Antidosis

I would give much if he really thought that I am as “clever” as he has made me out to be to you, for then he would never have tried to trouble me. But now, although he alleges that I am able to make the weaker cause appear the stronger,[*](The stock charge against rhetoric and oratory from Corax and Tisias down. Cf. Plat. Apol. 19b; Aristoph. Cl. 874 ff.) he has, in fact, so low an opinion of my powers that he is confident that he with his lies will win against me and the truth.

And so maliciously has everything conspired against me, that while others may depend on their power of speech to make an end of calumnies, it is, in my case, just this power of speech which Lysimachus has most calumniated, in order that if I shall appear to speak well, I may show that I am subject to the charges which he has made about my cleverness; while if it turns out that I speak less ably than he has led you to expect, you may think that mine is the weaker cause.