26
The other way is easier, not to buy books any longer. You are well enough educated; you have learning to spare; you have all the works of antiquity almost at the tip of your tongue; you know not only all history but all the arts of literary composition, its merits and defects, and how to use an Attic vocabulary; your many books have made you wondrous wise, consummate in learning. There is no reason why I should not have my fun with you, since you like to be gulled!
27
As you have so many books, I should like to ask you what you like best to read? Plato? Antisthenes? Archilochus? Hipponax? Or do you scorn them and incline to occupy yourself with the orators? Tell me, do you read the speech of Aeschines against Timarchus? No doubt you know it all and understand everything in it, but have you dipped into Aristophanes and Eupolis? Have you read the Baptae, the whole play?The Baptae of Eupolie appears to have been a satire upon the devotees of Cotys (Cotytto), a Thracian goddess worshipped with orgiastic rites. Then did it have no effect upon you, and did you not blush when you saw the point of it? Indeed, a man may well wonder above all what the state of your soul is when you lay hold of your books, and of your hands when you open them. When do you do your reading? In the daytime? Nobody ever saw you doing it. - At night, then? When you have already given instructions to your henchmen, or before you have talked with them? Come, in the name of Cotys, never again dare to do such a thing.
