OPSOPHA&Y. 503 



nourable men;' in repute alike for their learning and in- 

 tegrity, and holding situations of trust in church and state. 

 For a considerable period, some of the body were asso- 

 ciated with the highest functionaries of the Government, 

 two being assigned to the minister for the home depart- 

 ment, and one to the vdXlfMpxo'i, or minister of war, 

 with salary, and a table well furnished, especially with 

 fish found them by the state. So honourable was the 

 profession, and so implicit the trust reposed in its mem- 

 bers by the citizens at large, that a certain sacred gra- 

 nary, called Parasitium, filled with com for the service 

 of the gods, was placed under its immediate custody and 

 control; nor were the parasites less studious on their 

 sides to do justice to the high trust thus reposed in them ; 

 and it was no tmusual thing, in the better days of the 

 craft, to read mural inscriptions in the temples, comme- 

 morative of public services rendered by certain of its re- 

 presentatives, for which they had obtained, in company 

 with some patriotic prsetor, the like civic acknowledgment 

 of a crown of gold. The perquisites of the body, exclusive 

 of the usual 'honoraire,' must have been considerable, 

 since it received by right of ofiice one-third of the oxen 

 immolated in honour of Castor and Pollux, besides sun- 

 dry good pickings from many other sacrifices as well. 

 At what period of its history, parasitism, still retaining 

 the name, changed its import, and its honourable and 

 much honoured professors began first to lose credit with 

 the body politic, till they gave up the key of the Para- 

 sitium, and ceased to cater for the gods, is unknown; as 

 is also the precise time when, having ceased to ' suck 

 advantage ' out of the state, the hungry tribe sank yet 

 lower in public estimation, and fastened its fangs on 

 wealthy individuals, and became the toadies and syco- 

 phants at great men's tables. But though the olympiad 

 when these ' fools of fortune' began to corrupt their ways 

 is unknown, the obvious source of their malpractices, the 



