at the end of his nose! Before a complaint could be laid against Eulaeus
he had accused my father of the peculation, and before the Epistates and
the assessor of the district had even looked at the indictment, their
judgment on the falsely accused man was already recorded, for Eulaeus had
simply bought their verdict just as a man buys a fish or a cabbage in the
market. In olden times the goddess of justice was represented in this
country with her eyes shut, but now she looks round on the world like a
squinting woman who winks at the king with one eye, and glances with the
other at the money in the hand of the accuser or the accused. My poor
father was of course condemned and thrown into prison, where he was
beginning to doubt the justice of the gods, when for his sake the
greatest wonder happened, ever seen in this land of wonders since first
the Greeks ruled in Alexandria. An honorable man undertook without fear
of persons the lost cause of the poor condemned wretch, and never rested
till he had restored him to honor and liberty. But imprisonment,
disgrace and indignation had consumed the strength of the ill-used man
as a worm eats into cedar wood, and he fell into a decline and died. His
preserver, Klea's father, as the reward of his courageous action fared
even worse; for here by the Nile virtues are punished in this world, as
crimes are with you. Where injustice holds sway frightful things occur,
for the gods seem to take the side of the wicked. Those who do not
hope for a reward in the next world, if they are neither fools nor
philosophers--which often comes to the same thing--try to guard
themselves against any change in this.

"Philotas, the father of the two girls, whose parents were natives of
Syracuse, was an adherent of the doctrines of Zeno--which have many
supporters among you at Rome too--and he was highly placed as an
official, for he was president of the Chrematistoi, a college of judges
which probably has no parallel out of Egypt, and which has been kept up