evidence: The quote reads: "When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser." [...] "It bears a vague resemblance to some things that Plato’s Socrates says in the Gorgias about the different methods of the philosopher and the rhetorician, but there is no direct reference to losing a debate, or to the losers using slander. There is only the general claim that philosophers use arguments and rhetoricians use persuasion (slander, not mentioned, being one technique of persuasion)." Prof Benitez did a check of Plato’s uses of διαβολή (diabolē) and λοιδορία (loidoria) – the two most common Ancient Greek words for slander – and there was "nothing approaching" the purported quote in "anything Plato’s Socrates says".