"I might prove the truth of what I say in many ways, but I beg you to look at the matter thus. With which condition of affairs here in Athens do you think will Thrasybulus and Anytus and the other exiles be the better pleased? That which I have pictured as desirable, or that which my colleagues yonder are producing? For my part I cannot doubt but that, as things now are, they are saying to themselves, 'Our allies muster thick and fast.' But were the real strength, the pith and fibre of this city, kindly disposed to us, they would find it an uphill task even to get a foothold anywhere in the country. "Then, with regard to what he said of me and my propensity to be for ever changing sides, let me draw your attention to the following facts. Was it not the people itself, the democracy, who voted the constitution of the Four Hundred? This they did, because they had learned to think that the Lacedaemonians would trust any other form of government rather than a democracy. But when the efforts of Lacedaemon were not a whit relaxed, when Aristoteles, Melanthius, and Aristarchus, (18) and the rest of them acting as generals, were plainly minded to construct an intrenched fortress on the mole for the purpose of admitting the enemy, and so getting the city under the power of themselves and their associates; (19) because I got wind of these 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."