I remember, indeed, long ago an aged man related to me how things passed there, offering himself to be my leader, and enrol me on my arrival in the number of the citizens.

I was but fifteen--certainly very foolish: and it may be that I was then actually within the suburbs, or at the very gates, of the city.

Well, this aged man told me, among other things, that all the citizens were wayfarers from afar.

Among them were barbarians and slaves, poor [154] men--aye! and cripples--all indeed who truly desired that citizenship.

For the only legal conditions of enrolment were--not wealth, nor bodily beauty, nor noble ancestry--things not named among them--but intelligence, and the desire for moral beauty, and earnest labour.