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PLATO. 
 
A DAY IN ATHENS 
 
 WITH SOCRATES 
 
 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 THE PROTAGORAS AND THE REPUBLIC 
 
 THIRD EDITIOi 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
A/ 
 
 Copyright, 1883, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 
 
 jTranldin ^rf«8: 
 
 RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 
 BOSTON. 
 
'UNIT -ty: 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 These dialogues have been brought together, not with 
 the idea that they will afford any adequate conception of 
 Plato's philosophy, — the outgrowth of the teachings of Soc- 
 rates, — but because they embody one of the most vivid 
 pictures which have come down to us of the age in which 
 these men lived and !aught. It would be hard, indeed, to 
 find a more perfect illustration of the distinctive character- 
 istics of any age than is contained in the dialogues of Plato. 
 Painter and poet no less than philosopher, he borrows colour 
 from the scenes which surround him, and finds voice for 
 his loftiest theories in the conversations of the men with 
 whom he is in daily intercourse. As we follow the drama 
 enacting before us, we feel that the lapse of centuries forms 
 no barrier between that age and our own. Only when the 
 action is set aside for the extended consideration of some 
 abstract theme, are we made aware that our want of famil- 
 iarity with the intellectual standpoint of that day too often 
 proves an obstacle to a clear apprehension of the argument. 
 Some of these difficulties may perhaps best be met by a 
 glance at the position occupied by the newer schools of 
 philosophy in relation to those that had gone before. 
 
 In earlier ages, intent upon examining " things under the 
 earth and in the heavens," ^ philosophers seem habitually 
 to have withdrawn themselves to solitary heights of specula- 
 ^ Apology, 19 B. 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 tive thought, whence, to use Plato's words, " they look down 
 with exceeding contempt upon us common men, and make 
 but small account of us ; nor even when they hold discourse 
 do they take thought whether we keep pace with them or 
 are left behind : each man of them goes on his own way." ' 
 
 But the day was at hand when " common men " would 
 no longer submit to entire exclusion from the world of plii- 
 losophy. By this time, however, the inadequacy of systems 
 which strove to " explain the unexplainable " had become 
 but too apparent. An inevitable re-action took place in 
 favour of the practical ; and, answering to the new require- 
 ments of the day, a new school arose, which proclaimed 
 the instruction of men in the right conduct of life as its 
 chief end and purpose, and cultivated the arts of rhetoric 
 and argumentation, which were yet novelties, as a help 
 towards the attainment of this end. 
 
 It is easy to see, that to the active and subtle Greek 
 mind, studies such as these would offer a peculiar attraction, 
 and, pursued with a dangerous facility, might prove fatal to 
 the end which they were at first intended to serve. " The 
 Greek," says Taine, " is a reasoner even more than a meta- 
 physician or a savant. He takes pleasure in delicate dis- 
 tinctions, in subtle analyses. He delights in splitting hairs, 
 in weaving spiders' webs. In this his dexterity is unrivalled. 
 Little matters it to him, that, alike in theory and in prac- 
 tice, this too-complicated and fine-drawn web is of no use 
 whatever : he is content to watch the separate threads as 
 they weave themselves into imperceptible and symmetrical 
 meshes. Here the national vice is a final outcome of the 
 national talent. Nowhere else has been seen a group of 
 eminent and popular men who taught with success and 
 * Sophist, 243 A. 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 glory, as did Gorgias, Protagoras, and Polus, the art of 
 making the worse appear the better cause, and maintained 
 with an appearance of truth an absurd proposition, however 
 shocking it might be." ^ 
 
 Ethical problems, to solve which was the avowed object 
 of this new school ^f philosophy, but too frequendy were 
 abandoned for a training intended to ensure worldly success 
 and fame ; high ideals, sometimes even moral standards, 
 were practically ignored ; ability in discussion, facility of 
 expression, came to be regarded not merely as helps to 
 reach truth, but as the sole end of education, the " greatest 
 good of man." ^ It is doubtless true that to class all the 
 immediate predecessors of Socrates indiscriminately in one 
 school is as unfair as to make their supposed method a mere 
 synonyme for specious argument. Also in their favour it 
 should be remembered that an inestimable service was ren- 
 dered by these men in preparing the ground for Socrates 
 himself, and through him for all subsequent philosophers. 
 Had the doctrine that " Man is the measure of all things " 
 not been proclaimed by Protagoras, the conclusion would 
 less soon have been reached, that not only is philosophy 
 made for man, but that man also is made for philosophy ; 
 and that hence his bounden duty, nay, his privilege it is, to 
 apply to each act of his life the test whereby the true may 
 be separated from the false, the real from the unreal. 
 
 But between the teachings of these men and those 
 of Socrates there is a wide divergence — one less of de- 
 gree than of kind, less of method than of aim and pur- 
 pose. The long-winded harangues of other teachers, theii 
 confident dogmatism which induced an uncriticising acqui- 
 escence on the part of their pupils, differed indeed radically 
 
 * Taine, Philosophie de I'Art en Gr^ce, pp. 25, 26. * Gorgias, 452 D. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 from that rigid cross-examination ^n the light of which the 
 I confusion and poverty of thought hitherto covered by pom- 
 pous fluency of diction were laid bare, and the listener was 
 compelled to give an account of his real opinions, and either 
 to substantiate or abandon them. Not until Socrates had 
 "called down philosophy from the clouds," ^ was the truth 
 discerned that the work of self-examination is no vicarious 
 task, but that to study and find out of what use you can be 
 to men — in a word, to " know thyself " — is the study of 
 studies, to last as long as a man shall live.^ 
 
 In the pages before us we find the account given by 
 Socrates of two famous conversations, — one between him- 
 self and Protagoras at the house of Callias, the other on 
 the occasion of a visit to the venerable Cephalus and his 
 household. It is surely no fanciful parallel which may be 
 traced between the character of the dialogues themselves 
 and the atmosphere of the households in which they took 
 place. The bustle and confusion which already at break of 
 day reign in the home of CalHas offer a striking contrast 
 with the repose and calm which in the evening hour, sym- 
 bolic? of the evening of his declining years, pervade the well- 
 ordered abode of Cephalus ; the pressing insistence with 
 which Socrates is detained by the eager Callias well offsets 
 the courteous dignity with which Cephalus invites him to 
 be his frequent guest. But no less marked throughout is 
 the contrast presented between the Protagoras, with its rest- 
 less movement, its apparent absence of unity, and want of 
 definite purpose, and the Republic, with its broad and stately 
 sweep, its calm deliberateness of aim. Yet the one is the 
 fitting precursor of the other; if in the second we find 
 
 ^ Cic. Tusc. Disp. V. iv. lo. 
 
 "^ See Xen. Mem. IV. ii. 24-30, and Apology, 38 A. 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 the perfect growth, in the first we have the promise of fruition. 
 On purely artistic grounds, however, whether in point of 
 vividness of colour or vivacity of action, it would be diffi- 
 cult to assign preference to one of these brilliant word-pic- 
 tures over the other. In each, the subtle touches which lend 
 to the narrative its vivid reality are felt only in their result, 
 and all unknown to ourselves we are made to breathe the 
 air, to enter as it were into the very heart of the Athens of 
 old. In each, transported unconsciously to the every-day 
 scenes of Athenian Hfe, we seem to become, not eye-wit- 
 nesses only, but actual participators in the action. Surely, 
 if the true test of art is its apparent absence, then is art 
 here found in its consummate form. 
 
 In the Republic, following Socrates to the home of his 
 aged friend, we find ourselves one of the group who cluster 
 round the good old Cephalus, listening with delight to the 
 words of wisdom which fall from his lips. And when, as 
 head of the family, he has left us that he may perform the 
 evening sacrifice, — when Thrasymachus, arrogating to him- 
 self the direction of the argument, attempts by force of sheer 
 insolence and bravado to impose his ill-considered doctrines 
 upon his unwilling listeners, we enjoy with them the discom- 
 fiture of the intellectual bully, as at every turn he becomes 
 more hopelessly entangled in his own admissions ; and 
 finally we exult in the triumphant overthrow of his brutal 
 paradox, that the really wise man is the man who is " perfect 
 in injustice." ^ 
 
 In the Protagoras, penetrating with Hippocrates into the 
 very bed-chamber of Socrates, we listen to the breathless 
 outpourings of the young enthusiast, and hear the sympa- 
 thetic but restraining words of Socrates, who is no whit 
 
 » Republic, 348 D. 
 
viil PREFACE, 
 
 disconcerted or annoyed by this ill-timed invasion. And 
 when, following the two friends to the hospitable mansion of 
 Callias, that " bird of fine plumage which was plucked on 
 all sides," ^ we are at last admitted by the reluctant porter, 
 we find ourselves in the presence of the most celebrated 
 teachers of the day. But a few vivid touches, and each 
 stands in the very flesh before us. 
 
 In the opposite portico we catch sight of the self-com- 
 placent Hippias, whose claims to universal knowledge are 
 certain everywhere to draw around him a miniature court 
 of admirers. At this moment, encircling the chair of state 
 in which he is seated, they are listening with rapt attention, 
 while with pompous fluency he expounds the questions 
 which they propose. Hard by, in the store-closet, now con- 
 verted from its former use to that of a bed-chamber, lies 
 Prodicus, still in bed, — a self-indulgence which his weak 
 health may serve to justify, if excuse may not be found for 
 it in the earliness of the hour. He too has his circle of 
 visitors, and already they are gathered around him, anxious 
 to lose no time in beginning that " complete education in 
 grammar and language " ^ which it is his boast to impart. 
 
 But we must not linger over these lesser luminaries. Di- 
 rectly in front of us, supported upon every side by a pha- 
 lanx of admiring followers as with stately mien he paces the 
 portico upon which we enter, behold the great light, Pro- 
 tagoras the Sophist ! In his delineation of this character,' 
 with its odd blending of dignity and petulance, self-sufii- 
 ciency and pliability, Plato has not allowed himself to be 
 unduly influenced by his inveterate hatred of the so-called 
 Sophists. Throughout the dialogue Protagoras is represented 
 as an upright and honourable man, not unmindful of his high 
 
 * Aristophanes, Birds, 284-287. * Cratyliis, 344 B. 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 calling as an " educator of men." ^ Like Socrates, he be- 
 lieves that his mission is to teach morality ; and, like him, 
 he does not shrink from the risks inseparable from so unpop- 
 ular a task. But the fulness of conviction and the intense 
 concentration of purpose which characterise Socrates are 
 here lacking. Nowhere is the contrast between the two men 
 more apparent than in their respective confessions of faith, 
 if so they may be called ; the clear announcement made 
 by Socrates of his divine mission, when, in the Apology ^ he 
 likens himself to a gadfly sent of God,^ as compared with 
 the superficial and bombastic tone of the definition given 
 by Protagoras of his own art of sophistry.3 For the most 
 part, however, the words of Protagoras have the ring of reason 
 and common sense, and would often bear application to events 
 and situations of to-day. For instance, his remarks to the 
 effect that all citizens are self-constituted educators of the 
 young are well calculated to awaken a sense of the respon- 
 sibilities which devolve upon us all as members of the body 
 politic ; while his views on the subject of punishment,^ had 
 they been understood and adoptetfbyliis' own and by later 
 ages, would have made every prison in the truest sense a 
 reformatory. 
 
 Before we approach that familiar figure to which Plato in 
 his dialogues so constantly assigns the leading part, let us 
 learn what we may of the minor characters who make the 
 essential atmosphere for the principal dramatis personae, 
 and whose eager interest in the argument proclaim them to 
 be the progenitors of those men of Athens who " spent their 
 time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new 
 thing." 4 
 
 » Protagoras, 317 B. ^ Apology, 30 E. 3 Protagoras, 316 D-317 C 
 * Acts xvii. 21. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 It is noticeable that, in both dialogues, no sooner does 
 the discussion begin in good earnest than its original pro- 
 moter, Polemarchus in the Republic, Hippocrates in the PrO' 
 tagoras, drops into the background ; not however until we 
 have gathered, from one and the other, an impression of 
 the gilded youth of Athens, the class to which they belong. 
 Their mental inquisitiveness, their parrot-like repetitions of 
 sayings the meaning of which they have never even tried 
 to grasp, stamp them as fair representatives of the average 
 young Athenian, — light-hearted, empty-headed, but attrac- 
 tive withal in their charming ingenuousness and bonhomie^ 
 and in thetr readiness to recognise and admire their intel- 
 lectual superiors, even if they do not fully appreciate their 
 worth. But as a study of individual character, Polemarchus, 
 whose importunity brings about the discussion on justice 
 which ultimately leads to the conception of the ideal Repub- 
 lic, yields in interest to Hippocrates, the youth whose admi- 
 ration for Protagoras furnishes the occasion for the argument 
 between the great Sophist and Socrates upon the subject of 
 virtue. His father, Apollodorus, whose enthusiastic well-nigh 
 fanatical admiration of Socrates had gained him the title of 
 madman, is the same who is described in the death-scene 
 of the Phaedo as " at one time laughing, at another weep- 
 ing," ^ and as finally abandoning himself to such an ecstasy 
 of grief, that "not a man was present but was overcome 
 by his tears and distress, save Socrates himself." ^ Some- 
 thing of this ardent and uncontrolled nature Hippocrates 
 seems to have inherited. Unable to curb his impatient 
 longing to visit the far-famed Protagoras, he bursts into the 
 bed-chamber of Socrates, breathless with anticipation of the 
 treasures ready to flow from out this fount of eloquence and 
 
 » Phaedo, 59 B. = Ibid., 117 D. 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 wisdom. Though filled with a passionate desire to obtain 
 the much-coveted secret of leading men, he is too much 
 overawed by the superiority of the great man to plead his 
 own cause, and implores Socrates to speak in his behalf; 
 while at the same time, not independent enough to brave 
 the stigma attaching to the name of Sophist, he blushes at 
 the bare suggestion of becoming one by profession. But, 
 whatever may be his weakness and inconsistencies, he is 
 always frank and open to conviction, less wedded to the 
 opinions which he professes, because they are not his own, 
 but are only borrowed from the minds of others and thus 
 may be as easily set aside as they were adopted. From 
 his apology for not having given Socrates due notice of his 
 intended departure in pursuit of his runaway slave, we infer 
 a close intimacy between the two friends. Their relations 
 with each other may be fairly assumed to be those imphed 
 in the first part of the dialogue, where the attitude adopted 
 by Hippocrates is that of listener and pupil, the position of 
 Socrates that of teacher and adviser ; although the part played 
 by the latter upon this occasion appears to have been a mere 
 trial of strength, a preliminary skirmish before the more seri- 
 ous encounter with Protagoras. 
 
 To a character so familiar to us as that of Alcibiades no 
 introduction is needed ; and yet the role assumed by him 
 in this discussion is worthy of notice. The motive which 
 actuated him in coming to the rescue of the argument may 
 have been, as is asserted by Critias, pure love of a fight ; but 
 his help is none the less efficacious, whether in warding off 
 the prosy harangues of Hippias or in bringing Protagoras to 
 terms, while he constantly emphasises points which modesty 
 would have forbidden Socrates to score in his own favour. 
 
 The part borne by Critias upon this occasion is but an 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 insignifi«:ant one. His mere presence, however, in company 
 with his boon companion, Alcibiades, suggests the reflection 
 that this conversation is typical of many an actual one, to 
 which the enemies of Socrates may have alluded when, in 
 after days, they accused him of having instilled the princi- 
 ples which had shaped the subsequent career of both these 
 youths. 
 
 About our host, Callias, we know litde of interest beyond 
 what we may gather from the dialogue itself. Weak in prin- 
 ciple and vicious in conduct, he is said to have been actu- 
 ated by mere ostentatious vanity in making his house the 
 headquarters for the philosophic lights of the day. And 
 yet it may be true that he was not wholly without aspirations 
 towards better things, and that it was not simply a love of 
 notoriety, but rather the hope of passively absorbing what 
 he would not actively strive to attain, which led him to seek 
 the company of the so-called votaries of philosophy, a slur 
 upon whom may possibly have been intended by Plato in 
 representing them as ready to accept the hospitality of a 
 man so low in repute. 
 
