[32]
Now I am like a despot; then I was clearly a slave. Then I paid a revenue to the body politic; now I live on the tribute1 that the state pays to me. Moreover, people used to vilify me, when I was wealthy, for consorting with Socrates; but now that I have got poor, no one bothers his head about it any longer. Again, when my property was large, either the government or fate was continually making me throw some of it to the winds; but now, far from throwing anything away (for I possess nothing), I am always in expectation of acquiring something.”
1 The poor relief.
Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 4. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. 1979.
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