Aristophanes, Acharnians
Anonymous, Ed.

CHORUS
What an injustice that a man, bent with age like Thucydides, should be brow-beaten by this braggart advocate, Cephisodemus,¹ 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 Archer² 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;³ make a law that in the future, the old man can only be summoned and convicted at the courts by the aged and the young man by the youth.