9
So I, gentlemen, feeling myself grossly ill-used, but ashamed—as I have already told you before—at my misfortune, put up with it, and preferred to go without satisfaction for the offences rather than be thought lacking in sense by the citizens: for I knew that, while his actions would be found appropriate to his wickedness, I should be derided for the treatment I received by a number of people who are in the habit of resenting my ambition that one may show for a good standing in the city.
10
I was so perplexed, gentlemen, in face of this man’s lawless behavior, that I decided that it would be best for me to reside abroad. So I took the boy (since the whole truth must be told), and left the city. When I thought it was time enough for Simon to have forgotten the young fellow, and also to have repented of his former offences, I came back again.
11
I betook myself to the Peiraeus; but this man, observing immediately that Theodotus had arrived and was staying with Lysimachus,—who lived hard by the house that this man had rented—invited some of his friends to join him: they all had luncheon and drank, and they posted watchers on the roof so that,when the boy should come out, they might seize upon him.
12
At this moment I arrived from the Peiraeus, and in passing I turned into Lysimachus’s house: after spending some little time there, we came out. Then those people, already drunk, sprang out upon us; some of his party refused to join in his criminal action, but Simon here, and Theophilus, Protarchus and Autocles began dragging the boy along. He, however, flung off his cloak and ran away.
13
Then I, expecting that he would make good his escape, while they, if they met anybody, would at once turn aside from a feeling of shame,— with this conclusion I took myself off by another street; so careful I was to give them a wide berth, for I regarded all the proceedings of these men as a grievous misfortune to myself.
