Aristophanes' PLUTUS Complete

A Literal Translation, with Notes.

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CHREMYLUS. That's the duty of the tribunals; they are established to that end.

INFORMER. And who is the prosecutor before the dicasts?

CHREMYLUS. Whoever wishes to be.[794]

INFORMER. Well then, 'tis I who choose to be prosecutor; and thus all public affairs fall within my province.

CHREMYLUS. I pity Athens for being in such vile clutches. But would you not prefer to live quietly and free from all care and anxiety?

INFORMER. To do nothing is to live an animal's life.

CHREMYLUS. Thus you will not change your mode of life?

INFORMER. No, though they gave me Plutus himself and the silphium of Battus.[795]

CHREMYLUS (to the Informer). Come, quick, off with your cloak.

CARIO. Hi! friend! 'tis you they are speaking to.

[794] At Athens 'twas only the injured person who could prosecute in private disputes; everyone, however, had this right where wrongs against the State were involved; but if the prosecutor only obtained one-fifth of the votes, he was condemned to a fine of 1000 drachmae or banished the country.

[795] A proverbial saying, meaning, the most precious thing.--Battus, a Lacedaemonian, led out a colony from Thera, an island in the Aegean sea, and, about 630 B.C., founded the city of Cyrene in Africa. He was its first king, and after death was honoured as a god. The inhabitants of that country gathered great quantities of silphium or 'laserpitium,' the sap of which plant was the basis of medicaments and sauces that commanded a high price. The coins of Cyrene bore the representation of a stalk of silphium.

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