[48]
What, think you, is our state of mind when we see our own parents unworthily cared for in their old age, and our children, instead of being educated as we had hoped when we begat them, often because of petty debts reduced to slavery,1 others working for hire, and the rest procuring their daily livelihood as best each one can, in a manner that accords with neither the deeds of their ancestors, nor their own youth, nor our own self-respect?
1 Cf. Lys. 12.98.