Plataicus

For who could be found to be more unhappy than we are who, in one day deprived of our city, our lands, and our possessions, and being destitute of all necessities alike, have become wanderers and beggars, not knowing whither to turn and, whatever our habitation, finding no happiness there? For if we fall in with the unfortunate, we grieve that we must be compelled, in addition to our own ills, to share in the ills of others;

and if we encounter those who fare well, our lot is even harder to bear, not because we envy them their prosperity, but because amid the blessings of our neighbors we see more clearly our own miseries—miseries so great that we spend no day without tears, but spend all our time mourning the loss of our fatherland and bewailing the change in our fortunes.

What, think you, is our state of mind when we see our own parents unworthily cared for in their old age, and our children, instead of being educated as we had hoped when we begat them, often because of petty debts reduced to slavery,[*](Cf. Lys. 12.98.) others working for hire, and the rest procuring their daily livelihood as best each one can, in a manner that accords with neither the deeds of their ancestors, nor their own youth, nor our own self-respect?