13
I was told he was not present at the meeting. Then what profit was he seeking, when he was so zealous in getting me into disgrace with you that he busied himself with fabricating such a story for my relatives?
14
And I observe that not only now, but for a long time past, you have been seeking a pretext; as when you declared that Thrasymachus was defaming you because of me. Well, I asked him if it was because of me that he was defaming Diodorus; and how he disdained that because of me! For he said he was far from defaming Diodorus because of anybody. If I should prefer this charge, Thrasymachus was anxious to be put to the test in regard to this man’s statements;
15
but to settle it thus was the last thing that the latter would have done. After that Autocrates told Thrasymachus in my presence that Euryptolemus was complaining of him, with the assertion that he was being defamed by him, and that the reporter of this was Menophilus. Immediately Thrasymachus walked over with me to see Menophilus; who asserted that at no time had he either heard it or reported it to Euryptolemus, and what was more, that he had not even talked with him for a long time.
16
Such were the pretexts that you clearly invented then from my association with Thrasymachus; but now that pretexts have failed you, in more straightforward oppression you show that you stop at nothing. I ought indeed to have understood then that this fate was in store for me, when you were actually defaming to me your own members; and then I have told you my whole opinion of Polycles, whom you are now supporting.
17
What can have made me so incautious? It was a fatuous lapse in me. I thought I was a friend of yours who was exempt from all defamation for the very reason that you defamed the others to me, since I held a pledge from each of you,—your malicious statements about one another.
