1
For in certain other contests to be worsted by one’s adversaries may seem to be not so much a reproach as a misfortune, because luck and the officials in charge and many other factors play a part in the winning or the losing of a contest; but in the event of men having no self-justification to offer worthy of the merits of their case we shall find the reproach of those found in this plight to attach to nothing but their intelligence.
2
Surely if it had been some other people before whom these speeches about you were being made, I do not think these men would be finding it so easy to lie nor would the hearers have tolerated many of their assertions. But as things now are, I think that in general all and every take advantage of your simplicity and in particular these men have done so on the present occasion; for they have found in you such an audience for charges against yourselves as they would have found in no other people, as I know for a certainty.