who does not vow himself your devoted servant and slave, or find,
if he can, some even greater expression of humility with which to
pledge himself. After a brief space of time these same men avoid
their former expressions, thinking them abject, and scarcely
befitting free-born men; afterwards they arrive at the same point
to which, as I suppose, the worst and most ungrateful of men come--
that is, they forget. So little does forgetfulness excuse
ingratitude, that even the remembrance of a benefit may leave us
ungrateful.

VI. The question has been raised, whether this most odious vice
ought to go unpunished; and whether the law commonly made use of in
the schools, by which we can proceed against a man for ingratitude,
ought to be adopted by the State also, since all men agree that it
is just. "Why not?" you may say, "seeing that even cities cast in
each other's teeth the services which they have performed to one
another, and demand from the children some return for benefits
conferred upon their fathers?" On the other hand, our ancestors,
who were most admirable men, made demands upon their enemies alone,
and both gave and lost their benefits with magnanimity. With the
exception of Macedonia, no nation has ever established an action at
law for ingratitude. And this is a strong argument against its
being established, because all agree in blaming crime; and
homicide, poisoning, parricide, and sacrilege are visited with
different penalties in different countries, but everywhere with
some penalty; whereas this most common vice is nowhere punished,
though it is everywhere blamed. We do not acquit it; but as it
would be most difficult to reckon accurately the penalty for so
varying a matter, we condemn it only to be hated, and place it upon
the list of those crimes which we refer for judgment to the gods.