On The Refusal Of A Pension to the Invalid

He further asserts that my shop is the meeting place of a number of rogues who have spent their own money and hatch plots against those who wish to preserve theirs. But you must all take note that these statements of his are no more accusations against me than against anyone else who has a trade, nor against those who visit my shop any more than those who frequent other men of business.

For each of you is in the habit of paying a call at either a perfumer’s or a barber’s or a shoemaker’s shop, or wherever he may chance to go, —in most cases, it is to the tradesmen who have set up nearest the marketplace, and in fewest, to those who are farthest from it. So if any of you should brand with roguery the men who visit my shop, clearly you must do the same to those who pass their time in the shops of others; and if to them, to all the Athenians: for you are all in the habit of paying a call and passing your time at some shop or other.

But really I see no need for me to be so very particular in rebutting each one of the statements that he has made, and to weary you any longer. For if I have argued the principal points, what need is there to dwell seriously on trifles in the same way as he does? But I beg you all, gentlemen of the Council, to hold the same views concerning me as you have held till now.

Do not be led by this man to deprive me of the sole benefit in my country of which fortune has granted me a share, nor let this one person prevail on you to withdraw now what you all agreed to grant me in the past. For, gentlemen, since Heaven had deprived us[*](The speaker here solemnly appeals for himself as one of an unfortunate class.) of the chiefest things, the city voted us this pension, regarding the chances of evil and of good as the same for all alike.

Surely I should be the most miserable of creatures if, after being deprived by my misfortune of the fairest and greatest things, the accuser should cause me the loss of that which the city bestowed in her thoughtful care for men in my situation. No, no, gentlemen; you must not vote that way. And why should I find you thus inclined?

Because anyone has ever been brought to trial at my instance and lost his fortune? There is nobody who can prove it. Well, is it that I am a busybody, a hot head, a seeker of quarrels?