VII.  Why do you not also mention the convenience of the site, and what I may call the contest between land and sea as to which owns the City, and which adorns our Royal City with all their good things?  This then is our crime, that while you are great and splendid, we are small and come from a small place?  Many others do you this wrong, indeed all those whom you excel; and must we die because we have not reared a city, nor built walls around it, nor can boast of our racecourse, or our stadia, and pack of hounds, and all the follies that are connected with these things; nor have to boast of the beauty and splendour of our baths, and the costliness of their marbles and pictures and golden embroideries of all sorts of species, almost rivalling nature?  Nor have we yet rounded off the sea for ourselves, or mingled the seasons, as of course you, the new Creators, have done, that we may live in what is at once the pleasantest and the safest way.  Add if you like other charges, you who say, The silver is mine and the gold is mine,19    Hagg. ii. 8. those words of God.  We neither think much of riches, on which, if they increase, our Law forbids us to set our hearts, nor do we count up yearly and daily revenues; nor do we rival one another in loading our tables with enchantments for our senseless belly.  For neither do we highly esteem those things which after we have swallowed them are all of the same worth, or rather I should say worthlessness, and are rejected.  But we live so simply and from hand to mouth, as to differ but little from beasts whose sustenance is without apparatus and inartificial.

Ζʹ. Πῶς δὲ οὐ λέγεις καὶ θέσεως εὐκαιρίαν, καὶ γῆν καὶ θάλασσαν, ὥσπερ ἀμιλλωμένας, ποτέρας ἂν εἴη μᾶλλον ἡ πόλις, καὶ τοῖς παρ' ἑαυτῶν ἀγαθοῖς τὴν βασιλίδα δεξιουμένας; Τοῦτο οὖν ἀδικοῦμεν, ὅτι μεγάλοι μὲν ὑμεῖς καὶ ὑπέρλαμπροι, μικροὶ δὲ ἡμεῖς καὶ ἐκ μικρῶν ἤκοντες; Πολλοὶ καὶ ἄλλοι τοῦτο ἀδικοῦσιν ὑμᾶς, μᾶλλον δὲ πάντες ὧν ὑπεραίρετε: καὶ δεῖ τεθνάναι ἡμᾶς, ὅτι μὴ πόλιν ἠγείραμεν, μηδὲ τείχη περιεβαλλόμεθα, μηδὲ ἱππικοῖς μεγαλαυχοῦμεν, μηδὲ σταδίοις τε καὶ κυνηγεσίοις, καὶ ταῖς περὶ ταῦτα μανίαις, μηδὲ λουτρῶν χάρισι καὶ λαμπρότησι, καὶ μαρμάρων πολυτελείαις, καὶ γραφαῖς καὶ κεντήσεσι χρυσαυγέσι τε καὶ πολυειδέσι μικροῦ μιμουμέναις τὴν φύσιν; Θάλασσαν δὲ οὔπω περιεῤῥήξαμεν ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς, οὐδὲ τὰς ὥρας ἐκερασάμεθα (ὃ σὺ δηλαδὴ πεποίηκας, ὁ νέος δημιουργὸς), ἵν' ὡς ἥδιστά τε ὁμοῦ καὶ ἀσφαλέστατα βιοτεύοιμεν. Πρόσθες, εἰ βούλει, καὶ ἄλλας κατηγορίας, ὁ λέγων: Ἐμόν ἐστι τὸ ἀργύριον, καὶ ἐμόν ἐστι τὸ χρυσίον, τὰς τοῦ Θεοῦ φωνάς. Ἡμεῖς οὔτε πλούτῳ μέγα φρονοῦμεν, ᾧ ῥέοντι μὴ προστίθεσθαι, τῆς ἡμετέρας ἐστὶ νομοθεσίας, οὐδὲ προσόδους ἀριθμοῦμεν ἐτησίας τε καὶ ἡμερησίας, οὔτε τραπέζης ὄγκῳ φιλοτιμούμεθα, καὶ φαρμακείαις ταῖς ἀναισθήτου γαστρός. Οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐπαινοῦμέν τι τῶν μετὰ τὸν λαιμὸν ὁμοτίμων, μᾶλλον δὲ, ἀτίμων ὁμοίως καὶ ἀποβλήτων: ἀλλὰ ζῶμεν οὕτως ἁπλῶς καὶ σχεδίως, καὶ μικρόν τι τῶν θηρίων, οἷς ὁ βίος ἄσκευος καὶ ἀνεπιτήδευτος, διαφέροντες.