 The most interesting minor characters in the Republic 
 are the brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus. The points of 
 likeness and yet unlikeness between the two are most deli- 
 cately handled. While we can but feel the contagion of 
 the younger brother's eagerness and fire, the keen insight 
 and mental poise of the graver Adeamantus claim our deeper 
 admiration. Both are alike inspired by a whole-hearted zeal 
 in the search for truth, and by an unwavering determination 
 to shrink from no means of reaching it, even to the extent 
 of making themselves for the nonce partisans of an obnox- 
 ious cause. The close and intelligent attention with which 
 they follow the train of reasoning, and their refusal to accept 
 
PREFACE. xiil 
 
 what they have not understood or cannot thoroughly approve, 
 place them in striking and agreeable contrast to many of the 
 interlocutors in Plato's Socratic dialogues who, like Pole- 
 marchus or Hippocrates, seem incapable of forming inde- 
 pendent opinions. 
 
 In approaching the character of Socrates himself, one 
 question inevitably arises : how far is the portrait given us 
 by Plato a true likeness? Another contemporaneous por- 
 trait of Socrates has come down to us, this also from the 
 hand of a friend and disciple. Here every detail is recorded 
 with the minute accuracy of a pre-Raphaelite painter ; as a 
 verbatim report of the conversations of Socrates it is invalu- 
 able : but for more than this we must not look. Although 
 a devoted admirer of his master, a careful observer, a faith- 
 ful recorder of his sayings, it could hardly be expected of 
 Xenophon the soldier that he should enter into the inner- 
 most recesses of the great thinker's mind, or find the key- 
 note with which every part must be brought into harmony 
 if a complete whole is to be realised. Only a poet and 
 a philosopher could accomplish such a task as this ; and a 
 poet Plato is in the first and fullest meaning of the word, 
 that namely of creator. Not for a moment, in the varied 
 aspects under which Socrates is here portrayed, do we ques- 
 tion that absolute fidelity to truth which is the goal of all 
 art, whether ideal or so-called realistic. The figure which 
 stands out before us in all its marked individuality we know 
 to be no mere invention of a dramatist, but the real, the 
 living man. Had Plato been gifted with a less keen and 
 delicate artistic sense, he might, as a devoted friend and dis- 
 ciple, have been tempted to subordinate truth of delineation 
 to his reverence for his master, and to paint him under that 
 aspect alone which in the Apology, the Crito, the Phaedo, 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 we know and revere, — that of the hero, the martjT, the 
 inspired thinker. Widely removed from this impression is 
 that conveyed by many passages in the dialogues before us. 
 Upon one occasion we find Socrates compelled to abandon 
 a course of argument which only a mistaken conception of 
 his adversary's ability could have led him to adopt ; ^ and 
 there are instances not a few where he takes unfair advan- 
 tage of the opportunities afforded by the dialectic method 
 to play upon the dull wits of his antagonists and mould 
 them into whatever grotesque form his fancy may suggest. 
 Not unfrequently a passage full of the most elevated moral- 
 ity and highest intellectual power is in close proximity to 
 some childishly inconsequent reasoning or some impossible 
 conclusion. Thus, before reaching the definition of "right 
 Hving," the end for which the soul was created,^ we are 
 startled by the statement that " every man would choose 
 rather to be benefited by his neighbour than to put him- 
 self out to help him " ; ^ vvhile the ridiculous conclusion, art- 
 fully deduced from Polemarchus's definition of justice, that 
 the "just man is the best thief" ^ is followed by the asser- 
 tion that it is not in the nature of things for the just man 
 to do an injury to any fellow-being. 5 And again, from the 
 fallacious reasoning which occurs in the discussion concern- 
 ing courage and confidence,^ we pass to the beautiful de- 
 scription of the nature of true knowledge and its ennobling 
 effect upon the character.^ 
 
 It is especially in the Protagoras that these strange, con- 
 tradictions abound. In the irrelevant sallies and flights of 
 fancy in which Socrates indulges, in his wilful misconcep- 
 tions and misleading sophistries, in the tricks which he 
 
 » Protagoras, 350 C. * Republic, 353 D-E. 3 Ibid., 347 D. 
 
 « Ibid., 334 A. s Ibid., 335 D. 6 Protagoras, 350 C. ' Ibid., 357-359- 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 plays upon his grave and reverend coadjutors, in his deter- 
 mination to get the better of every one else by fair means 
 or foul, we are reminded of the description given later in 
 the Republic ^ of very young men who, it is said, " when they 
 first taste the sweets of argument, use it as a plaything, 
 always employing it to contradict and to refute others, in 
 imitation of those by whom they themselves have been 
 refuted, and delighting like puppies in worrying and tearing 
 in pieces (by means of argument) all those who come near 
 them." 
 
 To account for this novel aspect of the character of Soc- 
 rates and for these many apparent inequalities and inconsis- 
 tencies of thought, we may suppose that he is adopting for the 
 moment the eristic method which he elsewhere condemns, 
 and is holding up the old processes to ridicule, thus com- 
 pelling the ultimate adoption of his own method. Or we 
 may assume that Plato wishes us to see in Socrates the inex- 
 perienced theorist, whose opinions, whose conceptions of 
 trtith even, are of secondary importance as compared with 
 the method by which they may be reached and maintained. 
 That Plato intended to convey this impression of extreme 
 youth may be inferred from the passage where Socrates speaks 
 of himself and Hippocrates as yet too young to discuss such 
 subjects exhaustively,^ or that in which Socrates is dismissed 
 by Protagoras with the patronising prophecy that he will "one 
 day take rank amongst men of note." 3 Nor is it necessajy 
 to relinquish this theory on the charge to which it is unde- 
 niably open, — that of chronological inaccuracy, — for, like 
 many another great artist, Plato frequently makes truth of 
 detail subservient to truth of idea. Often in some master- 
 piece of art representative men of every age are to be seen 
 
 * Republic, 539 B. ^ Protagoras, 314 B. 3 Ibid., 361 E. 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 grouped together upon one canvas ; by thus sacrificing the 
 unities of time and place, the painter is but the more faith- 
 ful to the truth which it is his purpose to illustrate. And 
 so Plato would doubtless allow no consideration of detail 
 to interfere with his object, if he deemed that the merits 
 of the method by which we may " test the truth and our 
 own selves " might best be proven by demonstrating its su- 
 periority, even in its earliest stage, before it was associated 
 with any definite views, in dealing with so formidable an 
 adversary as Protagoras himself. 
 
 But, whatever hypothesis we adopt, we certainly derive 
 from this delineation of Socrates the impression of a man 
 who, in love with his own method, delights in it for its 
 own sake, enjoying "the chase as much as the object of 
 the chase, the journey as much as the journey's end." ^ 
 None the less clearly, however, through all these vagaries, 
 may be traced the salutary effects of the new system whose 
 aim it was to force upon men the conviction that a " fife 
 without self-examination is not worth living." ^ 
 
 That the most inveterate enmity should have been excited 
 by the course which Socrates pursued cannot be a surprise 
 to any student of human nature. The man who makes it 
 his life's object, not only to insist upon the necessity of self- 
 study, but to make men actually convict themselves of cul- 
 pable ignorance, can hope for no quarter at the hands of 
 those who, though not invulnerable to the stings of the 
 "gadfly sent of God," will not allow themselves to be 
 goaded into a sense of shame. But not all the listeners of 
 Socrates were of this stamp. The eager interest excited by 
 the subjects discussed in these dialogues, the earnestness 
 with which the most abstruse arguments are followed, testify 
 
 « Taine, Philosophic de I'Art en Gr^ce, p. 25. * Apology, 38 A. 
 
PREFACE. xvil 
 
 to something more than the mental curiosity and activity 
 which characterised even the average Athenian of that day. 
 We can but feel that here new impulses are being stirred, 
 new ideas are being generated. 
 
 In the Protagoras, day has hardly dawned, and already a 
 company of Athenians are gathered together, intent upon 
 defining virtue and discovering whether it is possible to 
 acquire it ; while in the Republic, far on into the night a 
 group may be found absorbed in the contemplation of jus- 
 tice and 4he work wrought by it upon the soul. Not to the 
 most frivolous amongst their. number does it occur to look 
 upon any hour as ill-chosen which is devoted to topics of 
 this nature. 
 
 Scenes such as these may no longer be witnessed in our 
 midst ; but who can mark the wide-spread interest in all sub- 
 jects relating to the conduct of life, as set forth in the very 
 novels of our day, and not admit that now no less than then 
 these are living questions ? Our novelists are but following 
 the example of Plato, when they present to us their theories 
 and speculations clothed in dramatic form. They differ 
 from him only in this, that they speak through the medium 
 of fictitious characters, he through the voices of real men. 
 To-day the discussion of abstract themes no longer forms 
 a natural incident of every-day life. The theoretical has 
 given place to the practical. Only when they bear directly 
 upon tangible interests do men who have a part to play in 
 the world's progress pause to grapple with those problems 
 which, in every age, have at once fascinated and baffled the 
 human mind. At first glance, indeed, many of the Platonic 
 discussions, from their antiquated phraseology and seemingly 
 obsolete turn of thought, may appear to us merely as echoes 
 from an age long past ; but, upon a nearer view, the unfamiliar 
 
XVlll PREFACE. 
 
 garb with which they are invested falls away, and behold, the 
 doubts and pefplexities and difficulties before us are our 
 own. 
 
 Joining the group in the ProtagoraSj let us listen to their 
 earnest questionings concerning virtue. Shall the different 
 attributes which go to make up this most precious of pos- 
 sessions be likened to so many separate gems, each preserv- 
 ing its own identity even when grouped with others in one 
 cluster, or, like the many faces of a crystal, are these attri- 
 butes but different phases of one harmonious whole ? This 
 surely is no idle speculation, but a 'problem of vital import 
 to us all. For if we recognise virtue to be indeed " one 
 through all, a unity in multiplicity," we know also that the 
 perfection of no single virtue can be reached if the quest of 
 virtue as a whole is abandoned ; we know that the end to 
 be held steadily before us, the one ideal to be untiringly 
 pursued, is virtue in its entirety. And since by ignorance 
 alone we are blinded to this truth, so by education alone 
 the eye of the soul is opened tothe " things that are real," 
 and we are enabled to recognise virtue as the indissoluble 
 bond which holds together all that is good and pure and 
 high, and to make that " choice which is best both for this 
 life and for the next." ^ 
 
 Nor is the definition attempted in the Republic one of 
 less moment. Bearing in mind the wide and deep signifi- 
 cance of the word justice, its old-time Scriptural sense of 
 righteousness, we see how deeply it concerns us to know 
 the true meaning of all that this word involves. Now as 
 then the same incomprehensible order of things surrounds 
 us upon every side. Still is the just man laughed to scorn, 
 and plotted against by the wicked. Still does he behold 
 
 » Republic, 618 E. 
 
PREFACE, xix 
 
 "... right perfection wrongfully disgraced, 
 And art made tongue-tied by authority, 
 And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill, 
 And captive good attending captain ill." 
 
 Now, as then, when our dark hours are upon us, filled with 
 dismay and bitterness of soul, we are tempted to ask our- 
 selves whether justice is not a blind superstition or idle 
 dream, or even the unwitting accomplice of that "captain 
 ill" which is its bitterest foe. And therefore to-day, no less 
 than in the days of Socrates, it is good that we should listen 
 to the triumphant refutation of that doctrine, so subversive 
 of all morals, which affirms that might is right. Now, no 
 less than then, do we need to be reminded that, so long as 
 we have breath and power of utterance, it behooves us to 
 come to the rescue of justice if we behold her evil en- 
 treated ; ' to hear the truth unswervingly maintained, that 
 the higher and stronger nature is, by virtue of the " law that 
 worketh for righteousness," not the tyrant over the lower 
 and weaker, but its protector and benefactor;^ to recog- 
 nise that injustice is the greatest of all evils which the soul 
 may harbour, while -justice is her greatest good.^ 
 
 These are the problems, old and yet ever new, which 
 engrossed the mind and heart of Socrates and his friends, 
 as they can never cease to engross those who, in every age, 
 are earnestly seeking out " the way of right living, by walk- 
 ing in which every one of us may live his hfe to the best 
 advantage." ^ 
 
 » Republic, 368 C. ^ itid.^ 342 D. ' Ibid., 366 E. * Ibid., 344 E. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 PROTAGORAS i 
 
 THE REPUBLIC . 62 
 
 Notes ••••• 119 
 
PROTAGORAS. 
 
 CHIEF CHARACTERS IN THE DIALOGUE. 
 
 Socrates. 
 
 Hippocrates, his Friend. 
 Alcibiades, 
 
 Young Athenians of birth. 
 Critias, 
 
 Protagoras of Abdera, ^ 
 Hippias of Elis, [■ Sophists. 
 
 Prodicus of Ceos, J 
 
 Callias, a wealthy Athenian. 
 
 The scene opens at daybreak in the house of Socrates at Athens^ 
 but is soon transferred to the house of Callias. 
 
 The dialogue is related by Socrates^ immediately upon its close, to a 
 friend whom he meets in the street or market-plcue. 
 
'J t<i> h - 3.> ^. 
 
 PROTAGORAS 
 
 THE SOPHISTS 
 

 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 309 Friend, Where are you from, Socrates ? But 
 I need hardly ask, — fresh from the chase of the 
 young Alcibiades, of course. Well, I must con- 
 fess that I too, when I saw him the other day, 
 thought him handsome still, but a handsome 
 ma7ti — for between ourselves, Socrates, a man 
 he is now ; ^ his beard is already beginning to 
 grow. 
 
 Socrates. And what of that ? Do you, then, 
 not agree with Homer, who says that the most 
 charming age is when the beard first appears,* 
 which is now just the age of Alcibiades ? 
 
 F. Well, how stand matters now? Have 
 you just left the youth ? and on what terms are 
 you with him ? 
 
 5. On excellent terms, I should say, and 
 never better than this very day. He came to 
 my rescue, and has been doing a great deal of 
 talking for me ; I have only just parted from 
 him. But I must tell you an amazing thing: 
 
 3 
 
4 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 although he was present, I paid no attention to 
 him ; indeed, more than once I quite forgot that 
 he was there at all. 
 
 F. How can things have come to such a pass 
 between you and him ? Surely you cannot have 
 lighted upon any one fairer than he, at least in 
 this city ! 
 
 5. Indeed I have, — one much fairer. 
 
 F. What do you mean ? A citizen, or a 
 stranger ? 
 
 S. A stranger. 
 
 F. Where from ? 
 
 S. From Abdera.^ 
 
 F. And were you so struck with the beauty 
 of this stranger that you thought him fairer 
 than the son of Cleinias ? 
 
 5. And must it not ever be true, my excel- 
 lent friend, that the wiser appears the fairer.? 
 
 F. Oh ! now I see, Socrates ; you have lighted 
 upon some wise man, and you come to. us fresh 
 from him. 
 
 S. The wisest, undoubtedly, of all now liv- 
 ing ; that is if you account Protagoras the wisest. -♦ 
 
 F. Why, what can you mean } Is Protagoras 
 in town } 
 
 S. Yes, he arrived the day before yesterday. 
 
 F. I suppose, then, it is from a talk with him 
 that you have just come 1 
 310 5. Yes; and a great deal we had to say to 
 each other. 
 
PROTAGORAS. 5 
 
 F. Then pray tell us at once all about your 
 conversation — at least if there is nothing to 
 prevent you. Let my servant give you his 
 place, and sit down here by me. 
 
 5. With all my heart ; and I shall be thank- 
 ful to you if you will listen. 
 
 F. And we shall be thankful to you if you 
 will tell us about it. 
 
 5. In that case, there will be twice-told 
 thanks. But now listen. Last night, just be- 
 fore daybreak, Hippocrates, the son of Apollo- 
 dorus and brother of Phason,5 began to knock 
 very violently with his stick at my door, and no 
 sooner was it opened than in he came with a 
 rush, calling out in a loud voice, — 
 
 " I say, Socrates, are you awake or asleep .-* '* 
 
 I recognised him by his voice, and said, — 
 
 " Is that you, Hippocrates } No bad news, I 
 hope .'* " - 
 
 " None but good," he replied. 
 
 *'That is well," I said ; "but what is it .? and 
 why, pray, have you come at this time of day } " 
 
 " Protagoras has arrived," he answered, as he 
 came in and stood by my cot. 
 
 "Yes," I said, "the day before yesterday. 
 Have you only just found this out .? " 
 
 " Yes, by the gods," answered he, " only last 
 evening." And as he spoke, feeling his way 
 along by the bed, he sat down at my feet. 
 
