ttle fishes, while others knead
the dough or whip the sharp Thasian pickle with rapid hand, so break
forth, my Muse, and inspire thy tribesmen with rough, vigorous,
stirring strains.

We others, now old men and heavy with years, we reproach the city;
so many are the victories we have gained for the Athenian fleets
that we well deserve to be cared for in our declining life; yet far
from this, we are ill-used, harassed with law-suits, delivered over to
the scorn of stripling orators. Our minds and bodies being ravaged
with age, Posidon should protect us, yet we have no other support than
a staff. When standing before the judge, we can scarcely stammer forth
the fewest words, and of justice we see but its barest shadow, whereas
the accuser, desirous of conciliating the younger men, overwhelms us
with his ready rhetoric; he drags us before the judge, presses us with
questions, lays traps for us; the onslaught troubles, upsets and ruins
poor old Tithonus, who, crushed with age, stands tongue-tied;
sentenced to a fine,(3) he weeps, he sobs and says to his friend,
"This fine robs me of the last trifle that was to have bought my coffin."

Is this not a scandal? What! the clepsydra(4) is to kill the
white-haired veteran, who, in fierce fighting, has so oft covered
himself with glorious sweat, whose valour at Marathon saved the
country! 'Twas we who pursued on the field of Marathon,
whereas now 'tis wretches who pursue us to the death and crush us!
What would Marpsias reply to this?(5) What an injustice that a man,
bent with age like Thucydides, should be brow-beaten by this braggart
advocate, Cephisodemus,(6) who is as savage as the Scythian desert
he was born in! Is it not to convict him from the outset? I wept tears
of pity when I saw an Archer(7) maltreat this old man, who, by Ceres,
when he was young and the true Thucydides, would not have permitted
an insult from Ceres herself! At that date he would have floored
ten orators, he would have terrified three thousand Archers with his
shouts; he would have pierced the whole line of the enemy with his shafts.
Ah! but if you will not leave the aged in peace, decree that the advocates
be matched; thus the old man will only be confronted with a toothless
greybeard, the young will fight with the braggart, the ignoble
with the son of Clinias;(8) make a law that in the future, the old man
can only be summoned and convicted at the courts by th