die with him, who was weeping and wailing, to
whom he said, "What! are you not content to die with Phocion?"

Sec. VI. Not less, but still more, lawful is it for a public man who is
wronged to speak on his own behalf to those who treat him with
ingratitude. Thus Achilles generally conceded glory to the gods, and
modestly used such language as,

"If ever Zeus
Shall grant to me to sack Troy's well-built town;"[779]

but when insulted and outraged contrary to his deserts, he utters in his
rage boastful words,

"Alighting from my ships twelve towns I sacked,"[780]

and,

"For they will never dare to face my helmet
When it gleams near."[781]

For frank outspokenness, when it is part of one's defence, admits of
boasting. It was in this spirit no doubt that Themistocles, who neither
in word nor deed had given any offence, when he saw the Athenians were
tired of him and treating him with neglect, did not abstain from saying,
"My good sirs, why do you tire of receiving benefits so frequently at
the same hands?" and[782] "When the storm is on you fly to me for
shelter as to a tree, but when fine weather comes again, then you pass
by and strip me of my leaves."

Sec. VII. They then that are wronged generally mention what they have done
well to those who are ungrateful. And the person who is blamed for what
he has done well is altogether to be pardoned, and not censured, if he
passes encomiums on his own actions: for he is in the position of one
not scolding but making his defence. This it was that made Demosthenes'
freedom of speech splendid, and prevented people being wearied out by
the praise which in all his speech _On the Crown_ he lavished on
himself, pluming himself on those embassies and decrees in connection
with the war with which fault had been found.

Sec. VIII. Not very unlike this is the grace of antithesis, when a person
shows that the opposite of what he is charged with is base and low. Thus
Lycurgus when he was charged at Athens with having bribed an informer to
silence, replied, "What kind of a citizen do you think me, who, having
had so long time the fingering of your public money, am detected in
giving rather than taking unjustly?" And Cicero, when Metellus told him
that he had destroyed more as a witness than he had got acquitted as an
advocate, answered, "Who denies that my honesty is greater than my
eloquence?" Compare such sayings of Demosthenes as, "Who would not