 "Last evening, to be sure," he went on, "and 
 
PROTAGORAS, 
 
 very late it was too, on my return from Oenoe.* 
 My slave-boy, Satyrus, had run away : I had 
 meant to tell you that I was going in pursuit of 
 him, but something else put it out of my mind. 
 Well, I had got back, and we had supped and 
 were just going to bed, when my brother said to 
 me : ' Protagoras has arrived.' At first I was for 
 coming directly to you, but then I considered that 
 it was altogether too far on in the night. But 
 the very instant I had slept off the effects of my 
 fatigue, up I got and came off here directly." 
 
 Knowing his ardent and excitable nature, 
 I said, — 
 
 " Well, what is this to you } Surely Protago- 
 ras has not defrauded you in any way.-* " 
 
 " By the gods, he has though, Socrates," an- 
 swered he, laughing ; " for he keeps his wisdom 
 all to himself, and does not give me any." 
 
 " By Zeus," said I, " if you offer him money, 
 and speak him fair, he will make a wise man of 
 you too." 
 
 " Would to Zeus and the gods," he exclaimed, 
 " it only depended upon that ! for I would not 
 spare my own money, no, nor that of my 
 friends either. And this is the very reason I 
 have come to you now, to beg that you will do 
 the talking for me. I myself am too young, 
 and besides I have never seen Protagoras — 
 no, nor ever heard him — for I was still a child 
 when he staid here before. But all praise him, 
 
PROTAGORAS, 7 
 
 Socrates, and say that he is the ablest of speak- 
 ers. Why then do we not go to him at once, 
 3 1 [ that we may be sure of finding him at home ? 
 He is staying, I hear, at the house of Callias 
 the son of Hipponicus.^ So let us be going." 
 
 "Not yet, my good fellow," I said, "for it 
 is too early. Come, let us get up and go out 
 into the court. We can walk up and down 
 there and so pass the time till daybreak ; then 
 we will go. Protagoras, for the most part, 
 spends his time indoors ; so do not fear, we 
 shall in all likelihood find him at home." 
 
 With this we got up and walked up and down 
 in the court, and I, by way of testing the reso- 
 lution of Hippocrates, began to examine and 
 question him. 
 
 " Now, Hippocrates," I said, " since you have 
 made up your mind to go to Protagoras and pay 
 him a fee on your own account, I wish you 
 would tell me what he is that you think of going 
 to him, and what it is you expect him to make 
 of you. Suppose you took it into your head 
 to go to your own namesake, Hippocrates of 
 Cos, the Asclepiad,^ and pay him a fee on your 
 own account, and some one were to ask you: 
 *Tell me, Hippocrates, what is this Hippoc- 
 rates, that you intend to pay him a fee .? ' What 
 would you answer } " 
 
 " I should answer that I pay him as a physi- 
 cian," he replied. 
 
PROTAGORAS. 
 
 "And what do you expect him to make of 
 you ? " 
 
 "A physician." 
 
 " And suppose you took it mto your head to 
 go to Polycleitus the Argive, or to Pheidias the 
 Athenian,^ and pay them a fee on your own ac- 
 count, and some one were to ask you : * What are 
 Polycleitus and Pheidias, that you think of pay- 
 ing them money ? ' What would you answer ? " 
 
 " I should answer : * It is as sculptors that I 
 pay them.' " 
 
 " And what do you expect them to make of 
 you ? " 
 
 "A sculptor, of course." 
 
 "Very good," I said. "Now then, we are 
 going to Protagoras, you and I, and shall be 
 ready to pay him money for you, our own if it 
 be enough to serve as an inducement to him ; if 
 not, spending that of our friends as well. And 
 suppose some one, seeing us so very eager in the 
 matter, were to ask : *Tell me, Socrates and Hip- 
 pocrates, what is this Protagoras, that you think 
 of paying him money .'* ' What answer should 
 we give } By what name do we hear Protagoras 
 called, as we hear Pheidias called by that of sculp- 
 tor, and Homer by that of poet } What name 
 of this kind do we hear given to Protagoras } " 
 
 "As you know, Socrates," he said, "they call 
 the man a Sophist." 
 
 "Then, it is as a Sophist that we mean to 
 visit him, and to pay him money t " 
 
PROTAGORAS. g 
 
 "Most certainly." 
 
 " How then, if the person went on to ask : 
 *And you yourself, what is it that you expect to 
 2 become by going to Protagoras ? ' To which he 
 made answer with a blush, — for by this time 
 there was daylight enough for me to see his 
 face, — 
 
 " Evidently a Sophist, if this case is like the 
 other." 
 
 "In the name of the gods," I exclaimed, 
 " would you not be ashamed to figure before all 
 Greece as a Sophist ? " 
 
 " In truth, Socrates, I should, if I must needs 
 speak my real mind." 
 
 "But perhaps, Hippocrates, you do not believe 
 that this is the sort of teaching you will get from 
 Protagoras, but rather that it will be like what 
 you got from the schoolmaster, the cithara- 
 player, or the trainer .? Each of their arts you 
 studied, not for the art itself, as if you were go- 
 ing to practise it, but for the general training it 
 gave, befitting a freeman and a man of leisure." 
 
 "Most decidedly, I think," said he, "that 
 this rather is the sort of teaching one gets from 
 Protagoras." 
 
 " Do you know, then, what you are about to 
 do, or are you not aware of it .? " I said. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean that you are about to submit your 
 soul to the treatment of a man who, as you say. 
 
10 PROTAGORAS, 
 
 is a Sophist ; though what a Sophist is, I should 
 be surprised if you knew. And yet if you do 
 not know this, neither do you know to what it 
 is that you are giving over your soul, — whether 
 to a good thing, or to a bad." 
 
 "But I do think," he said, ''that I know." 
 
 " Then tell me what you believe the Sophist 
 to be." 
 
 "I believe," he answered, "that he is one 
 who, as his name implies, understands all that 
 belongs to wisdom." 
 
 " But surely we may say of painters and car- 
 penters also, that it is they who understand all 
 that belongs to wisdom. If however we were 
 asked which branch of wisdom painters under- 
 stand, we should probably answer : That, which 
 has to do with the production of pictures, and so 
 on of the rest. Now, if we were asked in which 
 branch the Sophist is wise, what should we an- 
 swer.'' Which branch of production does he 
 understand .? " . 
 
 "What could we say of him, Socrates, but 
 that he understands making men good speak- 
 ers.?" 
 
 "Very likely we should be saying v/hat is 
 true," said I, "but this is not enough, for our 
 answer itself needs yet another question, namely : 
 about what is it that the Sophist makes us good 
 speakefs } The cithara-player, without doubt, 
 makes us speak well about the art which he 
 
PROTAGORAS. 11 
 
 understands, that is cithara-playing, does he 
 not ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Very good. About what, then, does the 
 Sophist make us speak well t About that jvhich 
 he understands, of course, does he not ? " 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 " And what is it that the Sophist himself un- 
 derstands and also imparts to his disciple } " 
 
 "By Zeus," said he, "I have not another 
 word to say about it." 
 313 Whereupon I exclaimed, — 
 
 " How is this ! Do you know to what danger 
 you are about to expose your soul ? Surely if 
 you were obliged to entrust your body to some 
 one's keeping, with the risk of its being made 
 better or worse, you would carefully consider 
 whether or no it ought to be entrusted to him, 
 and you would call together in council your 
 friends and relatives, and ponder the question 
 many days. But as to that which you set so 
 much more store by than the body, — your soul, 
 the thing on which depends your whole fate for 
 weal or for woe, — in regard to this, I say, 
 neither father nor brother nor any of your friends 
 have you consulted whether or no it ought to be 
 entrusted to this stranger who has only just made 
 his appearance. You heard of his arrival, as you 
 say, only last night ; and yet, taking neither 
 thought nor advice about him and whether you 
 
12 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 ought to entrust yourself to him or not, here you 
 are at earliest dawn all ready to spend your own 
 money and that of your friends as well, for all the 
 world as if you had made up your mind before- 
 hand that it is necessary at any cost to put your- 
 self under Protagoras, a man whom, by your 
 own confession, you neither know nor have ever 
 talked with. You call him a Sophist, but what 
 kind of a thing a Sophist may be you evidently 
 do not know in the least, and yet to a Sophist 
 you are about to confide yourself." 
 
 When he had heard me out he said, — 
 
 " So it seems, Socrates, according to what you 
 say." 
 
 "And is not a Sophist, Hippocrates, a kind 
 of merchant or pedler, who deals in the sup- 
 plies which the soul lives upon.? This is the 
 sort of man he seems to me, at least." 
 
 "And what does the soul live upon, Soc- 
 rates } " 
 
 " Upon knowledge, undoubtedly," I answered, 
 "and see to it, my friend, that the Sophist, in 
 praising what he has for sale, does not cheat us 
 like those who deal in food for the body, — the 
 merchant and the pedler. For they, very likely, 
 do not know themselves which of the supplies 
 , they carry about ar6 good or which bad for the 
 I body, but they praise alike every thing they 
 have for sale, nor do any of those who buy from 
 them know any better, unless by chance one of 
 
PROTAGORAS. 13 
 
 them is a professional trainer or physician. In 
 like manner they who carry their learning about 
 from city to city, driving a petty trade with it, 
 and offering it for sale to any one who wishes 
 to buy, these also praise all that they have for 
 sale. And I imagine, my excellent friend, that 
 some of these also do not know whether what 
 they sell is good or bad for the soul, and they 
 who buy of them are in the same case, unless 
 by chance one of them is a physician of the 
 soul. If you then happen to understand which 
 of these things are good and which bad, you 
 may safely buy learning of Protagoras or of 
 any other man ; but, if you do not know, then 
 have a care, my good fellow, lest you emperil 
 that which you hold most. dear, and risk it upon 
 314 the hazard of a die. For surely there is much 
 greater risk in buying knowledge than in buying 
 food. For meat and drink when a man has 
 bought them from the merchant he may carry 
 home in suitable vessels, and before taking 
 them into the body either by eating or drink- 
 ing, he may stow them away in his house, and 
 having summoned some expert consult with him 
 as to what he should eat and drink, and what 
 he should not, and how much and when ; so 
 that in this purchase the risk is not great. But 
 there is no suitable vessel in which knowledge 
 may be carried home ; for when a man has paid 
 the price he receives the knowledge into his 
 
14 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 very soul, and must go his way either injured 
 or benefited. Let us, then, look into these 
 matters with the help of men older than our- 
 selves, for we are as yet rather young to discuss 
 such a subject. But still we will go and hear 
 the man, inasmuch as that was our original in- 
 tention, and, after we have heard him we will 
 converse with the others also. For not only is 
 Protagoras here, but also Hippias of Elis, and 
 I believe Prodicus the Ceian besides," and many 
 other wise men." 
 
 Thus agreed, we set out, but, when we came 
 to the vestibule we remained there standing; 
 for we were in the midst of discussing some 
 question which had come up on the way, and in 
 order not to leave it unfinished, but to make an 
 end of it before going in, we stood in the yes- 
 tibule talking it over until we came to an un- 
 derstanding. Now, the porter, a eunuch, must 
 have overheard us : and so overrun is the house 
 with Sophists, that he, I suppose, has lost all 
 patience with those who frequent it ; for on our 
 knocking at the door he opened it indeed, but 
 the moment he -saw us, *' Pshaw, only more Soph- 
 ists ! " he exclaimed : "my master is busy ; " and 
 with this he clapped the door to with both hands 
 as violently as he was able. We then began to 
 knock again, whereupon by way of answer he 
 called out to us through the closed door : — 
 
 *' Did you not hear me say, you fellows, that 
 he is busy?" 
 
PROTAGORAS, 15 
 
 "But, my friend," I said, "we have not come 
 to see Callias, nor are we Sophists, so do not 
 be alarmed. It is Protagoras we have come to 
 see ; pray be good enough then to announce us." 
 
 Most unwiUingly even then did the man open 
 the door. 
 
 On entering, we came upon Protagoras who 
 was walking in the portico." Next to him on 
 the one side walked Callias the son of Hippo- 
 315 nicus, and Paralus the son of Pericles, his half- 
 brother on the mother's side, and Charmides the 
 son of Glaucon. And on the other side were 
 Xanthippus the other son of Pericles, and Philip- 
 pides the son of Philomelus, and Antimoerus of 
 Mende, who is the most noted of all the disciples 
 of Protagoras and is studying the art as a pro- 
 fession, to become a Sophist. " And of the throng 
 who followed on behind listening to his words, 
 the greater part were strangers whom Protagoras 
 draws from out of the various cities through 
 which he passes, like Orpheus bewitching them 
 by his voice, while they follow after, by his voice 
 bewitched. Certain of the band, however, were 
 natives of the place. And, as I looked at this 
 band, I was most of all delighted to see how 
 skilfully they avoided getting into the way of 
 Protagoras. Whenever he and they who were 
 with him turned, these listeners, dividing in the 
 midst, would range themselves in orderly fashion 
 on this side and that, after which, wheeling 
 
l6 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 round in a circle, they would fall behind again 
 in capital style. 
 
 And then, as Homer says, 'uplifting mine 
 eyes, I beheld ' '^ Hippias the Eleian, seated in 
 the opposite portico, on a chair of state ; while 
 around him upon benches were seated Eryxima- 
 chus the son of Acumenus, and Phaedrus the 
 Myrrhinusian, and Andron the son of Andro- 
 tion ; ^^ and of the strangers present some were 
 his own fellow-citizens, and some from other 
 parts. They appeared to be asking Hippias 
 questions in regard to nature and the heavenly 
 bodies, and he, seated upon his throne, passed 
 in review what was asked by each one, and gave 
 judgment upon it. 
 
 And furthermore, 'on Tantalus also I looked ; ' ^5 
 for you must know that Prodicus of Ceos was 
 staying there as well. He was in a certain 
 room which was formerly used by Hipponicus 
 as a store-closet,'^ but which now, because of 
 his many guests, Callias had cleared out and 
 turned into a guest-chamber. And Prodicus 
 was still in bed, wrapped up in skins and cover- 
 ings, a great many of them, as it appeared. 
 In one of the seats nearest him was Pausanias 
 of the deme of Cerameis,'^ and with Pausanias a 
 youth, a mere stripling, of mien so fair that I 
 could but imagine his nature to be both fair 
 and upright. I believe I heard that his name 
 was Agathon, and I should not be surprised if 
 
PROTAGORAS. 1/ 
 
 he were the favourite of Pausanias. So, then, 
 this youth was there, and both the Adeiman- 
 tuses, the son of Cepis as well as the son of 
 Leucolophides, and certain others. ^^ What they 
 were talking about, I was not able to gather from 
 without 'where I was standing, although I was 
 very eager to hear Prodicus, for I hold him to 
 316 be an exceedingly wise and an inspired man; 
 but the deep tones of his voice made the room 
 resound with an echo which confused all that 
 was said. 
 
 Hardly had we entered, when, following close 
 upon us, came Alcibiades the fair, as you call 
 him, and rightly too I think, and with him Critias 
 the son of Callaeschrus.'^ 
 
 On first entering the room we spent a few 
 moments in looking about us, and then going 
 up to Protagoras I said, — 
 
 " We have come, Protagoras, to see you, Hip- 
 pocrates and I." 
 
 *'Do you wish," said he, *'to speak to me 
 alone, or before these other people } " 
 
 *'It makes no difference to us," I said; "but, 
 when you have heard what has brought us here, 
 you yourself shall decide." 
 
 " And what, may I ask, has brought you } " 
 
 " Hippocrates, whom you see here, is a native 
 of this place, the son of Apollodorus, of a great 
 and wealthy family, and a match, I should say, 
 in point of natural gifts for any young man 
 
l8 PROTAGORAS, 
 
 of his own age. He has, I beUeve, set his 
 heart upon gaining renown in the state, and this 
 he thinks he is most likely to do if he puts him- 
 self under you. It is for you now to consider 
 whether you think it best to converse with us 
 by ourselves, or before the others." 
 
