Letter 282
To Palladius. (361?)
Save those long and elaborate defenses for those who want to bring charges. I am your witness to every kind of excellence, both in character and in eloquence.
To the very man who was trying to deceive you, I said more than you wrote -- though nothing finer, for one could not improve on your words. And to that good man who is both my friend and yours, and also your student, I immediately swore that none of these accusations were yours but were all the fabrications of the speaker's nonsense -- for it is better to assume foolishness than malice. So Hilarius, though deeply pained by what that man had said, was more cheered by my judgment's not being swayed by the slanders than he was disheartened by the slanders themselves.
Seeing him turn even these things to praise, I said: "My good man, I would not claim even Socrates deserved praise simply because I consider him a divine man and utterly remote from what Meletus accused him of" [Meletus was the chief accuser at Socrates' trial]...
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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