reputable [Footnote:  The two words “and reputable” are a conjecture of Bossevain’s.  Some ten letters in the MS. have faded out.] man.  I accordingly ask you to help me in getting peace and furthermore to accompany me home.  I want to make a campaign against Greece and need you as adviser and general.”  Fabricius replied:  “I commend you for repenting of your expedition and desiring peace, and will cordially assist you in that purpose if it is to our advantage (for of course you will not ask me, a man who pretends to uprightness, as you say, to do anything against my country); but an adviser and general you must never choose from a democracy:  as for me, I have no leisure whatever.  Nor could I ever accept any of these things, because it is not seemly for an ambassador to receive gifts at all.  I would fain know, therefore, whether you in very truth regard me as a reputable man or not.  If I am a scoundrel, how is it that you deem me worthy of gifts?  If, on the other hand, I am a man of honor, how can you bid me accept them?  Let me assure you, then, of the fact that I have many possessions and am in no need of more:  what I own supplies me and I feel no desire for what belongs to others.  You, however, even if you believe yourself ever so rich, are in unspeakable poverty.  For you would not have crossed over to this land, leaving behind Epirus and the rest of your dominions, if you had been content with them and had not been reaching out for more.  Whenever a man is in this condition and sets no limit to his greed, he is the poorest of beggars.  And why?  Because he longs for everything not his own as if it were absolutely necessary, and with the idea that he could not live without it.

“Consequently I would gladly, since you call yourself my friend, afford you a little of my own wealth.  It is far more secure and imperishable than yours, and no one envies it or plots against it, neither populace nor tyrant:  best of all, the larger the number of persons who share it, the greater it will grow.  In what, accordingly, does it consist?  In using the little one has with as much satisfaction as if it were inexhaustible, in refraining from the goods of others as if they contained some mighty danger, in wronging no man, in doing well to many, and in numberless other details, which only a person of leisure could rehearse.  I, for my part, should choose, if it were absolutely necessary to suffer either one or the other, to perish by violence rather than by deceit.  The former falls to the lot of some by the decree of Fortune, but the latter only as a result of folly and great greed of gain:  it is, therefore, preferable to fall by the crushing hand of Fate [Footnote:  Omitting [Greek:  ti], and reading [Greek:  thehioy], which the MSS. give.] rather than by one’s own baseness.  In the former instance a man’s body is laid low, but in the latter his soul is ruined as well,[lacuna] but in that case a man becomes to a certain extent the slayer of himself, because he who has once taught his soul not to be content with the fortune already possessed, acquires a boundless desire for increased advantages.” (Mai, pp.174 and 538.  Zonaras, 8, 4.)