[169] “For if I or my cattle drink of your water,” it runs, “I shall give you value.” The writer does not mean the pelf, to use the poet’s word, silver or gold or aught else which the purchaser is wont to give in exchange to the vendor, but by “value” he here means honour.
[170] For in very truth everyone that is profligate or cowardly or unjust, when he sees any of the stricter folk shrinking from toil or mastered by gain or swerving aside to any of the love-lures of pleasure, rejoices and is glad and thinks that he has received honour. And then with swaggering airs and gestures of pride he begins to hold forth sagely to the multitude about his own vices, how necessary and profitable they are, “for,” says he, “were they not so, would So-and-so, that much respected gentleman, be willing to indulge in them?”
[171] Let us say, then, to everyone of this sorry sort, “If we drink of thy water, if we touch aught that thy confused and turbid current carries, we shall provide thee with honour and acceptance, instead of the ill-repute and dishonour that are thy true deserts.”
[172] For in very truth “the matter” which has so engaged thy zeal is absolutely “nothing.” Or dost thou think that aught of mortal matters has real being or subsistence, and that they do not rather swing suspended as it were on fallacious and unstable opinion, treading the void and differing not a whit from false dreams?
[173] If thou carest not to test the fortunes of individual men, scan the vicissitudes, for better and worse, of whole regions and nations. Greece was once at its zenith, but the Macedonians took away its power. Macedonia flourished in its turn, but when it was divided into portions it weakened till it was utterly extinguished.
[174] Before the Macedonians fortune smiled on the Persians, but a single day destroyed their vast and mighty empire, and now Parthians rule over Persians, the former subjects over their masters of yesterday. The breath that blew from Egypt of old was clear and strong for many a long year, yet like a cloud its great prosperity passed away. What of the Ethiopians, what of Carthage, and the parts towards Libya? What of the kings of Pontus?
[175] What of Europe and Asia, and in a word the whole civilized world? Is it not tossed up and down and kept in turmoil like ships at sea, subject now to prosperous, now to adverse winds?
[176] For circlewise moves the revolution of that divine plan which most call fortune. Presently in its ceaseless flux it makes distribution city by city, nation by nation, country by country. What these had once, those have now. What all had, all have. Only from time to time is the ownership changed by its agency, to the end that the whole of our world should be as a single state, enjoying that best of constitutions, democracy.