The decay of Hellas, and the feelings which it called forth among the best men, come before us after a striking manner in the appeal which one of these, the Bithynian Dio, addressed about the time of Vespasian to the Rhodians. These were not unjustly regarded as the most excellent of the Hellenes. In no city were the lower population better cared for, and nowhere did that care bear more the stamp of giving not alms but work. When, after the great civil war, Augustus made all private debts irrecoverable at law in the East, the Rhodians alone rejected the dangerous favour. Although the great epoch of Rhodian commerce was over, there were still in Rhodes numerous flourishing branches of business and wealthy houses.[172] But many evils had invaded the place, and the philosopher demands that they be done away, not so much, as he says, for the sake of the Rhodians, as for the sake of the Hellenes in common. "Once upon a time the honour of Hellas rested on many, and many increased its renown--you, the Athenians, the Lacedaemonians, Thebes, Corinth for a time, at a remote period Argos. But now the others are as nothing; for some are totally decayed and destroyed, others conduct themselves as you know, and are dishonoured and destroyers of their old renown. You are surviving; you alone are still somewhat and are not utterly despised; for, after the way in which those go to work, all Hellenes would long ago have sunken more deeply than the Phrygians and the Thracians. As when a great and noble family is reduced to a single survivor, and the sin which this last of the house commits brings all his ancestors into dishonour, so you stand in Hellas. Believe not that you are the first of the Greeks; you are the only ones. If we look at those pitiful scoundrels, the great destinies of the past become themselves inconceivable; the stones and ruins of cities show more clearly the pride and the greatness of Hellas than these descendants not even worthy of Mysian ancestors; and better than with towns inhabited by such as these has it fared with those cities which lie in ruins, for their memory remains in honour and their well-acquired renown unstained--better burn the carcase than allow it to lie rotting."[173] [Sidenote: The good old manners.]