12
In short I did not say that all wage-earners lived a mean and petty existence: no, it was those in private houses who endured slavery under the pretext of education that I pitied. My present situation, my friend, is altogether different. My private standing is not reduced, and in public life I take a share and play my part in the mightiest of empires. If you consider the matter you will realise that my personal responsibility in this administration of Egypt is not the least important—the initiation of court-cases and their arrangement, the recording of all that is done and said, guiding counsel in their speeches, keeping the clearest and most accurate copy of the president’s decisions in all faithfulness and putting them on public record to be preserved for all time; and my salary not from any private person, but from the emperor, and it is no small one at that, many talents in fact. For the future I have no small hopes, if what is likely comes about—the supervision of a province or some other imperial service.
13
So I am willing to be bolder than I need be, to close with the charge against me, and to advance beyond defence. Moreover I say to you that no one does anything without pay, not even if you instance those at the head of things, for not even the emperor himself is unpaid. I do not mean tributes and taxes that come in every year from his subjects; no, the king’s most important reward is praise, universal fame, reverence for his benefactions, statues and temples and shrines bestowed on him by his subjects—all these are payment for the thought and care which such men evidence in their continual watch over the common weal and its improvement. To compare small with great, if you will begin at the top of the heap and descend to each of its component parts, you will see that we differ from those at the top in size, but that in other respects we are all wage-earners alike.
