Peace, page 48 by Aristophanes
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t am I going to do with this fine ten-minae breastplate, which is so splendidly made?
TRYGAEUS Oh, you will lose nothing over it.
BREASTPLATE-MAKER I will sell it to you at cost price.
TRYGAEUS 'Twould be very useful as a night-stool...
BREASTPLATE-MAKER Cease your insults, both to me and my wares.
TRYGAEUS ...if propped on three stones. Look, 'tis admirable.
BREASTPLATE-MAKER But how can you wipe, idiot?
TRYGAEUS I can pass one hand through here, and the other there, and so...
BREASTPLATE-MAKER What! do you wipe with both hands?
TRYGAEUS Aye, so that I may not be accused of robbing the State, by blocking up an oar-hole in the galley.[1]
f[1] The trierarchs stopped up some of the holes made for the oars, in order to reduce the number of rowers they had to supply for the galleys; they thus saved the wages of the rowers they dispensed with.
BREASTPLATE-MAKER So you would pay ten minae[1] for a night-stool?
f[1] The mina was equivalent to about three pounds, ten shillings.
TRYGAEUS Undoubtedly, you rascal. Do you think I would sell my rump for a thousand drachmae?[1]
f[1] Which is the same thing, since a mina was worth a hundred drachmae.
BREASTPLATE-MAKER Come, have the money paid over to me.
TRYGAEUS No, friend; I find it hurts me to sit on. Take it away, I won't buy it.
A TRUMPET-MAKER What is to be done with this trumpet, for which I gave sixty drachmae the other day?
TRYGAEUS Pour lead into the hollow and fit a good, long stick to the top; and you will have a balanced cottabos.[1]
f[1] For 'cottabos' see note above.
TRUMPET-MAKER Ha! would you mock me?
TRYGAEUS Well, here's another notion. Pour in lead as I said, add here a dish hung on strings, and you will have a balance for weighing the figs which you give your slaves in the fields.
A HELMET-MAKER Cursed fate! I am ruined. Here are helmets, for which I gave a mina