9
But if I abandoned this argument as quite unconvincing and said this that I was not hooked by money or any such expectation when I formed the present association, but that I admired my patron’s intelligence and courage and elevation of thought and wished to share the fortunes of such a man, I fear that besides the accusation being brought against me I may be accused of flattery, and find myself knocking out a nail with a nail, as they say, and a small one with a big one at that, since flattery is considered the most servile—and therefore the worst—of all the vices.
10
Well then, if I am pleased with neither line of defence, am I driven to agree or to confess that I have no honourable argument? Perhaps I have still one anchor left on board, to complain of old age and disease and poverty as well, which persuades one to do or endure anything to get away from it. In such a case perhaps it is not untimely to call on Euripides’ Medea to come and say in my defence those iambic lines, parodied a little: “I know the evil that I’m going to do, But poverty is stronger than my plans.” Euripides, Medea, 1078, with “passion” for “poverty.” I do not quote the Theognis passage, but everybody knows it, where he thinks it not improper for men to throw themselves from lofty crags into the deep yawning sea with its monsters, if one can escape poverty in that way. Theognis, 173–178 (Loeb ed. J. M. Edwards, Elegy and Iambus, 1).
