An unnamed speaker confronts a circle of companions who have been slandering him behind his back while pretending friendship to his face. Unique in the Lysias corpus as a private address to a social group rather than a courtroom speech, the oration builds from wounded dignity to a devastating final prediction: once the speaker leaves, the circle will turn on each other until only one remains — slandering himself. The speech reveals the intimate politics of Athenian social life, where reputation could be destroyed not by enemies in court but by supposed friends over dinner.
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