Antidosis (161-165)

But why speak of public affairs? For I have myself, in my own affairs, suffered not a little from this change. For when I was beginning to repair my own fortunes after I had lost in the Peloponnesian War the patrimony which remained to me from what my father had spent partly in rendering himself serviceable to the state and partly in educating me with such care that I was more conspicuous then and more distinguished among the youth of my own age and among my fellow-students than I am now among my fellow-citizens[*]—

when, as I have said, I began to attach pupils to myself, I thought that if I could acquire a greater competence and attain a higher position than others who had started in the same profession, I should be acclaimed both for the superiority of my teaching and for the excellence of my conduct.

But the result has been the very opposite; for if I had turned out to be worthless and had excelled in nothing, no one would have made trouble for me;[*] nay, I might have been a flagrant offender and yet lived secure—from the sycophants, at any rate. But now, instead of the acclaim which I expected, I have been rewarded with trials and perils and envy and calumny.

For so much does the Athens of this day rejoice in repressing and humiliating honest men, while giving license to the depraved to say and do what they please, that Lysimachus, a man who has elected to live by practicing intrigue and by preying from day to day on his fellow-citizens, is here in court denouncing me; while I, who have never in my life injured any man, who have kept my hands clean from such spoils, and have provided my advantages from foreigners who feel that I have served them well, am charged with grave offenses and placed in very great peril by this trial.

And yet all sensible men would do well to pray the gods to endow as many of our people as possible with the power of getting means from abroad in order to make themselves serviceable to the city, even as I have done. But, though there are many anomalies in my situation, it would be the crowning absurdity of all if, when the men who have paid me money are so grateful to me that they are still even now devoted to me,