f[1] King of Thrace.

THEORUS
I am here.

DICAEOPOLIS
Another humbug!

THEORUS
We should not have remained long in Thrace...

DICAEOPOLIS
Forsooth, no, if you had not been well paid.

THEORUS
...if the country had not been covered with snow; the rivers were
ice-bound at the time that Theognis[1] brought out his tragedy here;
during the whole of that time I was holding my own with
Sitalces, cup in hand; and, in truth, he adored you to such a degree,
that he wrote on the walls, "How beautiful are the Athenians!" His
son, to whom we gave the freedom of the city, burned with desire to
come here and eat chitterlings at the feast of the Apaturia;[2] he prayed
his father to come to the aid of his new country and Sitalces swore on
his goblet that he would succour us with such a host that the Athenians
would exclaim, "What a cloud of grasshoppers!"

f[1] The tragic poet.
f[2] A feast lasting three days and celebrated during the month Pyanepsion
(November). The Greek word contains the suggestion of fraud.