Lucian Bis accusatus sive tribunalia 3

So I should like to ask the philosophers, who say that only the gods are happy, when they suppose we really find leisure for our nectar and our ambrosia in the midst of our countless bothers. Now, here is a case in point: for lack of spare time we are keeping all these stale lawsuits filed away, already spoiled by mildew and spiders’ webs, especially those brought against certain persons by the sciences and the arts—some of these are very antiquated. ¹ People are making an outcry on all sides and losing patience and hurling reproaches at Justice.and blaming me for my slowness, not knowing that the hearings have not been postponed, as it happens, on account of our negligence, but on account of the bliss in which they imagine we exist: for that is what they call our press of business.

I should like to ask those philosophers who assign us the monopoly of blessedness, when they suppose we find time for nectar and ambrosia among our ceaseless occupations. Look at the mildewed, cobwebbed stack of petitions mouldering on their files in our chancery, for want of time to attend to them: look only at the cases pending between men and the various Arts and Sciences; venerable relics, some of them! Angry protests against the delays of the law reach me from all quarters; men cannot understand that it is from no neglect of ours that these judgements have been postponed; it is simply pressure of business— pressure of blessedness, if they will have it so.