Lucian Apologia 6

[6] You then, they would say, were not a mere actor, but a poet of the noblest sentiments and a lawgiver; but when this fig appeared you were shown up a monkey, with philosophy on your lips, ‘hiding one thing in your heart, while saying another.’ ¹ So it may be fairly said against you that what you say and the matters for which you ask to be praised ‘wet your lips, but leave the palate dry.’ ² So retribution has followed close. You rushed headlong to attack human needs, then a little later forswore your freedom in what was almost a public proclamation. If Adrasteia ³ stood behind you when your accusations were winning your reputation, she must have laughed, knowing as a god would what a turncoat you were going to be; you couldn’t have spat in your bosom, ⁴ she would think, before thinking fit to accuse those who were driven to do this sort of thing by fortune’s fickleness.

[6] You, they will say, are the author (for ‘actor’ would understate the case) who has laid down the laws of noble conduct; and no sooner 1s the lump of figs presented than the monkey 1s revealed; your lips are the lips of a philosopher, and your heart is quite other; it is no injustice to say that those sentiments for which you claim admiration have ‘wetted your lips, and left your palate dry” You have not had to watt long for retribution; you spoke unadvisedly in scorn of human needs; and, this little while after, behold you making public renunciation of your freedom! Surely Nemesis was standing behind your back as you drank in the flattering tributes to your superiority; did she not smile in her divine fore-knowledge of the impending change, and mark how you forgot to propitiate her before you assatled the victims whom fortune’s mutability had reduced to such courses?