 "You are right, Socrates," he said, "to use 
 caution on my account, for, in truth, a stranger 
 who, going into your large cities, persuades the 
 flower of the youth to give up all connection 
 with every other teacher, whether young or old, 
 fellow-citizen or stranger, and to put themselves 
 under him, that by doing this they may become 
 better men, — a man who acts thus, I say, mugt 
 needs be on his guard, for no slight jealousies 
 and plottings and enmities of all kinds come 
 about from this cause. Now I maintain that 
 / the art of sophistry is an ancient art, but that 
 the men of ancient times who practised it, fear- 
 ing the odium it would bring upon them, adopted 
 a disguise behind which they screened them- 
 selves, — some using to this end poetry, as Homer 
 and Hesiod and Simonides ; some mysteries and 
 oracles, as Orpheus and • Musaeus and their 
 school : others again have, I believe, even used 
 the art of gymnastics, like Iccus of Tarentum 
 and the Sophist who is second to none other of 
 the present day, Herodicus, now of Selymbria 
 but formerly of Megara. Your own Agathocles 
 used music as a disguise, but was a great Sophist 
 
PROTAGORAS. 19 
 
 and so did Pythocleides the Ceian and many 
 others.''" All these, as I have said, made use of 
 these arts by way of disguise, because they feared 
 317 to excite enmity. But for my part I disagree 
 with all these men, for I do not think that they 
 * by any means brought about what they wished. 
 The leading men of the state, on whose account 
 these disguises are used, are never blinded by 
 /them, while, as to the common people, they may 
 be said not to use their senses at all, for they 
 only repeat over and over again what they are 
 told by their betters. Now for a man to attempt 
 , to run away when all the time he is so clearly 
 / in sight that he cannot possibly do it, — why, 
 the 'very attempt is utter folly, and of neces- 
 sity greatly enhances the ill will of his fellow- 
 men against him, for a man who acts thus, in 
 addition to all his other misdeeds, is accounted 
 by them a thorough knave. I therefore take 
 the opposite course, and confess that I am a 
 Sophist and that I educate men ; and to confess 
 this is, to my thinking, a better precaution than 
 to deny it. And other precautions also I duly 
 take, so that I ^ave never, thank God ! come to 
 any harm through confessing myself to be a 
 Sophist. And yet many years now have I pur- 
 sued the art, for the sum of my years is great ; 
 indeed, there is not one amongst you all whose 
 father I might not be, so far as age goes. If 
 you, then, are willing, I should be much better 
 
20 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 pleased to discourse upon these matters before 
 all who are here present." 
 
 And I, suspecting that he wished to show off 
 before Prodicus and Hippias and to make them 
 aware that we had come as his admirers, said : — 
 
 "Why should we not summon both Prodicus 
 and Hippias, and those who are with them, that 
 they may all hear us ? " 
 
 "By, all means," said Protagoras. 
 
 " Shall we not then," said Callias, "make ready 
 a place in which to hold our meeting, so that you 
 may be seated while you are discussing } " 
 
 This proposal seemed a good one, and de- 
 lighted, all of us, at the prospect of listening to 
 learned men, we ourselves seized the benches 
 and chairs, and arranged them near Hippias 
 where there were a number of benches already. 
 Meanwhile Callias and Alcibiades made Prodicus 
 get up from the couch where he was lying, and 
 came in bringing with them both him and all 
 his company. 
 
 When we "were all seated, Protagoras began 
 thus : — 
 
 "Now that all these people are assembled, 
 Socrates, I will beg you to repeat what you said 
 to me a little while ago about this youth." 
 
 " In speaking of our reason for coming, Pro- 
 
 318 tagoras," I answered, "I shall begin in the same 
 
 [ way that I did just now : Hippocrates here has 
 
 ' set his heart upon putting himself under you, 
 
PROTAGORAS. 21 
 
 and he would be glad to know what will be the 
 effect upon him if he does this. This is all 
 the speech we have to make." 
 
 Then Protagoras took up the discourse, and 
 said : — 
 
 *' Young man, this is how it will be with you 
 if you put yourself under me. The very first 
 day you spend under my teaching you will return , 
 home a better man, and the next day it will be 
 the same, and each succeeding day you will grow 
 in goodness." 
 
 On hearing this I observed : — 
 
 *'What you say, Protagoras, is nothing sur- 
 prising, but a matter of course ; for even at your 
 age, and wise man that you are, if some one were 
 to teach you what you happened not to know, 
 you would be the better for it. But that was 
 not what I meant. Suppose that the desire 
 which Hippocrates has most at heart were on 
 a sudden to change, and he become bent upon 
 joining that youth who has lately come to live 
 here, — Zeuxippus of Heracleia,^' — and that, 
 going to him just as he has now come to you, 
 he were to hear from him the very same things 
 he has just heard from you, that each day spent 
 under his teaching he would go on improv- 
 ing and growing better and better; and sup- 
 pose that he were to ask, * What do you mean 
 by saying that I shall grow better, and in what 
 shall I improve ? ' Zeuxippus would answer, ' In 
 
22 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 painting.' And if he put himself under Orthag- 
 oras of Thebes,^^ and heard the same from him 
 that he has from you, and asked in what he is 
 to improve day by day by coming under his 
 care, he would be told, ' In flute-playing.' 
 
 Do you then now speak in your turn and 
 answer this youth and me who am questioning 
 you in his name : We understand that Hip- 
 pocrates here, on the very first day he puts 
 himself under Protagoras, is to return home a 
 better man, and on each succeeding day is to 
 improve in like degree, — but in what way, 
 Protagoras, and in what subject } " 
 
 When he had heard me out, Protagoras said : — 
 " You are an excellent questioner, Socrates, and 
 I take pleasure in answering those who ask 
 good questions. Well then, Hippocrates in 
 coming to me will not undergo what he would 
 have had to undergo in joining any other of the 
 Sophists ; for they do dishonour to the youths 
 who, having just escaped from the arts, are led 
 back to the arts again, and against their will 
 plunged into the study of calculation and as- 
 tronomy and geometry and music," — as he 
 said this he cast a significant glance at Hippias, 
 — " but he who comes to me will learn nothing 
 but what he came to learn, — -Judgment, which 
 in domestic affairs will enable him to manage 
 his household in the best way, and in affairs of 
 319 state to acquire the greatest influence, both in 
 speech and action." 
 
PROTAGORAS. 23 
 
 "Wait," said I, "do I follow your meaning ? 
 I should say you were speaking of the art of 
 politics, and promising to make men good citi- 
 zens." 
 
 "This, Socrates," he answered, "is the very 
 thing that I make a profession of." 
 
 "And a noble art you possess indeed," I said, 
 " if you really do possess it ; but I will tell you 
 exactly what I think about this. I have never 
 believed, Protagoras, that the art can be taught 
 at all, and yet when you say it can I know not 
 how to disbelieve you. I am bound, however, 
 to declare my reason for believing that it can 
 neither be taught, nor procured by one man for 
 another. 
 
 That the Athenians are shrewd men is well 
 known to me, as it is to all the other Greeks. 
 Now I notice that whenever we come together 
 in the assembly, and action is to be taken by the 
 state about matters which relate to building, 
 the builders are summoned to give their advice 
 in regard to buildings, and in case of ship- 
 building, then the ship-wrights are summoned ; 
 and so on of all other matters which they think 
 may be taught and learned. And if any other 
 man whom the people do not regard as a skilled 
 workman undertakes to give his advice, then, 
 be he never so well-favoured and rich and high 
 born, they accept it none the more for that, 
 but laugh him to scorn and hoot at him until 
 
24 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 « 
 
 he who is trying to speak is actually hooted 
 down, and either stops of his own accord, or is 
 arrested by the city guard and turned out by 
 order of the prytanes.''^ This, then, is the action 
 they take in regard to arts which they think 
 may be professed ; but when they come to delib- 
 erate on any thing touching the management of 
 the state, then indeed may any man arise and 
 " give his advice, carpenter as well as blacksmith, 
 cobbler and shipmaster, rich and poor, well 
 born and of low degree.''^ And when these un- 
 dertake to give advice no one casts in their 
 teeth, as in the former instance, that they have 
 never learned the art nor had any teacher in it ; 
 from which it is evident that the Athenians do 
 not believe it can be taught. 
 
 Nor does this hold good only where the inter- 
 ests of the state are concerned. In private life 
 also, even the best and wisest are not able to 
 impart to others this virtue ^s which, as citizens,- 
 they themselves possess. There is Pericles, the 
 father of these youths. He has educated them 
 well and carefully in all that is to be acquired 
 320 from schoolmasters, but the very thing in which 
 he most excels he neither teaches them himself, 
 nor imparts to them through another. Like 
 sacred cattle ^^ left to range at will, they are 
 allowed to roam about by themselves, on the 
 mere chance that they may somewhere fall in 
 with virtue. And perhaps you may remember, 
 
PROTAGORAS, 2$ 
 
 how in the case of Cleinias,^7 the younger 
 brother of Alcibiades, this same man Pericles, 
 who was his guardian, fearful lest he might 
 be ruined by his brother, took him away, and 
 sent him to Ariphron to be educated. But be- 
 fore six months had passed, Ariphron sent 
 him back to his guardian, because he could 
 do nothing with him. And I could name any 
 number of men besides, who although good- 
 themselves, have never made any one better, - 
 whether those of their own kin or strangers. 
 And so, Protagoras, when I consider all these 
 things, I come to the conclusion that virtue 
 cannot be taught at all ; but then again, when 
 I hear you talking in this way, I am staggered, 
 and begin to think there is something in what 
 you sa^, for I hold you to be a man of varied ex- 
 perience, who have learned many things from 
 others, and have found out many for yourself. 
 If then you can bring forth any convincing proof 
 to show us that virtue can be taught, do not, I 
 beg of you, begrudge it to us." 
 
 "Most certainly, Socrates," said he, "I shall 
 not begrudge it. But tell me, how would you 
 rather have me prove my point } in a myth, as 
 an old man does to young people, or by means 
 of argument .-^ " 
 
 Whereupon a number of those who were 
 seated there, called out to him to prove it in 
 whichever way he preferred. 
 
26 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 "It seems to me, then," he said, "that the 
 myth would be the most pleasing way. 
 
 Time was when gods indeed existed, but mor- 
 ' tal race there was none. But when, as foreor- 
 dained, the hour had arrived for living creatures 
 to come into being, the gods fashioned them with- 
 in the bowels of the earth from combinations of 
 fire and water and such other elements as may 
 be blended with these. And upon the eve of 
 bringing them forth into the light of day, the 
 gods appointed Prometheus and Epimetheus^^ 
 to put the finishing touches to the work, and to 
 dispense the divers faculties to each race as best 
 befitted it. 
 
 Then Epimetheus begged Prometheus to let 
 him make the distribution. 'And you,' he said, 
 * after it is made, shall inspect it.' Thereupon, 
 having won the consent of Prometheus, he 
 began his task. Now in the distribution, 
 some he endowed not with swiftness but with 
 strength, while to the weaker he assigned swift- 
 ness ; to some he gave armour, while for the 
 unarmed, by bestowing upon them some special 
 physical characteristic, he contrived also a means 
 of protection. Thus, to those whom he made 
 small he gave wings for flying away, or else the 
 capacity for living under ground, while their size 
 2 1 was the safeguard of those who were large ; and 
 always in dispensing the faculties he sought to 
 offset one by another, planning all with a view 
 
PROTAGORAS. 2/ 
 
 to prevent the extinction of any race. Then, 
 having provided them with means of escape 
 from mutual destruction, he contrived protec- 
 tion for them against the seasons, wrapping 
 them around with thick hair and tough skins, 
 suitable both for warding off the winter storms 
 and for keeping out the summer heat, and ser- 
 viceable also as a couch, that each creature 
 might have growing upon him his own bed ; 
 and to some he gave horny hoofs to cover 
 their feet, to others claws and stiff callous 
 skins. After this he devised for the different 
 races different kinds of food ; for some, herbs 
 of the earth, for some, fruits of the trees, and 
 for others, roots ; but certain of them he ap- 
 pointed to serve as food for other creatures. 
 There were those again whom he made to have 
 few offspring, while those who were constantly 
 exposed to destruction he made to be prolific, 
 and so provided for the continuance of the 
 race. And in this way it happened that Epi- 
 metheus, who was not very wise, had used up 
 all the faculties before he knew it. The race of 
 men still remained incomplete, and he in de- 
 spair knew not what to do. While he was in 
 this strait came Prometheus to inspect the dis- 
 tribution, and beheld the rest of creation suit- 
 ably provided with all necessities, but man still 
 naked and helpless, having neither resting-place 
 nor means of defence ; and yet already the day 
 
28 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 appointed was at hand in which man should 
 issue forth from earth into the Hght of day. 
 Wherefore Prometheus, in great straits to find 
 some way of safety for man, stole from He- 
 phaestus and Athene ^9 the art of mechanics, to- 
 gether with fire, — for without fire it would be 
 impossible for men either to acquire or to utilize 
 this art, — and thus he endowed mortals. In 
 this way, then, man became possessed of the 
 knowledge necessary to support existence, but 
 
 — knowledge of the art political he had none ; for 
 this Zeus kept in his own dwelling-place, and to 
 Prometheus it was not given to penetrate within 
 the stronghold, which is the abode of Zeus ; 
 and, moreover, the guards of Zeus were very 
 terrible. But into the workshop where Athene 
 and Hephaestus together delight in working, 
 he did secretly penetrate, and stealing away from 
 Hephaestus the art of fire and also that other 
 art which belongs to Athene, he gave them to 
 man. From this time forth the means of bodily 
 subsistence were possessed by man ; but Prome- 
 theus, so they say, was afterwards made to do 
 
 322 penance for the theft.3° 
 
 / Now since man had received a share of the 
 good things which fall to the gods, he alone of 
 all creatures ^^ held the gods in honour, and he 
 accordingly took upon himself to set up altars 
 and statues to them. And soon he invented 
 the art of speech and of calling things by 
 
PROTAGORAS, 29 
 
 name ; and he devised dwellings and clothing 
 and shoes and beds and food which the earth 
 brings forth. Now in the beginning, men, thus 
 equipped, lived scattered about here and there, 
 for they had no cities. And because they had 
 altogether less strength than the wild beasts, 
 they were constantly destroyed by them ; since 
 the mechanical arts, although supplying them 
 with ample means of subsistence, were insuffi- 
 cient for waging war against wild beasts : for the 
 art political, to which the art of war belongs, 
 they as yet did not possess. They endeavoured, 
 therefore, to gather themselves together in one 
 place and to gain safety by establishing states ; 
 but being without the political art, they no 
 sooner had come together than they began to 
 mishandle one another ; and so again they scat- 
 tered, and again were exposed to destruction. 
 And now Zeus, fearing lest our race should per- 
 ish utterly, sent Hermes to introduce reverence -^, 
 and justice among men, to be principles of order 
 in states, and bonds whereby men might be 
 drawn together in all friendliness. Then H^- 
 mes inquired of Zeus in what way he should be- 
 stow justice and reverence upon men, — whether 
 or not these gifts were to be distributed like 
 the arts, the upshot of which distribution is 
 as follows : one man skilled as a physician 
 supplies the wants of many other men, and 
 thus also do men skilled in the other profes- 
 
30 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 ^ sions. * And shall I, after this fashion, bestow 
 justice and reverence upon men, or shall I dis- 
 pense them to all alike?' 'To all alike,' was 
 
 ; the reply of Zeus, *that all men may have a 
 share in them. For cities could not exist if, 
 like the arts, justice and reverence were shared 
 by a few only amongst the citizens. And d© you 
 establish in my name this law, — that he who is 
 incapable of feeling justice and reverence be put 
 to death as a pestilence in the state.' " 
 
 323-328 [And hence, although the man who pro- 
 fesses knowledge of arts which he does not 
 follow is treated with contempt, in matters ap- 
 pertaining to government every man is listened 
 to with respect, as being the possessor of those 
 virtues with which good citizenship is synony- 
 mous. Nay, if a man does not really possess 
 these virtues he must feign them, since were 
 he openly to proclaim such deficiency he would 
 be set down as a madman, or at least as unfit to 
 dwell amongst his kind. We must not, however,, 
 fancy that the capacity for being a good citizen 
 it comes entirely by nature and does not need to 
 ', be cultivated, for in that case it would be as use- 
 V less and unjust to punish those who fail in this 
 i duty as to inflict punishment for some physical 
 imperfection. Punishment is no end in itself, 
 neither is it retaliation : a culprit is punished, 
 
PROTAGORAS. 3 1 
 
 not that his penalty may atone for his past mis- 
 ^deeds, but that it may serve as a warning both 
 to himself and to others in the future. And if 
 we acknowledge that punishment both prevents 
 evil and counteracts its effects upon the soul, we 
 at once admit that virtue can be taught. 
 
