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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 othersSo 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.
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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 prosperousSee Isoc. 8.117. people in Hellas; he lived a long lifeHe lived one hundred and seven years according to Cicero, De senect. v. and devoted himself to the making of money;