[15] {outoi aristoi}: these are prima virorum, the true aristocrats.

Some people tell us it is not right to indulge a taste for hunting,
lest it lead to neglect of home concerns, not knowing that those who
are benefactors of their country and their friends are in proportion
all the more devoted to domestic duties. If lovers of the chase pre-
eminently fit themselves to be useful to the fatherland, that is as
much as to say they will not squander their private means; since with
the state itself the domestic fortunes of each are saved or lost. The
real fact is, these men are saviours, not of their own fortunes only,
but of the private fortunes of the rest, of yours and mine. Yet there
are not a few irrational people amongst these cavillers who, out of
jealousy, would rather perish, thanks to their own baseness, than owe
their lives to the virtue of their neighbours. So true is it that the
mass of pleasures are but evil,[16] to which men succumb, and thereby
are incited to adopt the worse cause in speech and course in
action.[17] And with what result?--from vain and empty arguments they
contract emnities, and reap the fruit of evil deeds, diseases, losses,
death--to the undoing of themselves, their children, and their
friends.[18] Having their senses dulled to things evil, while more
than commonly alive to pleasures, how shall these be turned to good
account for the salvation of the state? Yet from these evils every one
will easily hold aloof, if once enamoured of those joys whose brief I
hold, since a chivalrous education teaches obedience to laws, and
renders justice familiar to tongue and ear.[19]

[16] See "Hellenica Essays," p. 371.

[17] "To depravity of speech and conduct" (whether as advocates or