De mercede

It seems to me that I should do well to examine in advance the motives for which some men go into this sort of life and show that they are not at all urgent or necessary. In that way their defence and the primary object of their voluntary slavery would be done away with in advance. Most of them plead their poverty and their lack of necessities, and think that in this way they have set up an adequate screen for their desertion to this life. They consider that it quite suffices them if they say that they act pardonably in seeking to escape poverty, the bitterest thing in life. Then Theognis comes to hand, and time and again we hear : “All men held in subjection to Poverty,”[*](ἄνδρ᾽ ἀγαθὸν πενίη πάντων δάμνησι μάλιστα,καὶ γήρως πολιοῦ, Κύρνε, καὶ ἠπιάλου,ἣν δὴ χρὴ φεύγοντα καὶ ἐς βαθυκήτεα πόντονῥιπτεῖν καὶ πετρέων, Κύρνε, κατ᾽ ἠλιβάτων.καὶ γὰρ ἀνὴρ πενίῃ δεδμημένος οὔτε τι εἰπεῖνοὐθ᾽ ἕρξαι δύναται, γλῶσσα δέ οἱ δέδεται.Theognis 173 ff.)

and all the other alarming statements about poverty that the most spiritless of the poets have put forth.

If I saw that they truly found any refuge from poverty in such household positions, I should not quibble with them in behalf of excessive liberty ; but when they receive what resembles “the diet of invalids,” as our splendid orator once said,[*](Demosthenes3, 33. ) how can one avoid thinking that even in this particular they are ill advised, inasmuch as their condition in life always remains the same? They are always poor, they must continue to receive, there is nothing put by, no surplus to save: on the contrary, what is given, even if it is given, even if payment is received in full, is all spent to the last copper and without satisfying their need. It would have been better not to excogitate any such measures, which keep poverty going by simply giving first aid against it, but such as will do away with it altogether—yes, and to that end perhaps even .to plunge into the deep-bosomed sea if one must, Theognis, and down precipitous cliffs, as you ~ say. But if a man who is always poor and needy and on an allowance thinks that thereby he has escaped poverty, I do not know how one can avoid thinking that such a man deludes himself.

Others say that poverty in itself would not frighten or cow them.if they could get their daily bread by working like the rest, but as things are, since their bodies have been debilitated by old age or by illnesses, they have resorted to this form of wage-earning, which is the easiest. Come, then, let us see if what they say is true and they secure their gifts easily, without working much, or any more than the rest. It would indeed be a godsend to get money readily

without toiling and moiling. As a matter of fact, the thing cannot even be put into adequate words. They toil and moil so much in their household positions that they need better health there and need health more than anything else for that occupation, since there are a thousand things every day that fret the body and wear it down to the lowest depths of despair. We shall speak of these at the proper time, when we recount their other hardships. For — the present it is enough to indicate that those who allege this reason for selling themselves are not telling the truth either.