Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/481

Rh Enter Demeas. Demeas. Hail, Timon ! Thou very flower of race, support of the Athenians I bulwark of Greece ! In sooth, the people in assembly and both councils have been long awaiting your presence. But first hear the decree which I have proposed in your behalf : —

" Since Timon — the son of Echecratides, of the township of Collytus — not only the heau ideal of a man, but also wiser than anybody else in Greece, is all the time doing continually what is best for the city, and in one day has been victor at Olympia in boxing, wrestling, and in racing both with a four-in- hand of full-grown coursers and with a pair of fillies " —

Timon. Nay, but I 've never been at Olympia, even as a looker-on.

Demeas. ΛVhat 's the odds ? You will be by and by, and it 's better that many such specifications be added. (Proceeding with the decree) " Moreover also by proposing measures, by giving advice and acting as general, he has rendered the city services of no small moment. In return for ail this, be it de- creed by the Senate, the assembled Commons, and the Supreme Court, voting by tribes, and by all the town- ships individually and in concert, to set up a golden statue of Timon alongside the Athene upon the Acropolis, with a thunderbolt in his right hand and seven lightning rays upon his head, and to crown him with chaplets of gold, and that the chaplets be pro- claimed by the herald to-day at the feast of Dionysus, when the new tragedies are brought out — for in his honor the Dionysia is to be celebrated to-day. De- meas, the orator, being his next of kin and his pupil, made the motion, for Timon is also a most excellent