Areopagiticus

To contradict one's elders or to be impudent to them[*](Cf. Aristoph. Cl. 998.) was then considered more reprehensible than it is nowadays to sin against one's parents; and to eat or drink in a tavern was something which no one, not even an honest slave, would venture to do;[*](The same expression is used in Isoc. 15.286.) for they cultivated the manners of a gentleman, not those of a buffoon; and as for those who had a turn for jesting and playing the clown, whom we today speak of as clever wits, they were then looked upon as sorry fools.[*](Cf. Isoc. 15.284.)

But let no one suppose that I am out of temper with the younger generation: I do not think that they are to blame for what goes on, and in fact I know that most of them are far from pleased with a state of affairs which permits them to waste their time in these excesses; so that I cannot in fairness censure them, when it is much more just to rest the blame upon those who directed the city a little before our time;[*](He is thinking of Ephialtes and those who, following in his footsteps, made Athens more “democratic.” Aristotle says that following the Archonship of Ephialtes “the administration of the state became more and more lax,” Aristot. Ath. Pol. 26.)

for it was they who led on our youth to this spirit of heedlessness and destroyed the power of the Areopagus. For while this Council maintained its authority, Athens was not rife with law-suits,[*](It was not yet the “litigious Athens,” ridiculed in Aristophanes' Wasps.) or accusations,[*](By the sycophants especially. See Isoc. 15.8, note.) or tax-levies,[*](Special taxes levied for war purposes on the well-to-do citizens.) or poverty,[*](Athens was impoverished by her wars, Isoc. 8.19.) or war; on the contrary, her citizens lived in accord with each other and at peace with mankind, enjoying the good will of the Hellenes and inspiring fear in the barbarians;

for they had saved the Hellenes from destruction and had punished the barbarians so severely that the latter were well content if only they might suffer no further injury.[*](Cf. Isoc. 7.80 and Isoc. 4.117-118.) And so, because of these things, our forefathers lived in such a degree of security that the houses and establishments in the country were finer and more costly than those within the city-walls,[*](Demosthenes contrasts the magnificence of the temples and public buildings in Athens with the unpretentiousness of private houses in the “good old days” when the house of a Miltiades or of an Aristides was no finer than any other, Dem. 3.25 ff.) and many of the people never visited Athens even for the festivals, preferring to remain at home in the enjoyment of their own possessions rather than share in the pleasures dispensed by the state.