or prosecuted any indictment against me; so that by you at
least, Aeschines, I am admitted to be no worse a citizen than Cephalus.

{252} His want of feeling and his malignity may be seen in many ways, and
not least in the remarks which he made about fortune. For my part, I think
that, as a rule, when one human being reproaches another with his fortune,
he is a fool. For when he who thinks himself most prosperous and fancies
his fortune most excellent, does not know whether it will remain so until
the evening, how can it be right to speak of one's fortune, or to taunt
another with his? But since Aeschines adopts a tone of lofty superiority
upon this as upon many other subjects, observe, men of Athens, how much
more truthful and more becoming in a human being my own remarks upon
Aeschines' fortune will be. {253} I believe that the fortune of this city
is good; and I see that the God of Dodona also declares this to you
through his oracle. But I think that the prevailing fortune of mankind as
a whole to-day is grievous and terrible. For what man, Hellene or
foreigner, has not tasted abundance of evil at this present time? {254}
Now the fact that we chose the noblest course, and that we are actually
better off than those Hellenes who expected to live in prosperity if they
sacrificed us, I ascribe to the good fortune of the city. But in so far as
we failed, in so far as everything did not fall out in accordance with our
wishes, I consider that the city has received the share which was due to
us of the fortune of mankind in general. {255} But my personal fortune,
and that of every individual among us, ought, I think, in fairness to be
examined with reference to our personal circumstances. That is my
judgement with regard to fortune, and I believe (as I think you also do)
that my judgement is correct and just. But Aeschines asserts that my
personal fortune has more influence than the fortune of the city as a
community--the insignificant and evil more than the good and important!
How can this be?

{256} If, however, you determine at all costs to scrutinize my fortune,
Aeschines, then compare it with your own; and if you find that mine is
better than yours, then cease to revile it. Examine it, then, from the
very beginning. And, in Heaven's name, let no one condemn me for any want
of good taste. For I neither regard one who speaks insultingly of poverty,
nor one who prides himself on having been brought up in affluence, as a
man of sense. But the slanders and misrepresentations of this unfeeling
man oblige me to enter upon a discussion of this sort; and I will conduct
it with as much moderation as the facts allow.

{257} I then, Aeschines, had the advantage as a boy of attending the
schools which became my position, and of possessing as much as one who is
to do nothing ignoble owing to poverty must possess. When I passed out of
boyhood, my life corresponded with my upbringing--I provided choruses and
equipped warships; I paid the war-tax; I neglected none of the paths to
distinction in public or private life, but gave my services both to my
country and my friends; and when I thought fit to enter public life, the
measures which I decided to adopt were of such a character that I have
been crowned many times both by my country and by many other Hellenic
peoples, while not even you, my enemies, attempt to say that my choice was
not at least an honourable one. {258} Such is the fortune which has
accompanied my life, and though I might say much more about it, I refrain
from doing so, in my anxiety not to annoy any one by the expression of my
pride. And you--the lofty personage, the despiser of others--what has been
your fortune when compared with this?--the fortune, thanks to which you
were brought up as a boy in the depths of indigence, in close attendance
upon the school along with your father, pounding up the ink, sponging down
the forms, sweeping the attendants' room,[n] occupying the position of a
menial, not of a free-born boy! {259} Then, when you became a man, you
used to read out the books[n] to your mother at her initiations, and help
her in the rest of the hocus-pocus, by night dressing the initiated[n] in
fawnskins, drenching them from the bowl, purifying them and wiping them