Antidosis

But when my eyes were opened, as I have said, to the fact that a greater number than I supposed had mistaken ideas about me, I began to ponder how I could show to them and to posterity the truth about my character, my life, and the education to which I am devoted, and not suffer myself to be condemned on these issues without a trial nor to remain, as I had just been, at the mercy of my habitual calumniators.

And as I kept thinking upon it, I came ever to the same conclusion, namely, that the only way in which I could accomplish this was to compose a discourse which would be, as it were, a true image of my thought and of my whole life; for I hoped that this would serve both as the best means of making known the truth about me and, at the same time, as a monument, after my death, more noble than statues of bronze.[*](Cf. Horace Odes 3.30.1: monumentum aere perennius. Cf. Isoc. 9.73 ff. A bronze statue was erected to Isocrates by his pupil Timotheus. See General Introd. p. xxix.)

I saw, however, that if I were to attempt a eulogy of myself, I should not be able to cover all the points which I proposed to discuss, nor should I succeed in treating them without arousing the displeasure or even the envy of my hearers. But it occurred to me that if I were to adopt the fiction of a trial and of a suit brought against me—if I were to suppose that a sycophant[*](For the sycophants see Isoc. 8.128, note.) had brought an indictment and was threatening me with trouble[*](“To make trouble ”— PRA/GMATA PARE/XEIN—was the common phrase for the persecution of the sycophants. Cf. 15.) and that he was using the calumnies which had been urged against me in the suit about the exchange of property, while I, for my part, cast my speech in the form of a defense in court—in this way it would be possible to discuss to the best advantage all the points which I wanted to make.