 As to the statement made by Socrates, that 
 good men do not train their sons in this partic- 
 ular excellence, it is met by the answer that the 
 whole life of every citizen, from beginning to 
 end, is nothing if not an education in virtue ; 
 the fact that the sons of good fathers so often 
 turn out badly only proving the truth that all 
 men have had an equal chance to attain it. In 
 illustration of this, we may suppose it necessary 
 to the existence of a state that every member of 
 it should be a good flute-player. Were this the 
 case, each citizen would doubtless exact a high 
 standard in this art from all his fellow-citizens ; 
 but the influences brought to bear upon each and 
 all of them would be the same, and the son of a 
 good flute-player would have no advantage over 
 the son of a bad one, since the natural capacity 
 of each and this alone would determine his pro- 
 ficiency. Even so each citizen in the state is i j 
 self-constituted an educator of the young, from ■ ' 
 whose virtue he himself derives benefit. .\ 
 
 It were nevertheless not undesirable, continues 
 Protagoras, to seek some teacher who, more than 
 other men, might be capable of promoting a yet 
 
32 PROTAGORAS, 
 
 higher standard of virtue ; and here the great 
 Sophist asserts his own pretensions by giving 
 himself out to be such a teacher and as such, 
 not unworthy of his hire. He lays, however, no 
 obligation upon his disciples to pay more for their 
 instruction than in their own opinion it is worth ; 
 if his price seems to them too high, they have but 
 to take oath in the temple as to what they would 
 consider fair, and with this he will be content. 
 
 Thus Protagoras, as he himself declares, has 
 attempted, both by myth and by argument, to 
 prove that the Athenians believe virtue capable 
 of being taught, and that there is nothing sur- 
 prising in the fact that good fathers beget bad 
 sons, and bad fathers good sons.] 
 
 ^ 
 
 Having given us this elaborate specimen of 
 his art, Protagoras now ceased talking ; but so 
 long had I been held under his spell, that I still 
 continued gazing upon him as if he were about 
 to speak further, for I was anxious to lose not 
 a word. When I perceived, however, that he 
 had really come to an end, with no little diffi- 
 culty I gathered myself together, as it were, 
 and looking towards Hippocrates said, — 
 
 " What gratitude, son of Apollodorus, do I 
 owe you for having urged me to come hither ! for 
 what I have just heard from Protagoras is worth 
 much to me indeed. Hitherto I have supposed 
 
. PROTAGORAS, 33 
 
 that the way in which good men attain goodness 
 was a thing about which no mere man might 
 busy himself ; now, however, I am convinced 
 of the contrary. There is only one little point 
 which is a stumbling-block to me, but doubtless 
 Protagoras will easily explain this away, since he 
 has already explained away so many things. 
 Were a man to converse on these subjects 
 329 with any one of our public speakers, he would 
 probably hear very much the same words, whether 
 from Pericles or from any other of bur masters 
 of speech ; but let him enquire into any par- 
 ticular, and like books they have neither reply 
 to give nor question to ask in their turn. If 
 inquiry is made about ever so trifling a detail 
 in what they have said, then, like some great 
 brazen bowl which when it is struck, goes boom- 
 ing on and on unless stopped by the touch, so do ^ 
 your orators, when questioned about any detail, j 
 spin out their talk to endless length. Protag- 
 oras here, on the other hand, is able not only 
 to make long and flowing speeches, as he has 
 just proved, but is capable when questioned of 
 giving a concise answer, or when he himself is 
 the questioner, of waiting till he has received 
 his answer, — all of which things but few men j 
 are qualified to do. Now, then, Protagoras, but 
 one little point do I need explained ; if you will 
 answer me this, I shall have all I ask for. You 
 say that virtue may be taught, and if any man 
 
34 PROTAGORAS, 
 
 could convince me of this, it would be you ; 
 but pray satisfy my mind in regard to this 
 one thing which has puzzled me while you have / 
 been speaking." 
 
 [The question which Socrates wishes to have 
 330 answered is whether Protagoras, in speaking as 
 he has just done of justice, reverence, and other 
 good qualities, regards each of these as a part 
 which, although separate and distinct in itself, 
 helps to make up virtue as a whole, or whether 
 he regards each as but a different name for one 
 and the same thing, — virtue itself. 
 
 Protagoras pronounces in favour of the former 
 definition, and on being further questioned 
 asserts that the several parts of virtue are re- 
 lated to one another, not like the separate parti- 
 cles of gold, each of which differs from the other 
 only in point of size, but rather like the separate 
 features of a face, each one of which preserves 
 its own identity and discharges its own func- 
 tions, and resembles in no respect any other 
 feature. 
 
 Hereupon Socrates, supposing some imaginary 
 interlocutor to be questioning them in regard to 
 the several natures of these same parts of virtue, 
 proceeds with the argument as follows :] 
 
 " Now if this person, going on with his ques- 
 
PROTAGORAS. 35 
 
 tions were to ask : * What was that you were 
 saying a little while ago ? Perhaps I did not 
 hear you aright, but I thought you said that 
 such was the relation of the several parts of 
 virtue to each other that no one part was like 
 another part ' — I should answer : * All this 
 you did indeed hear aright, but inasmuch as you 
 thought it was I who said it, you heard amiss : 
 331 for it was Protagoras here who gave these an- 
 swers, I being only the questioner.' And sup- 
 posing he then asked you : ' Protagoras, is he 
 speaking the truth ? Do you then maintain that 
 no part of virtue is like another part ? Is this 
 really your meaning?' What should you an- 
 swer him ? " 
 
 " I should be obliged, Socrates," he said, "to 
 acknowledge that it is." 
 
 "And what, Protagoras, should we answer, 
 him if after we had acknowledged this he went 
 on further to say: * Then holiness is not like any 
 thing that is just, nor justice like any thing that 
 is holy, but rather like a thing that is not holy. 
 And thus holiness is of a like nature with what 
 is not just but unjust, that is to say unholy.' 
 What shall we answer to this 1 I for my part 
 should maintain that justice is holy and holiness 
 just, and if you would allow me, I should make 
 tbe very same answer in speaking for you, and 
 say that justice is either the same as holiness 
 or as nearly the same as possible, and that it is 
 
36 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 most emphatically true that justice is like holi- 
 ness and holiness like justice. But now con- 
 sider whether you object to my making this 
 answer, or whether you also approve of it." 
 
 "I do not feel so sure, Socrates," he said, 
 "that justice can be granted in this off-hand 
 way to be holy, and holiness just, for there 
 is, it seems to me, a difference between them. 
 But what does this matter .-* If you wish it, let 
 us assume that justice is holy and holiness 
 just." 
 
 "No indeed," I said, "it is not any *if you 
 so wish ' or, ' if you think best ' that I wish to 
 examine, but rather yourself and myself. And 
 when I speak of myself and yourself, it is be- 
 cause I believe that the argument may best be 
 tested if the 4f ' be left out of it." 
 
 332-333 [In this dilemma Protagoras states it to be 
 his opinion that justice does indeed in a certain 
 way resemble holiness, but only as every thing 
 bears a certain likeness to every other thing. 
 The vagueness of this statement is, however, 
 counterbalanced by his subsequent admission 
 that every thing has one opposite and one only ; 
 this leading to the conclusion that since sound- 
 ness of mind and wisdom are alike opposed to 
 folly, the two, on the theory of one opposite, 
 must of necessity be one and the same thing. 
 
PROTAGORAS, 37 
 
 Having gained the reluctant assent of Protago- 
 ras to this statement, Socrates now calls upon 
 him, though as will be seen after a somewhat 
 circuitous fashion, to define the position of jus- 
 tice, probably with the view of adding this qual- 
 ity to the list already begun of the several parts 
 which go to make up virtue as a whole.] 
 
 "Come now, Protagoras, let us not grow 
 weary of our search, but let us consider well 
 what remains. 
 
 Does it seem to you that when a man com- 
 mits injustice, he is of sound mind, the fact of 
 his having committed it being proof thereof } " 
 
 "I should be ashamed to acknowledge this, 
 Socrates," he answered, "and yet many men do 
 say so." 
 
 "And shall I argue against them," said I, 
 " or against you .'' " 
 
 "Pray argue first," he said, "if you are 
 willing, against the former opinion, — that held 
 by the many." 
 
 " It makes no difference to me, if you will 
 only answer whether you hold it or not. For it 
 is the opinion itself that I am bent upon testing, 
 although it may very likely come about that I 
 the questioner, and the answerer also may be 
 put to the test as well." 
 
 At first Protagoras seemed to be standing 
 
38 PROTAGORAS, 
 
 upon his dignity, and complained that the argu- 
 ment was an uninviting one ; at last, however, 
 he consented to answer. 
 
 "Come then," I said, "answer me from the 
 very beginning. Do you believe that when men 
 commit injustice they are of sound mind.-*" 
 
 " We will assume that they are," he said. 
 
 "And by sound mind you mean good judg- 
 ment ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And by good judgment the power of right 
 deliberation 32?" 
 
 "This we will assume," he said. 
 
 " How do you mean } When good comes from 
 committing the injustice, or harm } " 
 
 " When good comes." 
 
 " You admit then that good things do exist ? '^ 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "And is it such things as are useful to men," 
 I said, " that you call good 1 " 
 
 "Yes, by Zeus," he answered, "but even if 
 they are not useful to men I still call them 
 good." 
 
 Now it appeared to me that Protagoras by 
 this time had become troubled and confused ; 
 he seemed in his answers to be putting him- 
 self on the defensive. And so, perceiving how 
 it was with him, I began to be circumspect and 
 gently asked : 
 334 "Do you mean, Protagoras, those things which 
 
PROTAGORAS, 39 
 
 are merely not useful to men, or those which are 
 not useful at all ? Is it the latter that you call 
 good ? " 
 
 [Here Protagoras, glad to evade the real point 
 in question, launches forth into a wordy ha- 
 rangue intended to prove that good things are 
 in themselves neither useful nor harmful, but 
 vary in usefulness according to their application.] 
 
 At the close of his speech all the company 
 cried out "Well done ! " I, however, said : — 
 
 "It so happens, Protagoras, that I am a for- 
 getful man, and if any one talks to me at length, 
 I quite lose track of the subject. Now if I hap- 
 pened to be slightly deaf, you would speak louder 
 in talking to me than you do to others, and just 
 so now, since it is with a forgetful man you are 
 talking, you ought to cut down your answers 
 and make them shorter, if you wish me to follow 
 you." 
 
 "What do you mean in bidding me shorten 
 my answers ? Must I give shorter answers than 
 are needful } " 
 
 " By no means." 
 
 " As long then as are needful ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And which ought I, think you, to do ; answer 
 
40 PROTAGORAS, 
 
 at such length as seems right to myself or to 
 you ? " 
 
 "Well," I said, "I have heard that you are 
 able when you wish, both to speak yourself and 
 to teach others to speak at such length upon 
 a given subject that there seems no end to 
 your flow of language, and then at other times 
 you speak with such brevity upon this same 
 335 subject that brevity could no farther go. If 
 then you intend to converse with me, pray fol- 
 low the second method, — that of brevity." 
 
 "Socrates," he replied, "against many men 
 before now have I entered into a contest of 
 words, and had I done this thing you bid me, 
 and talked as my opponent bade me talk, I 
 should never have shown my superiority, nor 
 would the name of Protagoras have become 
 known amongst the Greeks." 
 
 On this, knowing that he himself was not 
 at all pleased with his previous answers, and 
 that he would not of his own free will go on 
 with the argument if he were required to an- 
 swer, I thought that my part in the discussion 
 was at an end, and so I said : — 
 
 "I assure you, Protagoras, that I have no 
 desire to persist in carrying on this conversa- 
 tion against your own wish, but whenever you 
 are willing to talk in such a way as I am able to 
 follow, then I will talk with you. You indeed, 
 as they say of you and as you yourself confess. 
 
PROTAGORAS. 4 1 
 
 are able to speak either at length or with 
 brevity, for you are an accomplished man ; I, 
 on the contrary, am not able to talk thus at 
 length : I only wish I were. But you who are 
 able to do both, ought to adapt yourself to us 
 for the sake of keeping up the conversation. As 
 you do not, however, see fit to do this, and as I 
 am rather pressed for time and should not be 
 able to stay and hear you to the end of a long 
 discourse, — for already I ought to be somewhere 
 else, — I shall now depart ; and yet from you I 
 should not have been at all sorry to have heard 
 even a long speech." 
 
 With this I got up to go away, but as I was 
 in the act of rising, Callias seized my hand with 
 his right hand, and catching hold of me with 
 his left by this cloak of mine, said, " We will not 
 let you off, Socrates, for if you go away our 
 conversation will take a very different turn. I 
 entreat you, therefore, to stay with us, for noth- 
 ing in the world would delight me more than to 
 hear you and Protagoras talking together. You 
 really must give us all this pleasure." 
 
 By this time I was on my feet and on the 
 point of going out, and I replied : — 
 
 "You well know, son of Hipponicus, that I 
 have always taken delight in your fondness for 
 philosophy, which I welcome this opportunity 
 to praise and commend, and I should therefore 
 be glad to give you pleasure, if what you asked 
 
42 PROTAGORAS, 
 
 were possible ; but this is just as if you were 
 begging me to keep pace with Crison the run- 
 ner of Himera, in his prime, or to race with any 
 other of the long-course or professional run- 
 ners," and keep pace with them. I should an- 
 336 swer that I am far more anxious to keep up 
 with these runners than you are to have me ; 
 but indeed 1 am not able. And so if you wish 
 to see Crison and me running together in the 
 same race, you must beg him to bring down his 
 pace to mine, for although I am not able to 
 run fast, he can run slowly. If therefore you 
 have set your heart upon hearing Protagoras 
 and me, you must beg him to answer me now 
 as he answered at first, — in few words and 
 keeping to the point. If he does not, what sort 
 of a discussion can we have.'* To join in argu-, 
 ment with others is, to my thinking, a very dif-j 
 ferent matter from making a set speech." 
 
 " But don't you see, Socrates," he exclaimed, 
 "that Protagoras is perfectly fair in claiming 
 that he should be allowed to speak as he likes, 
 and you as you like "i " 
 
 Here Alcibiades broke in and said : — 
 " You are quite wrong there, Callias. Here i 
 Socrates 'confesses that long-winded speeches ' 
 are not in his line and that in this respect he is 
 outdone by Protagoras ; but in regard to ca- 
 pacity for carrying on a discussion, and ability 
 to sustain an argument both by talking and by 
 
PROTAGORAS. 
 
 
 listening to others, I should be 
 came behind any living man. If then Pro- 
 tagoras on his side will acknowledge that he 
 is inferior to Socrates in argument, Socrates 
 will be quite content ; if, however, he claims 
 superiority in this respect also, let him carry 
 on the discussion by means of questions and 
 answers, and not after each question make a 
 long speech, evading the point at issue, and not 
 troubling himself to answer, but rambling on 
 until most of his hearers have forgotten what 
 the argument is about ; although so far as Socra- 
 tes is concerned, I answer for him that he will 
 not really forget, for all his jesting and calling 
 himself forgetful. Let us then, every man of 
 us, give his independent vote ; mine is that the 
 proposition of Socrates is the fairer of the two." 
 
 After Alcibiades it was, I think, Critias who 
 spoke. 
 
 "It strikes me, Prodicus and Hippias," he 
 said, "that Callias sides very strongly with 
 Protagoras, while Alcibiades as usual is eager 
 to win, no matter what the cause into which he 
 may throw himself. But as for ourselves, it 
 certainly does not become us to enter the lists, 
 whether on the side of Socrates or of Protago- 
 ras, but rather to unite in entreating them 
 both not to break off in the midst of the con- 
 versation." 
 
 As he ended, Prodicus began thus : — 
 
44 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 $S7 "That is an admirable suggestion of yours, 
 Critias, for they who are present at discussions 
 such as these ought indeed to give impartial 
 attention to both speakers, but not to heed each 
 equally. For the two things are not the same ; 
 we must listen impartially indeed to both speak- 
 ers, but not be swayed equally by each, but \ 
 more by the wiser, by the more ignorant the I 
 less. 
 
 Now for my own part, Protagoras and Soc- 
 rates, I think that you ought, both of you, to dis- 
 agree amicably over each other's arguments, but 
 not wrangle over them ; for friends may disagree 
 with friends in all kindness, but only enemies 
 and opponents wrangle one with the other. 
 Thus would our conversation be most successful, 
 for thus would the speakers win most respect, 
 not praise, from us the hearers ; for respect 
 comes from the hearts of the hearers and knows 
 no guile, whereas praise in words is often given 
 by those who speak against their real opinion, 
 with intent to deceive. And then again we, the 
 hearers, shall in this way receive most pleasure, 
 not enjoyment, for pleasure consists in learning 
 and grasping thought through the mind alone, 
 whereas enjoyment consists in eating and in 
 experiencing other delights through the body^ 
 alone." 
 
