137
But the latter, you see, found their poets and historians, while the others secured no one to hymn their praises.This recalls the poetic commonplace on the immortality lent by literature, for example in the familiar lines of Horace (Hor. Odes 4.9.25-28): vixere fortes ante Agamemnona/ multi; sed omnes inlacrimabiles/ urgentur ignotique longa/ nocte, carent quia vate sacro. Therefore, if you will only heed me and be sensible, you will not despise these men whom the multitude are wont to believe, not only with reference to each one of their fellow-citizens, but also with reference to the affairs of the whole state, but you will in some measure show attention and pay court to them in order that you may be held in honor both because of your own deeds and because of their words.”
138
When I would speak to him in this wise, he would admit that I was right, but he could not change his nature. He was a good man and true, a credit to Athens and to Hellas, but he could not lower himself to the level of people who are intolerant of their natural superiors. So it was that the orators occupied themselves with inventing many false charges against him, and the multitude with drinking them in.