On The Refusal Of A Pension to the Invalid

So utterly has he surpassed the whole human race in impudence that he tries with his single voice to persuade you all that I am not classed as disabled. Yet if he should persuade any of you on this point, gentlemen, what hinders me from drawing a lot for election as one of the nine archons,[*](The archons were appointed by lot from all the citizens, rich or poor, except, apparently, those who were formally classed as infirm.) and you from depriving me of my obol as having sound health, and voting it unanimously to this man as being a cripple? For surely, after you have deprived a man of the grant as being able-bodied, the law officers are not going to debar this same person, as being disabled, from drawing a lot!

Nay, indeed, you are not of the same opinion as he is, nor is he either, and rightly so. For he has come here to dispute over my misfortune as if over an heiress, and he tries to persuade you that I am not the sort of man that you all see me to be; but you —as is incumbent on men of good sense —have rather to believe your own eyes than this person’s words.

He says that I am insolent, savage, and utterly abandoned in my behavior, as though he needed the use of terrifying terms to speak the truth, and could not do it in quite gentle language. But I expect you, gentlemen, to distinguish clearly between those people who are at liberty to be insolent and those who are debarred from it.

For insolence is not likely to be shown by poor men laboring in the utmost indigence, but by those who possess far more than the necessaries of life; nor by men disabled in body, but by those who have most reason to rely on their own strength; nor by those already advanced in years, but by those who are still young and have a youthful turn of mind.

For the wealthy purchase with their money escape from the risks that they run, whereas the poor are compelled to moderation by the pressure of their want. The young are held to merit indulgence from their elders; but if their elders are guilty of offence, both ages unite in reproaching them.

The strong are at liberty to insult whomsoever they will with impunity, but the weak are unable either to beat off their aggressors when insulted, or to get the better of their victims if they choose to insult. Hence it seems to me that my accuser was not serious in speaking of my insolence, but was only jesting; his purpose was, not to persuade you that such is my nature, but to set me in a comic light, as a fine stroke of fancy.