nner it does not
accord with the character of a grateful man, to wish that his benefactor
may fall into troubles which he may dispel; because, even though he may
mean well to him, yet he wishes him evil. To put out a fire which you
yourself have lighted, will not even gain acquittal for you, let alone
credit.

XXXVIII. In some states an evil wish was regarded as a crime. It is
certain that at Athens Demades obtained a verdict against one who sold
furniture for funerals, by proving that he had prayed for great gains,
which he could not obtain without the death of many persons. Yet it is
a stock question whether he was rightly found guilty. Perhaps he prayed,
not that he might sell his wares to many persons, but that he might sell
them dear, or that he might procure what he was going to sell, cheaply.
Since his business consisted of buying and selling, why should you
consider his prayer to apply to one branch of it only, although he made
profit from both? Besides this, you might find every one of his trade
guilty, for they all wish, that is, secretly pray, as he did. You might,
moreover, find a great part of the human race guilty, for who is there
who does not profit by his neighbour's wants? A soldier, if he wishes
for glory, must wish for war; the farmer profits by corn being dear;
a large number of litigants raises the price of forensic eloquence;
physicians make money by a sickly season; dealers in luxuries are
made rich by the effeminacy of youth; suppose that no storms and no
conflagrations injured our dwellings, the builder's trade would be at a
standstill. The prayer of one man was detected, but it was just like the
prayers of all other men. Do you imagine that Arruntius and Haterius,
and all other professional legacy-hunters do not put up the same prayers
as undertakers and grave-diggers? though the latter know not whose death
it is that they wish for, while the former wish for the death of their
dearest friends, from whom, on account of their intimacy, they have most
hopes of inheriting a fortune. No one's life does the undertaker any
harm, whereas these men starve if their friends are long about dying;
they do not, therefore, merely wish for their deaths in order that they
may receive what they have earned by a disgraceful servitude, but in
order that they may be set free from a heavy tax. There can, therefore,
be no doubt that such persons repeat with even greater earnestness the
prayer for which the undertake