Antidosis

But as things are I am utterly at a loss to know what I could do to satisfy men of this stamp. For if I have made it my object all my life not to injure or burden or offend any man, and if by this very course I offend certain people, what could I do to please them? Or what conclusion is left to me other than that I seem to be unfortunate, and that these people appear to be boorish and churlish toward their fellow-citizens?

It is, therefore, utter folly to seek to justify myself to those who are not minded like other men but are harder on the innocent than on the guilty; for it is obvious that the more honest a man shows himself to be, the more hopeless will he make his case in their eyes. But to the others[*](So Socrates, in Plato's Apology, addresses first one group of the jury, then the other.) I must address myself in reply to the false charge of Lysimachus that I am possessed of enormous wealth, lest this statement, if credited, impose upon me greater public burdens than I could bear.

Now, generally speaking, you will find that no one of the so-called sophists has accumulated a great amount of money, but that some of them have lived in poor, others in moderate circumstances. The man who in our recollection laid up the most was Gorgias of Leontini.[*](See General Introd. p. xii.) He spent his time in Thessaly when the Thessalians were the most prosperous[*](See Isoc. 8.117.) people in Hellas; he lived a long life[*](He lived one hundred and seven years according to Cicero, De senect. v.) and devoted himself to the making of money;