19
Take your seats, you who have been drawn to hear Stoa v. Pleasure in re a lover. The clock is filled. You with the paint upon you and the gaudy colours, make your plea now.An allusion to the famous frescoes of the Painted Porch; Polygnotus’ Taking of Troy, Theseus and the Amazons, and Battle of Marathon. Lucian brings in a bit of fun by deliberately using language which suggests a painted face and a gay dress and is in this sense so incongruous as to be comical.
20
I am not unaware, gentlemen of the jury, that I shall have to speak against an attractive opponent; indeed, I see that most of you are gazing at her and smiling at her, contemptuous of me because my head is close-clipped, my glance is masculine, and I seem dour. Nevertheless, if you are willing to hear me speak, I am confident that my plea will be.far more just than hers.
20
As a matter of fact, the present charge is that by getting herself up in this courtesan style she beguiled my lover, Dionysius, a respectable man until then, by the seductiveness of her appearance, and drew him to herself. Furthermore, the suit which your predecessors decided between the Academy and Intemperance was the twin-sister of the present suit. For the point at issue now is whether we should live like swine with our noses to the ground in the enjoyment of pleasure, without a single noble thought, or whether, considering what is enjoyable — secondary to what is right, we should follow philosophy in a free spirit like free men, neither fearing pain as invincible nor giving preference to pleasure in a servile spirit and seeking happiness in honey and in figs. By holding out such bait to silly people and by making a bogey. out of pain,' my opponent wins over the greater part of them, and this poor man is one; she made him run away from me by keeping an eye upon him until he was ill, for while he was well he would never have accepted her arguments.