 These words of Prodicus were favourably re- 
 ceived by nearly all present. 
 
PROTAGORAS, 45 
 
 After Prodicus spoke Hippias the sage. 
 
 "My friends," he said, "all of us here present, 
 are, I hold, kinsfolk and relatives and fellow- 
 citizens, by nature not by convention and law ; 
 for likeness of nature makes one thing akin to 
 another, whereas law, that tyrant of men, is 
 constantly running counter to nature and vio- 
 lating it. But for us who understand the nature 
 of things, and are wisest amongst the Greeks, 
 and as such are here met together in Greece, — 
 yes, in this very prytaneium ^^ of her wisdom, and 
 not only in this city, but in the greatest and most 
 honourable house which the city contains, — for 
 us, I say, it would be shameful to do dishon- 
 our to this high honour and to dispute amongst 
 ourselves like the meanest of men. And, there- 
 fore, Protagoras and Socrates, I advise, nay I 
 entreat you, to give your consent to our acting 
 the part of mediators and leading you both on 
 338 to some common ground ; and do not you, Soc- 
 rates, on your side, insist upon this chary fashion 
 of speech, this extreme brevity, if it be not 
 pleasing to Protagoras, but so slacken and loosen 
 the reins of the argument that it may come 
 before us in a more dignified and seemly aspect ; 
 and let not Protagoras on the other hand, crowd- 
 ing on all sail and driving before the wind, fly 
 into a sea of words, and so lose sight of land ; 
 but let each one keep to a middle course. So 
 do, therefore, and let yourselves be persuaded 
 
46 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 to choose some one as manager and umpire and 
 presiding officer, who shall see that each of you 
 keep the right mean in his discourse." 
 
 These words found favour with the company, 
 all of whom gave signs of approval. Callias 
 declared that he would not let me off, and all 
 begged that an umpire might be chosen. But 
 I said that it would be a shame to choose an 
 umpire for the argument. 
 
 "For," said I, "if the person so chosen were 
 to prove inferior to ourselves, it would not be 
 right that an inferior man should be set over 
 those better than himself ; nor if he were on an 
 equality would it be right either, for he who is 
 our equal will act like ourselves, so that such a 
 choice will prove superfluous. But how if you 
 choose one superior to ourselves .? In very truth 
 I believe it impossible for you to choose a man 
 wiser than Protagoras here, and if he whom you 
 choose is not really superior to him, but only de- 
 clared by you to be so, you are insulting him by 
 making choice of an umpire as for some inferior 
 man ; although so far as I am concerned, it 
 would make no difference to me at all. But this 
 is what I should like to do, in order that we may 
 go on with the conversation and the discussion 
 which you desire to hear. If Protagoras is not 
 willing to answer he may question, and I will 
 answer and will try in so doing to show him 
 how I think a person ought to answer when 
 
PROTAGORAS, 47 
 
 questioned ; and let him pledge his word that 
 after I have answered all he wishes to ask, he 
 will do the same by me. And if he does not 
 seem disposed to make his answers to the point, 
 you and I will together entreat him, as you have 
 just entreated me, not to break up our conver- 
 sation. And for this no special umpire is 
 needed; you shall all be umpires together." 
 
 All approved of this plan, and Protagoras, 
 although exceeding loth, was obliged to prom- 
 ise that he would begin by questioning, and that 
 when he had had his fill of this he would take 
 his turn at answering, and this time do so in 
 few words. 
 
 339"347 [Protagoras at once shifts the scene from 
 the political arena to that of poetry, the right 
 understanding of which, he asserts, is the better 
 part of education. He demands an explanation 
 of certain seemingly inconsistent passages in an 
 ode of Simonides^s relating to the subject in 
 hand, and asks how it is that the poet after 
 saying : " Hard it truly is for a man to become 
 good," proceeds to disagree with the same senti- 
 ment as expressed in the words of Pittacus : ^^ 
 " Hard it is for a man to be good." 
 
 Staggered by the unexpectedness of the ques- 
 tion, "just as if I had been struck by a first-rate 
 boxer," to use his own words, and confused by 
 
48 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 the applause with which it is greeted by the 
 audience, Socrates turns to Prodicus for support. 
 *'The art practised by this celebrated teacher 
 and his well-known skill," he asserts, appeal- 
 ing alike to the self-love of Prodicus and to his 
 passion for fine-drawn verbal distinctions, "are 
 both needed to restore the credit of his fel- 
 low-countryman, Simonides, whom Protagoras 
 threatens to make an end of. May ^ not the 
 seeming contradictions be accounted for by the 
 difference in meaning between the two verbs 
 to ' become ' and to ' be ' ; and may not Simon- 
 \ ides have meant to say with Hesiod, ' The gods\ 
 \ have appointed that before virtue must go toil :\ 
 Uor long and steep is the path leading to virtue,! 
 )ut the heights once reached, then that becomes I 
 j iasy to acquire which before was hard ' 37 ? " J . 
 
 But although Prodicus lends the weight of-' 
 his " inspired wisdom " in support of this view, 
 Protagoras scorns to accept it, declaring it to be 
 more damaging to the credit of Simonides than 
 is the poet's inconsistency which it attempts to 
 explain, since he must be an ignorant man in- 
 deed who could say that the hardest of all things 
 might ever be acquired with ease. Socrates then 
 proffers another explanation which Prodicus, 
 always ready to encourage any attempt at defi- 
 nition, finds entirely satisfactory. Simonides, 
 he maintains, has here used the word " hard " in 
 a sense not properly belonging to it, — that oi 
 
PROTAGORAS, 49 
 
 "evil," — just as he himself, Socrates, has often 
 used the word " dreadful " in an improper sense, 
 speaking, it might be, of Protagoras as being a 
 "dreadfully" wise man. For this bad habit he 
 has often in fact been taken to task by Protago- 
 ras, who asks how "dreadful" can be used as a 
 term of praise, as if it were possible for any 
 thing good to be " dreadful." 
 
 As Protagoras receives this view with still 
 greater contempt than he did the other, Socrates 
 confesses that these so-called explanations have 
 been ventured upon by Prodicus and himself 
 solely with the object of drawing out the argu- 
 ments of their adversary. At length it seems 
 to dawn upon Prodicus that he too has fallen a 
 victim to the irony of Socrates ; and, needless 
 to say, he allows this statement to pass without 
 attempting to disavow it. 
 
 Socrates now gives what he professes to be- 
 lieve is the true interpretation of the ode, not 
 omitting in the course of this, to bring in his 
 favourite doctrine that ev il is never vo luntarily 
 committed . 
 
 The Lacedaemonians, he gravely asserts, have 
 ever been at pains to conceal their deep knowl- 
 edge of philosophy, lest other nations, discov- 
 ering that their real superiority lies in their 
 wisdom, not in their physical strength, should 
 begin to imitate them. Their short and pithy 
 sayings, the result of the most perfect educa- 
 
50 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 tion, have been emulated by the wisest men of 
 Greece, as is testified by the two celebrated in- 
 scriptions written in the temple of Apollo at 
 Delphi, — "Know thyself," and "Nothing in ex- 
 cess." 
 
 Now of this same kind was the saying of 
 
 Pittacus here quoted, — "Hard it is to be good," 
 
 and so highly was this saying praised by the 
 
 wise men of his time that Simonides was sure, 
 
 could he refute it, of gaining a world-wide fame. 
 
 ^ He therefore composed the poem now under 
 
 discussion, with the intention of proving that to 
 
 I become good, although hard, is still possible, but 
 
 I that the power to remain good belongs to the 
 
 gods alone, and that Pittacus, in holding out a 
 
 possibility of what it is presumption even to 
 
 think of attaining, is practising deception, and 
 
 this in the most important of all subjects, — the 
 
 conduct of life.] ^ 
 
 "It seems to me, Socrates," said Hippias, 
 " that you have explained the ode admirably ; 
 but I too have not a bad interpretation of it, 
 which, if agreeable to you, I will now set forth." 
 
 " Yes, Hippias," said Alcibiades, " some other 
 time, but what Protagoras and Socrates have 
 together agreed to do is now in order, — if Pro- 
 tagoras wishes to go on questioning, Socrates 
 is to answer, or if he prefers answering, Soc- 
 rates is to question him." 
 
PROTAGORAS, 51 
 
 "I leave it to Protagoras," I said, "to choose 
 whichever way is pleasantest to himself, but if 
 he is willing, pray let us have done with odes 
 and poems, for I should very much like, Pro- 
 tagoras, to get to the bottom of the subject 
 about which I was asking at first ; and this 
 talk about poetry seems to me far too like the 
 feasts of vulgar and boorish men, who, unable 
 through ignorance to entertain each other at 
 their carousals by using their own voices in con- 
 versation, hire at great expense the voice of 
 flutes, which has no place there, and run up the 
 price of flute-girls in order to entertain each 
 other by means of this voice. But where men 
 who are upright and honourable and of liberal 
 education feast together, neither flute- nor dan- 
 cing-girls nor harpers are to be seen, for these 
 men are able to entertain one another without 
 the help of foolish talk and childish pastimes, 
 but simply by the use of their own voices, talk- 
 ing and listening by turns ; and this in all cour^ 
 tesy even when they have taken much wine.^^' 
 Such entertainments as these, if they be indeed 
 composed of men such as most of us give our- 
 selves out to be, need not the help of any alien 
 voice, nor that of poets either, whom it is not 
 possible to question about the meaning of their 
 words ; insomuch that of the many who quote 
 them in support of what they themselves say, 
 some assert that the poets meant this, others 
 
52 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 that, because they are talking about a thing 
 
 which cannot be brought to the test. With 
 
 such entertainments as these they will have 
 
 nothing to do, but they entertain themselves 
 
 348 in their own way, putting one another to the 
 
 test by interchange of their own ideas. These 
 
 irather, it seems to me, are the men whom we 
 
 / ought, both you and I, to imitate. Let us leave 
 
 I the poets aside, and ourselves originating ideas 
 
 one for the other, let us test the truth and our( 
 
 own selves. If then you still wish to question, 
 
 I hold myself ready to answer your questions, 
 
 or if you prefer it, do you hold yourself ready to 
 
 answer me, so that we may bring the subject 
 
 to an end, in the midst of which we came to a 
 
 standstill." 
 
 This I said and much more of the same kind, 
 but still Protagoras would not say decidedly 
 which he would do. Then Alcibiades looking 
 at Callias, said : 
 
 " Do you think, Callias, that it is fair of Pro- 
 tagoras not to be willing to say decidedly 
 whether he will answer questions or not .'' For 
 my part I do not think it is. He ought either 
 to talk himself, or else declare that he is not 
 willing to talk, so that we may at least know 
 his mind about it, and Socrates be free to talk 
 with some one else, and likewise all the rest 
 of us with any we may choose." 
 
 And Protagoras, put to shame, I thought, by 
 
PROTAGORAS. 53 
 
 these words of Alcibiades, and also because 
 Callias, and in fact pretty much every one there, 
 was entreating him, reluctantly made up his 
 mind to bear his part in the discussion, and bade 
 me begin to question, since he was ready to 
 answer. 
 
 "Do not imagine, Protagoras," I then ob- 
 served, " that I am holding this argument with 
 you for any other purpose than that of examin- 
 ing into certain difficulties which I have always 
 felt. Hom^r is, I think, entirely in the right 
 when he says : 
 
 * Let two go together, and one understands ere the other,39* j 
 
 for in this sort is every man of us better pro- 
 vided for every work and word and thought. * 
 
 But one man alone, * even well understand- 
 ing,' must needs straightway go about seeking j 
 till he find some other man to whom he may | 
 unfold his tale and by whom it may be con- 
 firmed. Just so I too am glad to speak out my 
 mind, and to you rather than to any one else, 
 because I believe that you of all men are best 
 qualified for searching into all matters which a 
 fair-minded man ought to consider, and especially 
 those that concern virtue. For who could do 
 this better than you who not only esteem your- 
 self to be good and true, as do many other fair- 
 minded men not gifted with the power to make 
 others like themselves, but are able besides 
 
54 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 being good yourself to make others good also ; 
 and who have such faith in yourself, that where- 
 as other men have concealed this art, you have 
 349 openly proclaimed it before all the Greeks, calling 
 yourself a Sophist and giving yourself out as a 
 master of the art of education and of virtue, and 
 first claiming pay in return for your teaching. 
 
 How then is it possible for us not to call you 
 to our aid in the examination of these matters, 
 and to question you and take counsel with you ? 
 I could not do otherwise." 
 
 350-360 [Returning now to the original question, 
 Socrates begs Protagoras to restate his opinion 
 in regard to the several parts of virtue. 
 
 Protagoras, although compelled by the pre- 
 vious agreement partially to abandon his former 
 ground, still clings to the belief that these parts 
 are not all alike : good sense, it is true, and wis- 
 dom and justice and holiness are pretty much 
 one and the same thing, but courage certainly 
 stands alone, insomuch that a man may be un- 
 just, unholy and ignorant and yet may be cour- 
 ageous. But now the concession being granted 
 that the courageous man is the confident one, he 
 namely who is ready to face dangers shunned 
 by others, Socrates forthwith proceeds to en- 
 quire what it is that gives confidence, and soon 
 ascertains that from knowledge and knowledge 
 
PROTAGORAS. 55 
 
 alone is this quality derived. The diver, the 
 horseman, the soldier, any man whose experi- 
 ence has taught him a knowledge of what he 
 undertakes to perform possesses a confidence 
 which can belong to no man who is without 
 this knowledge. True some men there are who 
 are confident by reason of their very ignorance, 
 but this confidence is iJut of a spurious kind, 
 and does not partake of the nature of true 
 courage. 
 
 Now the concession granted by Protagoras, — 
 that the confidence derived from knowledge is a 
 predicate of courage — contradicts his previous 
 assertion — that courage is compatible with 
 ignorance. He has admitted that the wisest are 
 the most confident. Since therefore, the most 
 confident are the most courj^ous, wisdom and 
 trourage are proved to be one and the same 
 thing. 
 
 Hereupon Protagoras waives the real point at 
 issue, and calls Socrates to account for pretend- 
 ing that the statement which he did make, — 
 that the courageous are confident, — is equiva- 
 lent to that which was made, not by himself, but 
 by Socrates, — that the confident are courageous. 
 Nor does he admit that courage and wisdom, or 
 knowledge, are proved to be identical. Confi- 
 dence, it is true, is begotten of knowledge, ex- 
 cept when like an inspiration it comes to us in 
 a moment of excitement ; but courage is a gift of 
 
$6 PROTAGORAS, 
 
 nature and a result of the constant and healthy 
 action of the vital forces, and is no more to be 
 acquired than is natural strength of body.^° 
 
 Unable to prove his point by a fallacy, Socra- 
 tes begins an attack from another side. He asks 
 whether, like many other men, Protagoras holds 
 pleasant things to be bad and good things to be 
 painful, or whether he is not willing to admit 
 I that pleasantness should be made the test of 
 {goodness ; whether, in other words, he does not 
 hold pleasure, in itself, to be always a good, 
 the reverse being true of evil. This to Pro- 
 tagoras is so new a theory, that he is inclined 
 to suspect its morality. So far, however, has he 
 become a convert to the method of Socrates, 
 that of his own accord he proposes to test the 
 idea by cross-examination, promising that if 
 pleasure and good can be proved to be one and 
 the same thing, he will abide by the decision. 
 But here, instead of following up the question 
 in hand, Socrates makes an apparent digression, 
 and requests Protagoras to give his views in 
 regard to knowledge. Is it, in his opinion, true 
 that if once the power to discriminate between 
 .good and evil be his, a man will do nothing save 
 jwhat is sanctioned by that power } To this Pro- 
 tagoras gives a most emphatic assent. And yet, 
 urges Socrates, many people assert that men 
 know good and still pursue evil, or as they call 
 it are overcome by pleasure, and if you deny 
 
PROTAGORAS. 57 
 
 their assertion they confront you with this ques- 
 tion : 'And if this is not being overcome by 
 pleasure, what then do you call it ' ? Protagoras 
 is disposed to treat this question with the same 
 contempt which he has before manifested for 
 the opinions of the "common people," but on 
 being reminded of his promise to follow wher- 
 ever Socrates may lead, he begs that the thread 
 of the argument may be again taken up. 
 
