22
In peace, on the other hand, you are one of the people, and you enter the assembly and domineer over the rich. They tremble and crouch before you, and propitiate you with grants, slaving to provide you with baths and games and shows and the other things in abundance. But you, as auditor of the public accounts or examiner, rule them like a savage master, sometimes without even accounting for your acts. If it seems good to you, you shower down stones on them like hail with a free hand, or confiscate their property. You have no fear of the sycophant for your person, or of the robber lest he climb over the coping or burrow through the wall and steal your gold. And you need not trouble yourself with keeping accounts or dunning people or wrestling with those confounded stewards. No such cares tear you asunder. No; when you have finished a shoe and received your twenty cents for it, you leave your work towards nightfall, and, if you like, have your bath; then you buy a salt fish or some sprats or a handful of onions, and with this you make merry, singing most of the time, and philosophising with your good friend, poverty.
