38. For, to begin with what is important, what advantage is it to the world that the mightiest kings are here? What, that there are tyrants, lords, and other innumerable and very illustrious powers? What, that there are generals of the greatest experience in war, skilled in taking cities; soldiers steady and utterly invincible in battles of cavalry, or in fighting hand to hand on foot? What, that there are orators, grammarians, poets, writers, logicians, musicians, ballet-dancers, mimics, actors, singers, trumpeters, flute and reed players? What, that there are runners, boxers, charioteers, vaulters, 3664 walkers on stilts, rope-dancers, jugglers? What, that there are dealers in salt fish, salters, fishmongers, perfumers, goldsmiths, bird-catchers, weavers of winnowing fans and baskets of rushes? What, that there are fullers, workers in wool, embroiderers, cooks, confectioners, dealers in mules, pimps, butchers, harlots? What, that there are other kinds of dealers? What do the other kinds of professors and arts, for the enumeration of which all life would be too short, contribute to the plan and constitution 3665 of the world, that we should believe 3666 that it could not have been founded without men, and would not attain its completeness without the addition of 3667 a wretched and useless being’s exertion? 3668 3664     i.e., from one horse to another— desultores. 3665     Rationibus et constitutionibus. 3666     Lit., “it should be believed.” 3667     Lit., “unless there were joined.” 3668     So the ms. , reading contentio , which Orelli would understand as meaning “contents,” which may be correct. LB. reads conditio —“condition,” ineptly; and Ursinus in the margin, completio —“the filling up.”