2
but when the others told of household tempests and third waves—yes, by Zeus, fifth and tenth waves, if one may say so—and how they first sailed in, with the sea apparently calm, and how many troubles they endured through the whole voyage by reason of thirst or sea-sickness or inundations of brine, and finally how they stove their unlucky lugger on a submerged ledge or a sheer pinnacle and swam ashore, poor fellows, in a wretched plight, naked and in want of every necessity—in these adventures and their account of them it seemed to me that they concealed the greater part out of shame, and voluntarily forgot it.
2
For my part I shall not hesitate to tell you everything, my dear Timocles, not only their stories but whatever else I find by logical inference to be characteristic of such household positions; for I think I detected long ago that you are entertaining designs
3
upon that life. I detected it first one time when our conversation turned to that theme, and then someone of the company praised this kind of wage-earning, saying that men were thrice happy when, besides having the noblest of the Romans for their friends, eating expensive dinners without paying any scot, living in a handsome establishment, and travelling in all comfort and luxury, behind a span of white horses, perhaps, with their noses in the air,That this is the meaning of éurriaCovres, and not “lolling at ease,” is clear from Book-Collector 21 and Downward Journey 16. they could also get no inconsiderable amount of pay for the friendship which they enjoyed and the kindly treatment which they received; really everything grew without sowing and ploughing for such as they. When you heard all that and more of the same nature, I saw how you gaped at it and held your mouth very wide open for the bait.
