Non enim inquit Aper inauditum et indefensum saeculum nostrum patiar hac vestra conspiratione damnari: sed hoc primum interrogabo, quos vocetis antiquos, quam oratorum aetatem significatione  ista determinetis? Ego enim cum audio antiquos, quosdam veteres et olim natos intellego, ac mihi versantur ante oculos Ulixes ac Nestor, quorum aetas mille fere et trecentis annis saeculum nostrum antecedit; vos autem Demosthenem et Hyperidem profertis, quos satis constat Philippi et Alexandri temporibus floruisse, ita tamen ut utrique superstites essent.
Certainly, Aper rejoined: you are in collusion, and I will not allow judgement to go by default, and without a hearing, against our own times. But to begin with, I shall ask this question: who is it that you call the ancients, and what period of oratory do you designate by your, use of the word? For myself, when I hear people speaking of the ancients, I take it that they are referring to persons remote from us, who lived long ago: I have in my minds eye heroes like Ulysses and Nestor, whose epoch antedates our own times by about thirteen hundred years. You on the other hand bring forward Demosthenes and Hyperides, whose date is well authenticated. They flourished in the days of Philip and Alexander, and indeed survived both these princes.
final_alignments\Tacitus_Dialogus.json