Slander: on not Being Quick to Put Faith in it (5-6)

On the right of it sits a man with very large ears, almost like those of Midas, extending his hand to Slander while she is still at some distance from him. Near him, on one side, stand two women—Ignorance, I think, and Suspicion. On the other side, Slander is coming up, a woman beautiful beyond measure, but full of passion and excitement, evincing as she does fury and wrath by carrying in her left hand a blazing torch and with the other dragging by the hair a young man who stretches out his hands to heaven

That is the way in which Apelles represented in the painting his own hairbreadth escape.

Come, suppose we too, if you like, following the lead of the Ephesian artist, portray the characteristics of slander, after first sketching it in outline: for in that way our picture will perhaps come out more clearly. Slander, then, is a clandestine accusation, made without the cognizance of the accused and sustained by the uncontradicted assertion of one side. This is the subject of my lecture, and since there are three leading characters in slander as in comedy—the slanderér, the slandered person, and the hearer of the slander,—let us consider what is likely to happen in the case of each of them. [*]