Institutio Oratoria

What is the reason, then, why these critics regard that style which flows in a slender trickle and babbles among the pebbles as having the true Attic flavour and the true scent of Attic thyme? I really think that, if they were to discover a soil of exceptional richness and a crop of unusual abundance within the boundaries of Attica, they would deny it to be Attic, on the ground that it has produced more seed than it received: for you will remember the mocking comments passed by Menander [*](Georg. 35 sqq. (Koerte); ἀπέδωκεν ὀρθῶς καὶ δικαίως, οὐ πλέον, ι ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὸ τὸ μέτρον. ) on the exact fidelity with which the soil of Attica repays its deposits.