Page:Acharnians and two other plays (1909).djvu/54

36 A very characteristic anecdote is alluded to in the seventh and eighth lines. Thucydides had been asked "which of the two (himself or Pericles) was the best wrestler," (i.e., the best debater). To which he answered: "I am the best wrestler; but when I have flung him he starts up again and persuades the people that he was not thrown down."

Antepirrema. Shame and grief it was to witness poor Thucydides's fate,

Indicted by Cephisodemus, overwhelmed with words and prate.

I myself when I beheld him, an old statesman of the city,

Dragged and held by Scythian archers, I was moved to tears and pity,

Him that I remember once tremendous, terrible, and loud;

Discomfiting the Scythian host, subduing the revolted crowd;

Undaunted, desperate, and bold, that with his hasty grasp could fling

A dozen, in as many casts, of the best wrestlers in the ring.

Three thousand archers of the guard, he bawled and roared and bore them down.

No living soul he feared or spared, or friends or kinsmen of his own.

Since you then refuse to suffer aged men to rest in peace,

Range your criminals in classes, let the present method cease.

Give up elderly delinquents to be mumbled, mouthed, and wrung

By the toothless old accusers; but protect them from the young.

For the younger class of culprits young accusers will be fair,

Prating prostituted fops, and Clinias's son and heir.

Thus we may proceed in order, all of us, with all our might,

Severally, both youths and elders, to defend and to indict. Dicæopolis. Well, there's the boundary of my market-place,

Marked out, for the Peloponnesians and Bœotians

And the Megarians. All are freely welcome

To traffic and sell with me, but not with Lamachus.