 What then, proceeds Socrates, constitutes the 
 evil of so-called pleasant things, — such as eat- 
 ing, drinking and indulging in other pleasures 
 of the senses ? Not surely the actual pleasure 
 derived from them, — for this in itself is only a 
 good, — but rather the sickness and the other 
 evils which result from their over-indulgence. 
 And what constitutes the good of so-called 
 painful things, such as training and fighting.? 
 Evidently not the momentary pain caused by 
 them, but the high and lasting pleasure which 
 they yield. /The standard of pleasure and pain 
 is a right standard, but we need some principle 
 which may enable us everywhere to recognise 
 pleasure and pain in their relative proportions. 
 Such a principle is found in the art of measur- 
 ing : this alone teaches us that what is wrong- 
 fully called being overcome by pleasure, results 
 simply from inability to discern good from evil, 
 from ignorance of the true nature of pleasure. 
 
 Now applying this test to courage, we shall 
 
58 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 find that brave men and cowards alike avoid 
 what they regard as evil or painful, and alike 
 face what they do not fear, the only difference 
 being in the object of which they make choice. 
 When a brave man, therefore, makes choice of 
 what is commonly avoided, it is because he dis- 
 cerns in it a future good which more than com- 
 pensates for a momentary pain.] 
 
 "For is it not evident," I said, "that men are 
 cowardly by reason of their ignorance of what 
 ; is really to be feared } " 
 
 " Most decidedly so," said Protagoras. 
 
 "And is not this the ignorance which makes 
 cowards of them t " 
 
 He agreed. 
 
 " And do you agree that what makes cowards 
 of them is cowardice } " 
 
 He said that he did. 
 
 "Then ignorance of what are dangers and 
 what are not is cowardice } " 
 
 He nodded assent. 
 /^ "Now surely," I said, "bravery is the oppo- 
 site of cowardice } " 
 ■"~-^._,He said it was. 
 
 "And consequently the knowledge of what 
 are dangers, and what are not, being opposed 
 to ignorance of the same, is courage ? " 
 
PROTAGORAS, 59 
 
 He no longer even nodded assent, but kept 
 his own counsel. 
 
 " How is this, Protagoras, do you answer 
 neither yes nor no to my question ? " 
 
 " Go on and finish foe yourself," he replied. 
 
 "There is only one question," I said, "which 
 I want to ask, and that is whether you still, as 
 at first, hold that men may be supremely igno- 
 rant, and at the same time supremely coura- 
 geous } " 
 
 " You seem to be bent, Socrates," he replied, 
 "upon my being the answerer. Well then, I 
 will satisfy you, and say that after what we have 
 admitted this seems to me impossible." 
 
 "I have had no other motive in asking you 
 all these questions," I said, "than the wish to 
 search out what the truth really is concerning 
 things that have to do with virtue, and also in 
 361 what virtue itself consists. For I know that 
 when this point has been made clear, that other 
 question will become quite plain in regard to 
 which you and I have each of us spun out a 
 long discourse, — I maintaining that virtue is 
 not capable of being taught,' you that it is. 
 And as to the result just reached by the argu- 
 ment, I seem to see it stand now in human 
 shape before us, denouncing us and laughing 
 us to scorn ; and could it speak, this is what it 
 might say : 
 
 *You are marvellous men, O Socrates and 
 
6o PROTAGORAS, 
 
 Protagoras ! You, Socrates, who began by say- 
 ing that virtire-may-^ot be taught, are now eager 
 in_siippgrt_of what is directly opposed to this 
 opinion, and are striving to show that knowl- 
 edge is every thing, — both justice and good 
 sense and courage. This certainly is the best 
 way to prove that virtue may be taught, since 
 were it other than knowledge, as Protagoras un- 
 dertook to say was the case, it clearly could not 
 be taught, while if on the contrary it is knowl- 
 edge pure and simple, as you, Socrates, are 
 eager to prove, it would certainly be surprising 
 if it might not be taught. 
 
 Protagoras on the other hand, who began by 
 taking it for granted that virtue^ may be taught, 
 now seems eager to prove just the contrary, — 
 that it is any thing rather than knowledge, in 
 which case it would be the thing of all others 
 least capable of being taught.' 
 
 And now, Protagoras, that I see how bewil- 
 deringly all things have been turned up-side- 
 down, I have a great desire that all should 
 appear in their true light, and wish that since 
 we have gone thus far, we might proceed to the 
 question of what virtue really is, and then return 
 to the consideration of whether it can be taught 
 or not ; lest perchance our friend Epimetheus 
 use his wiles to baffle us in this our quest, just 
 as you say he neglected us in the distribution. 
 Now in the myth, Prometheus was far more 
 
PROTAGORAS, 6l 
 
 after my own heart than Epimetheus, and it is 
 by his example that I busy myself with all these 
 questions, and exercise forethought over my 
 whole life ; and, as I said in the beginning, with 
 you of all men would I most gladly, if you are 
 so minded, enter upon this search." 
 
 And Protagoras said : — 
 
 ''I approve your zeal, Socrates, and the re- 
 sult which has been reached by the argument. 
 I believe that in most respects I am not at all 
 a bad man, and certainly I am the least envious 
 of human beings. Often in speaking of you to 
 others, I have said that of all men with whom 
 I have had to do, certainly amongst those of 
 your own age, I prize you by far the most 
 highly ; and I now add that I should not be sur- 
 prised if you were one day to take rank, on the 
 score of wisdom, amongst men of note. At 
 362 some future time then, if you wish, we will 
 treat all these matters at length ; now, however, 
 it is time to turn to something else." 
 
 "Well," said I, **we must so do if you think 
 it best. Indeed, long ago I ought to have been 
 where I said I was going, but I staid to oblige 
 our excellent friend Callias." 
 
 Having exchanged these words, we went our 
 ways. 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 These selections are from Book I. and the first half of Book II., which form what 
 may be called the Introduction to the Republic. 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 CHIEF CHARACTERS IN THE DIALOGUE. 
 
 Socrates. 
 Glaucon 
 
 TUS, ) 
 
 Young Athenians^ sons of Ariston. 
 Adeimantus, ' 
 
 Cephalus, ) 
 
 > Residents in the Peiraeus, 
 POLEMARCHUS, son of Cephalus, ) 
 
 Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, a Rhetorician. 
 
 Cleitophon, an admirer of Thrasymachus. 
 
 The serene opens toward nightfall in the streets of the Peiraeus^ 
 and soon changes to the house of Cephalus. 
 
 The dialogue is narrated by Socrates^ on the day after it has taken 
 place, to TimaeuSf Critias, Hermocrates, and one other friend whose 
 name is unknown. 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 327 I WENT down yesterday to the Peiraeus,^' with 
 Glaucon the son of Ariston/^ to offer my prayers 
 to the goddess/3 and also because I wished to 
 see how they would celebrate her festival which 
 they were holding for the first time. The pro- 
 cession of our own citizens I thought very 
 beautiful, nor did the Thracian procession seem 
 to me at all inferior. We had offered our pray- 
 ers and had our fill of gazing, and were about 
 taking our way towards the city, when Polemar- 
 chus, the son of Cephalus,'^'^ catching sight of us 
 from a distance as we were setting out for home, 
 bade his servant run on ahead and beg us to 
 wait for him. And the servant said, plucking 
 my mantle from behind, — 
 
 "Polemarchus begs you to wait for him." 
 On this I turned and enquired where his master 
 was. 
 
 *' He is coming on close behind," he answered. 
 "Only wait a minute." 
 
 **• Certainly we will wait," said Glaucon. 
 
 65 
 
66 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 And shortly after Polemarchus came up, and 
 with him Adeimantus, the brother of Glaucon, 
 and Niceratus, the son of Nicias,^5 and several 
 others evidently just from the procession. Pole- 
 marchus began thus : — 
 
 "You seem, Socrates," he said, "to be setting 
 out towards the city, as if you intended to leave 
 us." 
 
 "That is not a bad guess," I answered. 
 
 " But you see, do you not, how many we 
 are ? " 
 
 "Of course I do." 
 
 "Well, prove yourselves more than a match 
 for us, or else remain here." 
 
 " But surely we have still one chance left, — 
 we may persuade you that you ought to let us 
 
 go." 
 
 "And could you persuade us, pray, if we 
 would not listen to you } " 
 
 "By no means," said Glaucon. 
 
 " Well then, take it for granted that we will 
 not listen to you." 
 328 "You do not know then," said Adeimantus, 
 "that this evening there is to be a torchlight- 
 race on horseback in honour of the Goddess } " 
 
 "On horseback!" I said, "that is something 
 new. Are the riders to pass the torches one to 
 another from hand to hand while the horses are 
 racing, ^^ — or how do you mean } " 
 
 "Just 30," said Polemarchus, "and besides 
 
THE REPUBLIC, 67 
 
 this, they are to have a night festival which will 
 be worth seeing. On rising from supper we 
 will go to see this festival, and there we shall 
 meet many young men of the place, with whom 
 we can converse. So do not persist in going 
 away, but stay with us." 
 
 "It looks," said Glaucon, "as if we should 
 have to stay." 
 
 "If you wish it," I said, "let us do so by all 
 means." 
 
 So we went home with Polemarchus, and 
 there we found Lysias and Euthydemus the 
 brothers of Polemarchus, and also Thrasyma- 
 chus of Chalcedon, and Charmantides of Paea- 
 nea, and Cleitophon the son of Aristonymus.^^ 
 And Cephalus the father of Polemarchus,'^^ was 
 at home. He struck me as being a very old 
 man, for it was a long time since I had seen 
 him. He was seated in a chair with a cushion, 
 and he wore a wreath, — he happened to have 
 been sacrificing in the court.^^ We seated our- 
 selves near him, as there were a number of 
 chairs placed about him in a circle. As soon 
 as Cephalus saw me he embraced me and 
 said : — 
 
 "You do not often, Socrates, come down to 
 us in the Peiraeus ; you really ought, though. 
 If I, indeed, were still able to walk with ease as 
 far as the city, there would be no need of your 
 coming here, for we should go to you. But as 
 
68 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 it is, you must come oftener ; for you know very 
 well that the more my capacity for physical 
 enjoyment lessens and fades away, the more 
 does my desire for conversation and my pleas- 
 ure in it increase. So do not refuse to see a 
 great deal of these young men, and to make 
 yourself at home with us as with friends and 
 near of kin." 
 
 "Indeed, Cephalus," I answered, "I delight 
 in talking with very old people ; for I think we 
 ought to enquire of them, as of men who have 
 travelled before us on a road over which we 
 ourselves must in all likelihood travel, whether 
 this road is rough and steep, or smooth and 
 easy. And from you, since you have now 
 arrived at that period which the poets call the 
 'threshold of old age,'s° I would gladly learn 
 your opinion, — whether you regard it as a pain- 
 ful part of life, or what account you would give 
 of it .? " 
 
 ** I will tell you, Socrates," was his reply, 
 329 "what seems to me the very truth of the mat- 
 ter. You must know that we who are of the 
 same age often flock together, as the old saying 
 goes ;s^ and when we have met, most of the com- 
 pany give themselves up to lamentations, sigh- 
 ing after the enjoyments of youth, and calling 
 to mind the pleasures of love and carousals 
 and feasts, and all the rest ; and they complain 
 bitterly, just as if they had been deprived of 
 
THE REPUBLIC, 69 
 
 some very precious thing, and say that whereas \ 
 they once lived in happiness, they are now not \ 
 living at all. And some there are who lament \ 
 over the indignities shown them at home on \ 
 account of their years ; and on this theme again J 
 they unite in telHng over and over again thej 
 tale of the many wrongs which old age has/ 
 brought upon them. But it seems to me, Socra^ 
 tes, that they do not lay the blame on the real 
 cause. For if this were the cause, I too should 
 have suffered the same evils by reason of my 
 age, and so also would all the others who have 
 reached the same time of life. But I have met 
 with many a man who has not had this experi- 
 ence, and once, I remember particularly, I hap- 
 pened to be in the company of Sophocles the 
 poet, when somebody asked him : ' How is it 
 with you, Sophocles, in regard to love.? Do 
 you still find pleasure in the society of women ? ' 
 * Softly, man,' was his reply, *most gladly have 
 I escaped from love as from some furious and 
 savage master.* I thought at the time that he 
 had made a good answer, and none the less 
 do I think so now. For there is no doubt that 
 in old age there_js_jnu£k-P^aee and freedom 
 from such things, since then the passions are 
 no longer on the stretch, but loosen their hold ; 
 and then undoubtedly does the saying of Soph- 
 ocles come true, — it is a release from many 
 and furious masters. And as to these com- 
 
 
70. ' THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 plaints, and those also against the family, there 
 is one only cause for them, and that is not old 
 age, Socrates, but the character of the men. 
 • themselves. If they are equable and contented, 
 then old age itself is but a slight burden ; but 
 if not, to such men, Socrates, old age, and for 
 that matter even youth itself, is a hard thing." 
 
 And I, delighted at hearing him talk thus, 
 and wishing him to speak further, said by way 
 of urging him on : — 
 
 " I imagine, Cephalus, that most people when 
 you tell them this, will not listen to it ; they 
 suppose that you take old age easily, by virtue 
 not of your character, but of your large posses- 
 sions ; for the rich, they say, have a great deal 
 to console them." 
 
 "You are right," he said. "They do not lis- 
 ten to it, and what they say has something in 
 it, though not so much as they think. For the 
 answer still holds true which Themistocles made 
 to the citizen of Seriphos,^^ when taunted by the 
 33(i assertion that his reputation was due not to 
 I himself but to his city. 'True,' was his an- 
 jswer, *I should not have become famous as a 
 /Seriphian, but neither would you as an Athe- 
 nian.' And the same holds good of those who 
 are not wealthy and who take old age hard; 
 even a reasonable man would not bear old age 
 very easily together with poverty, but neither 
 would an unreasonable man, though rich, be 
 ever contented in his own mind." 53 
 
THE REPUBLIC, 7 1 
 
 " Did you, Cephalus, inherit the bulk of your 
 fortune, or did you make it yourself ? " 
 
 "Do you mean how much I made myself, 
 Socrates?" he asked. "Well, in regard to 
 money-making, I stand midway between my 
 grandfather and my father ; for my grandfather, 
 whose namesake I am, inherited about as much 
 property as I now possess and doubled its value 
 many times, while my father Lysanias reduced 
 it to still less than what it now is. I shall be 
 content if I can leave to my children not less, 
 but a trifle more, than I inherited." 
 
 "I asked the question," I said, "because it 
 seemed to me that you did not care overmuch 
 for your money ; and this is the case, for the 
 most part, with those who have not made it \ 
 themselves ; while those who have, cling to it 
 twice as fondly as do the others. For just - 
 as poets love their own poems, and fathers 
 their own children, so those who have made 
 their own fortune love it as their own work, | 
 besides valuing it, as the others do, for its uses.- 
 And these people are hard to get on with, 
 because they can find nothing to praise but 
 riches." 
 
 " What you say is quite true," he replied. 
 
 "I have no doubt of it," I said, "but tell me 
 this, — what, to your thinking, is the greatest 
 good that has come to you from the possession * 
 of a large fortune ? " 
 
72 THE REPUBLIC, 
 
 "One," he answered, "of the reality of whith 
 I am not hkely to persuade many. You know 
 very well, Socrates, that when a man believes 
 himself to be near death, fear and anxiety come 
 over him in regard to matters which till now 
 have never entered his mind. The tales told 
 of life in the world below, setting forth how the 
 man who has here lived sinfully must there suf- 
 fer punishment, he has always laughed at before, 
 but now his soul is tormented lest they be true ; 
 and whether owing to the weakness of old age, 
 or from being already so much nearer to that 
 life below, he seems to see it more distinctly. 
 Thereupon, filled with apprehension and fear, he 
 straightway begins to ponder and to examine 
 whether he has ever injured any man. And he 
 who makes discovery of many wrongs done to 
 others in his past life, cannot sleep for fear, 
 but is ever starting from his very dreams, as 
 frightened children do, and lives a life of evil 
 331 foreboding. But to him who is conscious of 
 having done no wrong to others, sweet hope is 
 ever present, and she is a good nurse of old age, 
 according to Pindar. Beautifully, indeed, Socra- 
 tes, does he describe the man who has Hved a 
 life of justice and piety when he says that 
 
 Sweet hope shall cherish his old age ; 
 
 Mid changing plans unchanged a helmsman sage 
 
 Is hope, through life man's restless soul to steer." S4 
 
THE REPUBLIC, 73 
 
 Marvellously true, indeed, are these words of 
 his. This then it is, in respect to which I con- 
 sider the possession of riches as of most value, 
 not to every man indeed, but to the upright 
 man. For if in departing hence we need have 
 no fear lest at any time unwittingly we have 
 lied or deceived, or lest we may be leaving 
 behind us sacrifices unpaid to God or debts 
 owed to man, it is the possession of riches 
 that has in great measure brought this about. 
 They have of course many uses besides, but 
 weighing one against the other, I should none 
 the less, Socrates, set the highest value upon 
 this use of riches, at least to a man of sense." 
 
