placed as you are amidst human beings, if you purpose neither to rule
nor to be ruled, and do not mean to dance attendance, if you can help
it, on those who rule, you must surely see that the stronger have an
art to seat the weaker on the stool of repentance[17] both in public
and in private, and to treat them as slaves. I daresay you have not
failed to note this common case: a set of people has sown and planted,
whereupon in comes another set and cuts their corn and fells their
fruit-trees, and in every way lays siege to them because, though
weaker, they refuse to pay them proper court, till at length they are
persuaded to accept slavery rather than war against their betters. And
in private life also, you will bear me out, the brave and powerful are
known to reduce the helpless and cowardly to bondage, and to make no
small profit out of their victims.

[17] See "Symp." iii. 11; "Cyrop." II. ii. 14; Plat. "Ion," 535 E; L.
Dindorf ad loc.

Ar. Yes, but I must tell you I have a simple remedy against all such
misadventures. I do not confine myself to any single civil community.
I roam the wide world a foreigner.

Soc. Well, now, that is a masterly stroke, upon my word![18] Of
course, ever since the decease of Sinis, and Sciron, and
Procrustes,[19] foreign travellers have had an easy time of it. But
still, if I bethink me, even in these modern days the members of free
communities do pass laws in their respective countries for self-
protection against wrong-doing. Over and above their personal
connections, they provide themselves with a host of friends; they gird
their cities about with walls and battlements; they collect armaments
to ward off evil-doers; and to make security doubly sure, they furnish