Alluding to the necessity of labour to the poor, Plato says:—If an artisan happen to fall sick, he demands a rapid cure of his physician by emetics or aperients, or cautery, or surgical operation. But if he be recommended a long and careful attention to regimen, to tie up his head and such things, he speedily replies, that he has no leisure to play the valetudinarian, and that it is of no advantage to him to preserve his life by such continual nursings, while his affairs are going to ruin. Thus dismissing his physician, and returning to his ordinary diet, if he recover he pursues his calling, if not he is delivered from all his troubles at once. De Repub. t. vi. l. iii. p. 145. Footnote 354: Ἐπισίτιοι. Plat. Rep. iv. § 1. t. i. p. 263. Stallb. Athen. vi. 50. Cf. Bœckh. Pub. Econ. i. 156, on the lowness of wages. On the Pelatæ see the note of Rünkh. ad Tim. Lex. in v. Meris, p. 208. Bekk.—Plat. Euthyph. t.i. p. 356. Poll. iii. 82. Dionysius of Halicarnassus entertained a strange notion of the θῆτες and πελάται of the Athenians, whose condition he supposes to have been inferior to that of the Roman clients. He pretends, indeed, that clientship arose in Greece, and was only established by imitation at Rome: ἔθος Ἑλληνικὸν καὶ Ἀρχαῖον, he says, ὧ Θετταλοί τε μέχρι πολλοῦ χρώμενοι διετέλεσαν καὶ Ἀθηναῖοι καταρχὰς. ἐκεῖνοι μὲν γὰρ ἐπιτάττοντες οὐ προσήκοντα ἐλευθέροις, καὶ ὁπότε μὴ πράξειάν τι τῶν κελευρομένων, πληγὰς ἐντείνοντες, καὶ τἄλλα ὥσπερ ἀργυρωνήτοις χρώμενοι. ἐκάλουν δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι μὲν Θῆτας τοὺς Πελάτας, ἐπὶ τῆς λατρείας Θετταλοὶ δὲ, Πενέστας, ὀνειδίζοντες αὐτοῖς εὐθὺς ἐν τῇ κλήσει τὴν τύχην. Antiq. Rom. ii. 9. Reiske very justly remarks on this passage, that he does not see with what propriety the Thetes of Attica are classed with the Thessalian Penestæ, in comparing them with the Roman Clients. For it is most certain (as H. Stephens shows in his Schediasm. v. 15, seq.), that the condition of the Penestæ bore little resemblance to that of the Roman Clients. And as to the Attic Thetes and Pelatæ they were completely free, though inferior in rank to the artisans (οἱ βαναυσοὶ, Steph. Thes. v. θῆς); nor did they serve as slaves serve their masters (ut δοῦλοι δεσπόταις); but, as appears from the Scholiast on Odyss. δ. 644, as poor and debt-oppressed persons hire their services to the rich or to their creditors, who were denominated χρήστας, not προστάτας, or δεσπότας. The condition of the Thessalian Penestæ was different: for they were nearly slaves, μεταξὺ δούλων καὶ ἐλευθέρων, as the ancients called them. (Pollux, iii. 83.) Those among them who served in families were named θετταλοικέται. (Reiske, ad Dion. Hal. t. i. p. 255.) Footnote 355: Demosth. adv. Eubul. Footnote 356: Demosth. de Coron. § 16. Cf. Plat. Rep. ii. 12. Stallb. Footnote 357: Diphilos ap. Athen. ii. 45. Footnote 358: Luc. Dial. Meret. vi. § 1. Plut. Arat. § 54. -----