No, by heaven! but I shall use the words and arguments which occur to me at the moment for I am confident in the justice of my cause (Or, I am certain that I am right in taking this course.): at my time of life I ought not to be appearing before you, O men of Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator-let no one expect it of me. But in how different a way from theirs! Well, as I was saying, they have scarcely spoken the truth at all but from me you shall hear the whole truth: not, however, delivered after their manner in a set oration duly ornamented with words and phrases. To say this, when they were certain to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and proved myself to be anything but a great speaker, did indeed appear to me most shameless-unless by the force of eloquence they mean the force of truth for is such is their meaning, I admit that I am eloquent. But of the many falsehoods told by them, there was one which quite amazed me -I mean when they said that you should be upon your guard and not allow yourselves to be deceived by the force of my eloquence. How you, O Athenians, have been affected by my accusers, I cannot tell but I know that they almost made me forget who I was-so persuasively did they speak and yet they have hardly uttered a word of truth.
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