Demonax (10-11)

Such was the character of his philosophy—kind, gentle and cheerful. The only thing which distressed him was the illness or death of a friend, for he considered friendship the greatest of human blessings. For this reason he was everyone’s friend, and there was no human being whom he did not include in his affections, though he liked the society of some better than that of others. He held aloof only from those who seemed to him to be involved in sin beyond hope of cure. And in all this, his every word and deed was smiled on by the Graces and by Aphrodite, even; so that, to quote the comedian, “persuasion perched upon his lips.”1

Hence all Athens, high and low, admired him enormously and always viewed him as a superior being. Yet in office he ran counter to public opinion and won from the masses quite as much hatred as his prototype[*] by his freedom of speech and action. He too had his Anytus and his Meletus who combined against him and brought the same charges that their predecessors brought against Socrates, asserting that he had never been known to sacrifice and was the only man in the community uninitiated in the Eleusinian mysteries. In reply to this, with right good [*]