On The Crown   

down with the clay and the bran, and (when they were purified) bidding
them stand up and say, 'The ill is done, the good begun,' priding yourself
upon raising the shout of joy more loudly than any one had ever done
before--and I can believe it, for, when his voice is so loud, you dare not
imagine that his shout is anything but superlatively fine. {260} But by
day you used to lead those noble companies through the streets, men
crowned with fennel and white poplar,[n] throttling the puff-adders and
waving them over your head, crying out 'Euoe, Saboe,'[n] and dancing to
the tune of 'Hyes Attes, Attes Hyes'--addressed by the old hags as leader,
captain, ivy-bearer, fan-bearer, and so on; and as the reward of your
services getting sops and twists and barley-bannocks! Who would not
congratulate himself with good reason on such things, and bless his own
fortune? {261} But when you were enrolled among your fellow
parishioners,[n] by whatever means (for of that I say nothing)--when, I
say, you _were_ enrolled, you at once selected the noblest of occupations,
that of a clerk and servant to petty magistrates. {262} And when at length
you escaped from this condition also, after yourself doing all that you
impute to others, you in no way--Heaven knows!--disgraced your previous
record by the life which you subsequently lived; for you hired yourself
out to the actors Simylus and Socrates--the Roarers, they were nicknamed
--and played as a third-rate actor, collecting figs[n] and bunches of
grapes and olives, like a fruiterer gathering from other peoples' farms,
and getting more out of this than out of the dramatic competitions in
which you were competing for your lives; for there was war without truce
or herald between yourselves and the spectators; and the many wounds you
received from them make it natural for you to jeer at the cowardice of
those who have had no such experiences. {263} But I will pass over all
that might be accounted for by your poverty, and proceed to my charges
against your character itself. For you chose a line of political action
(when at length it occurred to you to take up politics too), in pursuance
of which, when your country's fortune was good, you lived the life of a
hare, in fear and trembling, always expecting a thrashing for the crimes
which lay on your conscience; whereas all have seen your boldness amid the
misfortunes of others. {264} But when a man plucks up courage at the death
of a thousand of his fellow citizens, what does he deserve to suffer at
the hands of the living? I have much more to say about him, but I will
leave it unsaid. It is not for me, I think, to mention lightly all the
infamy and disgrace which I could prove to be connected with him, but only
so much as it is not discreditable to myself to speak of.

{265} And now review the history of your life and of mine, side by side--
good temperedly, Aeschines, not unkindly: and then ask these gentlemen
which fortune, of the two, each of them would choose. You taught letters;
I attended school. You conducted initiations; I was initiated. You were a
clerk; I a member of the Assembly: you, a third-rate actor, I a spectator
of the play. You used to be driven from the stage, while I hissed. Your
political life has all been lived for the good of our enemies, mine for
the good of my country. {266} To pass over all besides, even on this very
day, I am being examined with regard to my qualification for a crown--it
is already admitted that I am clear of all crimes; while you have already
the reputation of a dishonest informer, and for you the issue at stake is
whether you are to continue such practices, or to be stopped once for all,
through failing to obtain a fifth part of the votes. A good fortune
indeed--can you not see?--is that which has accompanied your life, that
you should denounce mine!

{267} And now let me read to you the evidence of the public burdens which
I have undertaken; and side by side with them, do you, Aeschines, read the
speeches which you used to murder--

'I leave the abysm of death and gates of gloom,'[n]

and