[47]
Why do you have recourse to such trifling? you will
say. As if it were a hard matter for me to bring forward ever so many by name, of my own
tribe, or my own neighbours, (not to wander too far off,) who wish those sons for whom
they have the greatest regard, to be diligent farmers. But it is an odious step to quote
known men, when it is uncertain whether they would like their names to be used; and no
one is likely to be better known to you than this same Eutychus; and certainly it has
nothing to do with the argument, whether I name this youth in a play, or some one of the
country about Veii. In truth, I think that
these things are invented by poets in order that we may see our manners sketched under
the character of strangers, and the image of our daily life represented under the guise
of fiction.
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