Patrimony

...then ERAKLAION, wielding the Staff of Speech, ascended the dais and adressed the assembly:

"Father! Friends! Servants, both male and female! Machemalius, you whose hosts threaten outside the city walls! What is the meaning of calling assembly if you will not listen to a word the people of Herakleia offer to you? Surely, regardless of the outcome of the struggle which will almost surely come to pass outside these walls, you wish to learn something of the people you might be called on to rule and bend to your will. Even if we are vanquished and all the young men of Herkleia put to the sword, surely even then you will have to contend with the deadlier barbs of the whispers of old men in the marketplace, or the harangues of old washer-women on the collonnades of my father's palace! Surely, Machemalius, you wish to gain some insight into the workings of our foreign minds! Your people are of the pastures, ill-versed in the ways of trade and commerce. Tell, me, conqueror, have you ever parleyed with a crew of Numidian sailors? All the spears, shields, swords, arrows and polearms in all the seven seas will not suffice to afright these men! Who will you count on to build your fortune, lest it be carried away across the trackless seas only they can navigate? Who will fill your amphoras with wine sweet and delicate if you cannot grow the right grapes. You talk of slaughter. You threaten to cut the flower of Herakleia's youth. But, conquering "hero", it is certain you will grow old behind these walls in a manner of weeks. Where will your shepherd soul run? Where will you hide the wrinkles between your brows, the aspect of ape-like puzzlement? Where, pray tell, warrior, will you find your skill with the abacus if I do not teach it to you? Such is the case with the folk from the northlands: good for felling trees, and rollign those trees down mighty rivers. It develops a solid physique, but it sears the mind with its indelible stamp: the stamp of illiteracy, the stamp of innumeracy, of the kind that flees tall vaulted buildings for fear of them falling. Such foolishness hopes to conquer Herkleia? Hah! Father, briends, servants: do not listen to his empty, stammering words!"

And with this a mightly derisive roar rose up from the people, and Machemalius, his tongue paralyzed by surprise, left the hall without firther words, and was followed to the gate by old women who clacked their tongues.

Consider: "In a world where everything is ridiculous, nothing can be ridiculed. You cannot unmask a mask."