28
Stop applauding! Pour in the water for the defendant. Now, Frankness, make your speech in turn, for the water now is running for you. Don’t delay, then.
29
Diogenes did not complete the complaint against me, Philosophy. He left out, for some reason or other, the greater part of what I said, and everything that was very severe. But I am so far from denying. that I said it all and from appearing with a studied defence that whatever he passed over in silence or I neglected previously to say, I purpose to include now. In that way you can find out whom I put up for sale and abused, calling them pretenders and cheats. And I beg you merely to note throughout whether what I say about them is true. If my speech should prove to contain anything shocking or offensive, it is not I, their critic, but they, I think, whom you would justly blame for it, acting as they do.
29
As soon as I perceived how many disagreeable attributes a public speaker must needs acquire, such as chicanery, lying, impudence, loudness of mouth, sharpness of elbow, and what all besides, I fled from all that, as was natural, and set out to attain your high ideals, Philosophy, expecting to sail, as it were, out of stormy waters into a peaceful haven and to live out the rest of my life under your protection.
