Laudator Temporis Acti

Aristophanes, Frogs 718-737 (tr. Matthew Dillon):

Many times it seems to us the city has done
the same thing with the best and the brightest of its citizens
as with the old coinage and the new gold currency.
For these, not counterfeit at all,
but the finest it seems of all coins,
and the only ones of the proper stamp, of resounding metal
amongst Greeks and foreigners everywhere,
we never use, but the inferior bronze ones instead,
minted just yesterday or the day before with the basest stamp.
So too the citizens whom we know to be noble and virtuous,
and righteous and true men of quality
and trained in the palaestra and dancing and music,
these we despise, but the brazen foreigners and redheads
worthless sons of worthless fathers, these we use for everything,
these latest parvenus, whom the city before this
wouldn't have lightly used even for random scapegoats.
But now, you dimwits, change your ways,
and employ the good ones again. And if you succeed,
it's praiseworthy. But if you stumble, at least you'll hang from a respectable tree—
So wise men will think, if anything happens to you.

πολλάκις γ᾽ ἡμῖν ἔδοξεν ἡ πόλις πεπονθέναι
ταὐτὸν εἴς τε τῶν πολιτῶν τοὺς καλούς τε κἀγαθοὺς
εἴς τε τἀρχαῖον νόμισμα καὶ τὸ καινὸν χρυσίον.        720
οὔτε γὰρ τούτοισιν, οὖσιν οὐ κεκιβδηλευμένοις
ἀλλὰ καλλίστοις ἁπάντων, ὡς δοκεῖ, νομισμάτων
καὶ μόνοις ὀρθῶς κοπεῖσι καὶ κεκωδωνισμένοις
ἔν τε τοῖς Ἕλλησι καὶ τοῖς βαρβάροισι πανταχοῦ
χρώμεθ᾽ οὐδέν, ἀλλὰ τούτοις τοῖς πονηροῖς χαλκίοις,        725
χθές τε καὶ πρώην κοπεῖσι, τῷ κακίστῳ κόμματι.
τῶν πολιτῶν θ᾽ οὓς μὲν ἴσμεν εὐγενεῖς καὶ σώφρονας
ἄνδρας ὄντας καὶ δικαίους καὶ καλούς τε κἀγαθοὺς
καὶ τραφέντας ἐν παλαίστραις καὶ χοροῖς καὶ μουσικῇ,
προυσελοῦμεν, τοῖς δὲ χαλκοῖς καὶ ξένοις καὶ πυρρίαις        730
καὶ πονηροῖς κἀκ πονηρῶν εἰς ἅπαντα χρώμεθα,
ὑστάτοις ἀφιγμένοισιν, οἷσιν ἡ πόλις πρὸ τοῦ
οὐδὲ φαρμακοῖσιν εἰκῇ ῥᾳδίως ἐχρήσατ᾽ ἄν.
ἀλλὰ καὶ νῦν, ὦνόητοι, μεταβαλόντες τοὺς τρόπους
χρῆσθε τοῖς χρηστοῖσιν αὖθις· καὶ κατορθώσασι γὰρ        735
εὔλογον, κἄν τι σφαλῆτ᾽, ἐξ ἀξίου γοῦν τοῦ ξύλου,
ἤν τι καὶ πάσχητε, πάσχειν τοῖς σοφοῖς δοκήσετε.

Douglas MacDowell, Aristophanes and Athens (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 287-288:

There is more advice in the speech which concludes the parabasis (the antepirrhema). This is not about ordinary citizens, but about political leaders, and it is introduced by a famous comparison with Athenian coinage. The same thing has happened to the best men, says the chorus, as to the old silver coins and the new gold ones. At this time the Athenians had three kinds of coinage. For nearly two centuries they had used silver coins, but in the latter part of the Peloponnesian War, when the Spartans occupied Dekeleia, they could no longer get regular access to their silver mines at Laureion. So in 407/6 they melted down some gold dedications on the Akropolis to make gold coins; but even a small gold coin has a high value, and these were not much use for everyday shopping. A few months before the performance of Frogs, therefore, they produced some bronze coins plated with silver. These were, like most modern coins, tokens, representing a higher amount than the intrinsic value of the metal they contained. Consequently they were unpopular, and Gresham's law operated: the bronze coins were constantly in circulation, while the silver and gold disappeared.¹⁴ That is just how it is, says the chorus, with our citizens. We treat insultingly those who are well-born, well-behaved, upright, fine, good men, with the traditional education in music and athletics, and instead we use for every purpose the bronze, foreign, red-haired ones, bad sons of bad fathers, the latest arrivals (727-33). 'We use' must mean that they are elected to be generals and to hold other important offices. The passage seems to mean that such offices are now given to recent immigrants and not to the members of old-established Athenian families.

¹⁴ I follow the usual view here, but there is some disagreement about the numismatic details. Cf. W.E. Thompson Mnemosyne 19 (1966) 337-43, A. Giovannini GRBS 16 (1975) 185-90, J.H. Kroll GRBS 17 (1976) 329-41, W. Weiser ZPE 76 (1989) 275.