Plato in Italy

But what can you do? There is a puerile mania to want to preserve everything that comes from great men; nor do we remember that they many times either are, or must, or want to be small! . . . Who knows on what occasion Charondas might have uttered that remark? . . . Behold a anagnosta reader/scribe inserts it into a collection of memorable sayings and deeds of Charondas; another more foolish anagnosta reader/scribe inserts it among his laws; it passes from mouth to mouth, arrives at posterity, and produces very grave evils (1). And behold the oligarchs of Thurii, their minds corrupted by the authority of such a sentence, already count among disasters that which is the sweetest reward that a good father can receive: to see around his table a numerous offspring that surrounds him as the green shoots surround a fruit-bearing olive tree. It is considered a misfortune to have few children, because in this way they will be richer. In a corrupt city, the father has no other good to leave his children.

(1) What is said here about the laws of Charondas is similar to what Diodorus says about them. But whoever knows how to reflect sees that the same facts are exposed in two different aspects. Charondas, according to Diodorus, appears little less than mad; according to Stobaeus, he is a madman and a half. — See appendix I.