47
and if we encounter those who fare well, our lot is even harder to bear, not because we envy them their prosperity, but because amid the blessings of our neighbors we see more clearly our own miseries—miseries so great that we spend no day without tears, but spend all our time mourning the loss of our fatherland and bewailing the change in our fortunes.
48
What, think you, is our state of mind when we see our own parents unworthily cared for in their old age, and our children, instead of being educated as we had hoped when we begat them, often because of petty debts reduced to slavery,Cf. Lys. 12.98. others working for hire, and the rest procuring their daily livelihood as best each one can, in a manner that accords with neither the deeds of their ancestors, nor their own youth, nor our own self-respect?
49
But our greatest anguish of all is when one sees separated from each other, not only citizens from citizens, but also wives from husbands, daughters from mothers, and every tie of kinship severed; and this has befallen many of our fellow-citizens because of poverty. For the destruction of our communal life has compelled each of us to cherish hopes for himself alone.
