the one set are for attacking beasts; and
the other their own friends. (24) And naturally the assailant of his
own friends does not win the general esteem; (25) whilst the huntsman in
attacking a wild beast may win renown. If successful in his capture, he
was won a victory over a hostile brood; or failing, in the first place,
it is a feather in his cap that his attempt is made against enemies of
the whole community; and secondly, that it is not to the detriment of
man nor for love of gain that the field is taken; and thirdly, as the
outcome of the very attempt, the hunter is improved in many respects,
and all the wiser: by what means we will explain. Were it not for
the very excess of his pains, his well-reasoned devices, his manifold
precautions, he would never capture the quarry at all; since the
antagonists he deals with are doing battle for bare life and in their
native haunts, (26) and are consequently in great force. So that if he
fails to overmatch the beasts by a zest for toil transcending theirs and
plentiful intelligence, the huntsman's labours are in vain.

(15) Or, "surrender themselves heedlessly to the ways of self-
seeking." But the phraseology here seems to savour of extreme
youth, or else senility.

(16) {enthumethenta}. Query, in reference to {enthumemata} above?

(17) Reading {andron}. For the vulg. {auton} see Schneid. ad loc., who
suggests {ton aston}.

(18) "Recognisable for the better."

(19) "They are not famous but infamous"; "the bad fare as their name
suggests" (i.e. badly).

(20) "Recognisable for the worse."

(21) Or, "what with private extortionsand public peculation."

(22) {ton idioton}, "laymen," I suppose, as opposed to "professional"
lawyers or politicians.

(23) "What with their incapacity for hard work, their physique for
purposes of war is a mockery and a sham."

(24) Cf. Plat. "Soph."

(25) Or, "earns but an evil reputation in the world."

(26) "They are being bearded in their dens."

I go back to my proposition then. Those self-seeking politicians, who
want to feather their own nests, (27) practise to win victories over
their own side, but the sportsman confines himself to the common enemy.
This training of theirs renders the one set more able to cope with the
foreign foe, the others far less able. The hunting of the one is carried
on with self-restraint, of the others with effrontery. The one can look
down with contempt upon ma