Lucian of Samosata Apologia 1

[1] I have long been wondering, my dear Sabinus, what it probably occurred to you to say now that you have read my essay on “Salaried Posts in Great Houses.” It is quite certain that you had a good laugh when you read it; but I am trying now to fit the detailed and general comments you made to the text. If I am any good at divination, I think I can hear you saying: “To think that anyone could write that and work up such a devastating indictment against that sort of life, then, when the die falls the other way up, completely forget it and himself of his own free will rush headlong into a slavery so manifest and conspicuous! How many Midases and Croesuses and whole Pactoluses have persuaded him to throw away his liberty, the object of his care and companion of his nurture since childhood? Already within sight of Aeacus himself, with one foot almost in the ferry-boat he lets himself be dragged and pulled along as though by a golden collar fastened round his throat! ¹ What bracelets and necklaces the idle rich must have! There is much inconsistency here between his present life and his essay—‘rivers flowing uphill’ and ‘the world upside down’ and ‘recantation for the worse,’ not for a Helen indeed, or what happened at Troy; ² no, here in very fact are your words turned upside down, although they seemed well enough before.”