forces you; if you sue him, he comes to terms with you; if you swear, he hectors; if you go to his house, he shuts the door in your face; whereas if you stay at home, he billets himself on you, and is ever rapping at your door. Sec. IV. How did Solon benefit the Athenians by ordaining that debtors should no longer have to pay in person? For they are slaves to all money-lenders,[888] and not to them only, what would there be so monstrous in that? but to their slaves, who are insolent and savage barbarians, such as Plato represents the fiery torturers and executioners in Hades who preside over the punishment of the impious. For they make the forum a hell for wretched debtors, and like vultures devour and rend them limb from limb, "piercing into their bowels,"[889] and stand over others and prevent their tasting their own grapes or crops, as if they were so many Tantaluses. And as Darius sent Datis and Artaphernes to Athens with manacles and chains in their hands for their captives, so they bring into Greece boxes full of bonds and agreements, like fetters, and visit the towns and scour the country round, sowing not like Triptolemus harmless corn, but planting the toilsome and prolific and never-ending roots of debts, which grow and spread all round, and ruin and choke cities. They say that hares at once give birth and suckle and conceive again, but the debts of these knaves and barbarians give birth before they conceive; for at the very moment of giving they ask back, and take up what they laid down, and lend what they take for lending.