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Now if anyone were to ask, Who is the most wicked and the most abandoned man,Kock, Com. Att. Frag., iii. p. 544, ades. 774. no one would pass the traitor by and name anyone else. So EuthycratesAn error for Lasthenes; Plutarch mentions both traitors together in Moralia, 97 d. roofed his house with the timber he got from Macedon,For Macedonia as the source of timber supply, cf. Inscr. Graec., i2. 105. as DemosthenesDe Falsa Legatione, 265. says, and PhilocratesIbid. 229; Cf.Moralia, 668 a, 97 d. received much money and bought strumpets and fish; and to Euphorbus and Philagrus, who betrayed Eretria, the kingDarius I; Cf. Herodotus, vi. 101; Pausanias, vii. 10. 2. gave land. But the babbler is a traitor who volunteers his services without pay: he does not betray horsesPerhaps an allusion to Dolon’s betrayal of the horses of Rhesus; cf.Il., x. 436 ff. or city-walls, but divulges secrets connected with lawsuits, party strife, and political manoeuvres. No one thanks him, but he himself, if he can win a hearing, must owe thanks. The result is that the verse directed at the man who recklessly and injudiciously pours forth and squanders his own possessions, You are not generous: it’s your disease, You love to give,Epicharmus, Frag. 274: Kaibel, Com. Graec. Frag., i. p. 142. fits the foolish talker also: You are no friend or well-wisher in revealing this: it’s your disease, you love to be babbling and prating.
