purchase their award to him of the better half of the patrimony, and, after this fraud, dissipated his ill-gotten wealth in luxury and extravagance, a favourite mode of spending his time being that of frequenting the law-tribunals, as nowadays the idletons of a town or district may be known by their lounging about the petty sessional courts when open. Perhaps the taste for litigation thus fostered furnished him with the idea of repairing his diminished fortunes by again proceeding against his brother, and hence Hesiod's invectives against the unscrupulousness of the claimant, and of the judges, who were the instruments of his rapacity. It is not distinctly stated what was the issue of this second suit, which aimed at stripping Hesiod of that smaller portion which had already been assigned to him: perhaps it was an open sore, under the influence of which he wrote his 'Works and Days,'—a persuasive to honest labour as contrasted with the idleness which is fertile in expedients for living at the expense of others—a picture from life of the active farmer, and, as a foil to him, of the idle lounger. Here is a sample of it:—
For whose ungathered food the garners wait;
Who wants within the summer's plenty stored,
Earth's kindly fruits, and Ceres' yearly hoard:
With these replenished, at the brawling bar
For other's wealth go instigate the war:
But this thou may'st no more; let justice guide,
Best boon of heaven, and future strife decide.
Not so we shared the patrimonial land,
When greedy pillage filled thy grasping hand;
