schemes, and nipped them in the bud, is that to be a traitor to one's
friends?

[18] Cf. Thuc. viii. 90-92, for the behaviour of the Lacedaemonian
party at Athens and the fortification of Eetioneia in B.C. 411.

[19] I.e. of the political clubs.

"Then he threw in my teeth the nickname 'Buskin,' as descriptive of an
endeavour on my part to fit both parties. But what of the man who
pleases neither? What in heaven's name are we to call him? Yes! you--
Critias? Under the democracy you were looked upon as the most arrant
hater of the people, and under the aristocracy you have proved
yourself the bitterest foe of everything respectable. Yes! Critias, I
am, and ever have been, a foe of those who think that a democracy
cannot reach perfection until slaves and those who, from poverty,
would sell the city for a drachma, can get their drachma a day.[20]
But not less am I, and ever have been, a pronounced opponent of those
who do not think there can possibly exist a perfect oligarchy until
the State is subjected to the despotism of a few. On the contrary, my
own ambition has been to combine with those who are rich enough to
possess a horse and shield, and to use them for the benefit of the
State.[21] That was my ideal in the old days, and I hold to it without
a shadow of turning still. If you can imagine when and where, in
conjunction with despots or demagogues, I have set to my hand to
deprive honest gentlefolk of their citizenship, pray speak. If you can
convict me of such crimes at present, or can prove my perpetration of
them in the past, I admit that I deserve to die, and by the worst of
deaths."