Let not these thoughts afflict you, I shall live unhonored and be
nobody nowhere. For if want of honor ([Greek: atimia]) is an evil, you
cannot be in evil through the means (fault) of another any more than
you can be involved in anything base. Is it then your business to
obtain the rank of a magistrate, or to be received at a banquet? By no
means. How then can this be want of honor (dishonor)? And how will you
be nobody nowhere, when you ought to be somebody in those things only
which are in your power, in which indeed it is permitted to you to be a
man of the greatest worth? But your friends will be without assistance!
What do you mean by being without assistance? They will not receive
money from you, nor will you make them Roman citizens. Who then told
you that these are among the things which are in our power, and not in
the power of others? And who can give to another what he has not
himself? Acquire money then, your friends say, that we also may have
something. If I can acquire money and also keep myself modest and
faithful and magnanimous, point out the way, and I will acquire it. But
if you ask me to lose the things which are good and my own, in order
that you may gain the things which are not good, see how unfair and
silly you are. Besides, which would you rather have, money or a
faithful and modest friend? For this end then rather help me to be such
a man, and do not ask me to do this by which I shall lose that
character. But my country, you say, as far as it depends on me, will be
without my help. I ask again, what help do you mean? It will not have
porticos or baths through you. And what does this mean? For it is not
furnished with shoes by means of a smith, nor with arms by means of a
shoemaker. But it is enough if every man fully discharges the work that
is his own: and if you provided it with another citizen faithful and
modest, would you not be useful to it? Yes. Then you also cannot be
useless to it. What place then, you say, shall I hold in the city?
Whatever you can, if you maintain at the same time your fidelity and
modesty. But if when you wish to be useful to the state, you shall lose
these qualities, what profit could you be to it, if you were made
shameless and faithless?