[56]
For it would be the height of absurdity if in a case where my accuser denounces me for writing the kind of speeches which both hurt our city and corrupt our youth I used other speeches in my defense, when I can clear my name of the calumnies which are being heaped upon it by producing before you the very discourses of which he complains.I ask of you, then, for these reasons to bear with me and to lend me your support. But for the benefit of the others on the jury1 I shall attempt to proceed with my selections, after a further word of explanation to enable them to follow more easily what is said.
1 That is, those of the jury who had not “read these discourses many times.”
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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