Now to view as a whole so great an extent of subject matter, to harmonize and bring
 together so many diverse varieties of discourse, to connect smoothly what follows with
 what goes before, and to make all parts consonant one with another, was by no means an
 easy undertaking. Yet I did not desist, in spite of my age, until I had accomplished it,
 such as it is. It is, at any rate, written with devotion to the truth; its other qualities
 I leave to the judgement of my hearers. But I urge all who intend to acquaint themselves with my speech, first, to make
 allowance, as they listen to it, for the fact that it is a mixed discourse, composed with
 an eye to all these subjects; next, to fix their attention even more on what is about to
 be said than on what has been said before; and, lastly, not to seek to run through the
 whole of it at the first sitting, but only so much of it as will not fatigue the
 audience. Cf. Isoc.
 12. Isocrates, through writing for a reading public, habitually uses the language
 of a discourse to be delivered. See General Introd. p. xxx. For if you comply
 with this advice, you will be better able to determine whether I speak in a manner worthy
 of my reputation. These, then, are the things which it was necessary for me to say by way of introduction.
 I beg you now to listen to my defense, which purports to have been written for a trial,
 but whose real purpose is to show the truth about myself, to make those who are ignorant
 about me know the sort of man I am and those who are afflicted with envy suffer a still
 more painful attack of this malady; for a greater revenge upon them than this I could not
 hope to obtain. I consider that in all the world there are none so depraved and so deserving of the
 severest punishment as those who have the audacity to charge others with the offenses of
 which they themselves are guilty. And this is the very thing that Lysimachus has done. For
 this informer, himself delivering a composed speech, has said more in complaint of my
 compositions than upon all other points; it is as if one were to charge another with
 breaking into a temple, while showing in his own hands plunder stolen from the gods. I would give much if he really thought that I am as “clever” as he has made me out to be
 to you, for then he would never have tried to trouble me. But now, although he alleges
 that I am able to make the weaker cause appear the stronger, The stock charge against rhetoric and oratory from Corax and Tisias down. Cf.
 Plat. Apol. 19b ; Aristoph. Cl. 874 ff. he has, in fact, so low an opinion of my powers
 that he is confident that he with his lies will win against me and the truth.