34
Ah but, they will say, they are not people of that sort. I am inclined to think, however, that many of you know Diotimus and Archebiades and Chaeretimus, the grey-headed man yonder, men who by day put on sour looks and pretend to play the SpartanMany men in Athens in the days of Plato and Demosthenes, as an indication of their contempt for democracy and a protest against the decay of morals, sought to imitate the Spartan severity in dress and manners. Men such as those whom the writer is here depicting would not unnaturally seek by this means to build up a spurious reputation for austerity. and wear short cloaks and single-soled shoes, but when they get together and are by themselves leave no form of wickedness or indecency untried.
35
And these are their brilliant and vigorous pleas, What! Are we not to give testimony for one another? Isn’t that the way of comrades and friends? What is there that you really fear in the charges he will bring against you? Do some people say they saw him being beaten? We will testify that he wasn’t even touched by you. That his cloak was stripped off? We will testify that they had done this first to you. That his lip has been sewn up? We will say that your head or something else has been broken.