 "You speak admirably, Cephalus," I said; 
 *'but as regards justice itself, shall we say that, 
 as you imply, it consists simply in telling the 
 truth, and paying our debts, or is this very 
 action sometimes just and sometimes unjust } 
 Take some such case as this : Supposing arms 
 had been entrusted to some one's keeping by 
 a friend who at that time was in his right mind, 
 but who when he asked for them back had lost 
 his senses, surely every one would agree that 
 they ought not to be restored, and that neither 
 in restoring them nor in telling the exact truth 
 to a person in that condition, would one be 
 acting the part of a just man." 
 
 " You are right," he said. 
 
 "Then this is not the true definition of jus- 
 
74 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 tice, — that a man must speak the truth and 
 give back whatever has been entrusted to him." 
 
 " But indeed it is, Socrates," Polemarchus 
 here broke in, "that is, if we are to believe 
 Simonides.*" 
 
 "Well," said Cephalus, "I will hand over the 
 argument to you, for it is time now that I should 
 attend to the sacrifices." 
 
 "So then," I said, "you leave Polemarchus 
 your heir t " 
 
 "Yes, certainly," he answered laughing, and 
 with that he went off to the sacrifices, ss 
 
 "Tell me then," I said, "you who have, fallen 
 heir to the argument, what is this saying of 
 Simonides about justice, which you think so 
 good?" 
 
 "That justice consists in restoring to every 
 iman what belongs to him," he answered. "And 
 jin saying this, it seems to me that he was 
 /right." 
 
 "It is certainly not easy," I said, "to disbe- 
 lieve Simonides, for he was a wise and inspired 
 man. And you, Polemarchus, probably under- 
 stand the meaning of this saying, although I 
 confess I do not." 
 
 332-336 [The heir to the argument soon finds his 
 inheritance a troublesome one. It is evidejit 
 
 * See note 35. 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 75 
 
 that he has only repeated the maxim of Simoni- 
 des from hearsay, without any attempt to grasp 
 its meaning. On being shown that to restore to 
 every man what belongs to him might be to do 
 him not a good turn, but an injury, he readily 
 admits that Simonides did not literally mean 
 what belongs to a man, but only what befits him. \ 
 This, he confidently asserts, is evil to^/enemies\ 
 and good to friends. The maxim as thus j 
 amended is at once put to the test by Socrates ' 
 after his usual fashion. 
 
 There is a fitting time for the exercise of 
 every art or vocation. The art of the pilot, for 
 example, finds its proper scope at sea, that of 
 the physician in time of sickness. Now when 
 is the art of justice 5^ exercised.'* Not stopping 
 to reflect that the whole field of human action, 
 is covered by justice, Polemarchus confines it 
 to a single department and replies : " In time of- 
 war." The rejoinder then follows that just as the , 
 pilot's art is useless on land, and the physician's 
 in time of health, so is the just man's in time 
 of peace. / 
 
 Polemarchus now aware that he has made a 
 false step, withdraws in part his limitation, and 
 admits that justice applies to commercial trans- - 
 actions as well ; whereupon Socrates points out 
 that whenever money is to be actively employed, 
 some expert is consulted, as the horsedealer in 
 buying a horse, or the architect in building a 
 
76 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 house, so that only in the keeping of money 
 would justice come into play. Thus it would 
 appear that in the use of any given thing justice 
 is useless, and that where the thing is not to be 
 used, and there only, it is useful. 
 t Justice then is ascertained to be passive in its 
 ( nature. Now he who can best maintain a pas- 
 sive or defensive attitude can also best put him- 
 self on the offensive; the man most skilful at 
 parrying blows is also most expert at dealing 
 blows ; and in like manner, the man who is the 
 best guardian of an army is also most apt at 
 I stealing the secrets of an enemy, — in other 
 twords the just man, since he is the best guardian, 
 |is also the best thief. This, a legitimate deduc- 
 jtion from the definition of justice as involving 
 jthe idea of harm to enemies, is the view which 
 iHomer espouses in awarding the highest praise 
 Tto the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, on the 
 tround that he "surpassed all other men in 
 (thieving and perjury." 57 
 
 ^ Polemarchus, confounded by this unexpected 
 \ conclusion, can only reply that he no longer 
 \ knows what he did mean ; but although unable 
 to prove his assertion, he reiterates that it is the 
 part of justice to do good to friends and harm 
 to enemies. Recognising, however, the validity 
 of the objection made by Socrates that as just 
 men are not always good judges of character 
 they might choose bad men as friends and good 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 77 
 
 as enemies, and thus reverse the interpreta- 
 tion just given of the saying of Simonides, he 
 proposes that henceforth the terms friend 
 and enemy shall comprise not those who onlyl 
 seem, but those who in reality are, good or 
 bad. 
 
 But here comes in the real point at issue — 
 can it ever be the part of a just man to injure 
 any one ? Polemarchus promptly meets this 
 question with his former assertion that ene- 
 mies and all bad men ought to be injured. 
 But what effect is produced upon any animal by 
 being injured } Is it not the loss or diminution 
 \ of his best characteristics — those essential to 
 ihim as an animal.? And so with men. If you 
 'injure a man, you destroy or impair the best 
 characteristics essential to him as a human 
 being, highest amongst which is justice. Now 
 how can it be possible that a just man should be 
 guilty of such an act as this } As impossible as 
 that heat should generate cold or moisture dry- 
 ness, so far is it from the nature of things that 
 the just man should do a harm to any fellow- 
 being. Such a supposition is to be combated 
 as contrary to fhe teaching of Simonides or of 
 any other sage. Far more probably did it origi- 
 nate with some tyrant like Xerxes, who believed 
 all things possible to the rich and powerful. But 
 since this is not its true definition, how shall we 
 define justice i*] 
 
78 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 More than once while we were talking, Thrasy-. 
 machus had made desperate efforts to force him- 
 self into the discussion, but each time he had 
 been held in check by the bystanders, who 
 wished to hear us out. When, however, after 
 my last words we had come to a pause, he could 
 contain himself no longer, but gathering him- 
 self together, he came down upon us like some 
 wild beast about to tear us in pieces. Polemar- 
 chus and I both shook with fear as he shouted 
 out at us, — 
 
 "What do you mean, Socrates, by all this 
 nonsense .-* Why are you all such simpletons as 
 to give in thus one to the other } If you really 
 wish to find out what justice is, do not merely 
 ask questions, and then if you get an answer, 
 make it your boast to refute it, for you know 
 very well that it is easier to ask questions than 
 to answer them ; but do you yourself answer 
 and say what you mean by justice. And take 
 care not to tell me that it is duty, or expedi- 
 ency, or advantage, or gain, or interest, but tell 
 me clearly and precisely what you do mean by 
 it, for if you talk such nonsense as that, I will 
 not accept it." 
 
 Now I, on hearing him speak thus, was fright- 
 ened out of my wits, and trembled as I looked 
 upon him ; and I do believe that if I had not 
 looked at him before he looked at me, I should 
 have been struck dumb.s^ But just as he was 
 
(UNI7ERSn 
 
 THE REPUBLIC. \.Ca o^- 79 . . 
 
 beginning to get into a fury over the^tgiafiefii^:^^^ 
 I happened to catch his eye first, so that I was 
 able to answer, and said trembhngly : — 
 
 " Do not be hard upon us, Thrasymachus, for 
 you know very well that if we have erred in con- 
 sidering this question, — Polemarchus and I, — 
 we have done so unwittingly. You surely can- 
 not suppose that while if we were in search of 
 money we should never consent, by yielding one 
 to the other in the pursuit, to spoil our own 
 chance of finding it, yet now that we are in 
 search of justice, a thing of more value than 
 much money, we should be foolish enough to 
 yield one to the other, and not strive with all 
 our might to bring it to the light of day. You 
 337 cannot suppose this, my friend. The trouble is 
 that we are incompetent ; and so you ought to 
 pity our misfortunes rather than get angry with 
 us." 
 
 On hearing this he laughed a loud sardonic 
 laugh. 
 
 "By Heracles ! " he exclaimed, ''here we have 
 a specimen of the wonted irony 59 of Socrates, 
 and this I knew before and predicted to these 
 friends of ours, — that you would never be will- 
 ing to give an answer yourself, but would 
 always fei^n ignorance, and do any thing rather 
 than answer if you were questioned by any one." 
 
 "You, Thrasymachus," I replied, "are a wise 
 man. You must, therefore, be aware that if. 
 
80 THE REPUBLIC, 
 
 after asking some one of what numbers the 
 number twelve is composed, you were to add : 
 * But look to it, fellow, and do not tell me that 
 twelve is composed of twice six, or of three 
 times four, or of six times two, or of four times 
 three ; for I will not take any such nonsense as 
 that from you,' no one, as I think you must 
 plainly see, could undertake to answer a man 
 who put his question in this way. And if he 
 rejoined: 'What do you mean, Thrasymachus ? 
 That I must not give any of the answers you 
 have mentioned? What! my dear fellow, not 
 even if one of them happens to be the right 
 answer ? Would you have me say any thing but 
 the truth ? Or what is it you mean ? ' What 
 answer would you then give him ? " 
 
 " Pray go on," he said. " How like that case 
 is to this ! " 
 
 "I do not see why it is not;" I answered, 
 "but however that may be, still if it seems so 
 to the person questioned, do you suppose that 
 he will be any the less likely to give what seems 
 to him the right answer, whether we forbid him 
 or not } " 
 
 "That means, I suppose," said he, "that this 
 is what you are about to do, — give one of the 
 very answers I have forbidden you to give } " 
 
 "I should not be surprised," I answered, "if 
 after thinking the matter well over, this should 
 seem to me best." 
 
THE REPUBLIC, 8 1 
 
 "But how," he said, "if I were to give you 
 an answer on the subject of justice contrary 
 to these, and superior to them all? What 
 then ? What punishment would you then 
 deserve ? " 
 
 "What other indeed," I answered, "but that 
 which the ignorant person ought to suffer ? He 
 • ought to learn from him who is wise. And this, 
 in my opinion, is what I deserve to suffer." 
 
 "That is really very kind of you," he said, 
 "but besides learning you must pay me a fee." 
 
 "I certainly will when I have the where- 
 withal." 
 
 " Here you have it," said Glaucon. " If it is 
 only a question of money, Thrasymachus, say 
 on, for we will all pay our share for Socrates." 
 
 "Of course," he said, "in order, I suppose, 
 that Socrates may go on as usual, not answering 
 himself, but taking up the words of some one 
 else who has answered, and refuting them." 
 
 "And how, my good friend," I asked, "can 
 a man answer, when he neither knows nor 
 pretends that he knows, and is moreover for- 
 bidden, — and this by a man of no small conse- 
 quence, — to say a word about his opinion, if 
 he happens to have any.? All the more then^ 
 does it behoove you to speak ; for you assert \ 
 338 that you do know and have something to say. i 
 So pray do not think of refusing, but be kind 
 enough to answer me, and not begrudge the 
 
82 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 benefit of your knowledge to Glaucon here and 
 the others." 
 
 When I had thus spoken, Glaucon and the 
 others begged him by no means to refuse. Now 
 Thrasymachus was evidently longing to speak 
 in order to get himself praised, for he made 
 sure of having the best answer in the world ; 
 but he still pretended to be bent upon my being 
 the answerer. At last, however, he gave way, 
 exclaiming, — 
 
 "This then is what the wisdom of Socrates 
 comes to ! Not willing himself to impart in- 
 struction, he goes about getting it from others, 
 and never so much as thanks them for it." 
 j " That I learn from others, Thrasymachus," I 
 answered, "you say with truth. But when you 
 assert that I do not pay them back in thanks, 
 you speak falsely, for I do pay back as much as 
 I am able to give ; but I can give nothing but 
 praise, for money I have not. That I do, how- 
 ever, bestow this heartily whenever it seems to 
 me that a man speaks well, you shall not be 
 long, I promise you, in finding out, if you will 
 only answer ; for I am confident that you will{ 
 speak admirably." 
 \ " Listen then," he said ; " I declare justice to 
 ; be nothing more than the interest of the 
 j stronger. But why do you not praise me ? 
 I You are not willing, I see that." 
 
 "If I can only first understand what you 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 83 
 
 mean," I said, "for as yet I do not. You 4g|^ 
 clare justice to be the interest of the strong^^P 
 but what, Thrasymachus, do you mean by this ? 
 You surely do not mean any thing like this for 
 instance, that because Polydamasjjjthe athlete, 
 is stronger than we are, and because eating 
 beef is for his interest so far as his body is con- 
 cerned, it is also for our interest who are weaker 
 than he, and therefore for us also is just." 
 
 "That is shameful of you, Socrates," he said; 
 "you twist my argument in whichever way you 
 can do it most damage." 
 
 "Not at all, my good friend," I answered, 
 " but pray tell me more plainly what it is you 
 mean." 
 
 339-340 [Hereupon Thrasymachus unfolds the fol- 
 lowing theory. The government of a state, 
 being that which assumes control in the state, 
 enacts such laws as suit its own peculiar form 
 and subserve its own interest. Thus a tyranny 
 enacts tyrannical, and a democracy democratic 
 laws, while by an aristocracy aristocratic laws 
 are of course enacted; but of whatever kind 
 the laws may be, they constitute justice, and to 
 obey them is the duty of the subject. Justij:e, 
 then, and the interest of the stronger turn out 
 to be identical. 
 
 With the passing observation that in speak- 
 
84 THE REPUBLIC, 
 
 ing oi interest, Thrasymachus is using one of 
 the recently forbidden terms, Socrates consents 
 to the definition of justice as a certain kind of 
 interest or advantage, refusing, however, to 
 admit that it is the stronger who always reap 
 this advantage. It is, he declares, a fact not to 
 be disputed that rulers are capable of error, and 
 this being the case, it follows that laws must 
 frequently be enacted by them which prove con- 
 trary to their own interest. 
 
 Here Thrasymachus yields a ready assent, 
 not foreseeing the coming deduction that jus- 
 tice, far from always being the interest, is often 
 the direct disadvantage of the stronger. The 
 unexpectedness of this conclusion reduces him 
 to momentary silence, while Polemarchus ex- 
 claims with delight, *By Zeus, Socrates, that 
 is most true ! ' * That is all very well, if we 
 are to have you bear witness for him,' inter- 
 poses Cleitophon. 
 
 * But where is the need of any witness at all ? 
 Thrasymachus himself makes the admission.' 
 
 *No,' returns Cleitophon, 'for by the inter- 
 est of the stronger, he meant what the stronger 
 believes to be for his interest.' 
 
 *That was not what he said,' Polemarchus 
 insists. 
 
 * Never mind,' rejoins the peacemaker, Soc- 
 rates, 'if Thrasymachus says it now, we will 
 accept it.' 
 
THE REPUBLIC, 85 
 
 Thrasymachus, however, stoutly disclaims 
 any such modification of his previous statement, 
 and even retracts the admission he has just 
 made as to the fallibility of rulers. Do you 
 suppose, he says, that at the very time a man 
 is making a mistake, he could be called *the 
 stronger ' ? Is the physician, when in the act 
 of mistaking the case of a patient, a true physi- 
 cian ? or the arithmetician, when he errs on a 
 point of arithmetic, a true arithmetician ? If 
 any man makes a mistake in the exercise of his 
 art, it is because his art has for the moment 
 forsaken him, and he for the moment is inca- 
 pable of exercising it. 
 
 And thus, as Thrasymachus triumphantly 
 sums up his argument, the ruler who is always 
 in the true sense of the word a ruler is incapa- 
 ble of making a mistake, and justice is clearly 
 proved to consist in the furthering by the 
 weaker of the interest of the stronger. 
 
 The next sentence refers to the complaint, 
 made for the second time by Thrasymachus, 
 that Socrates is always trying to fasten a libel 
 upon him by an intentional misconception of his 
 real meaning.] 
 
 341 "And so, Thrasymachus," said I, "you regard 
 what I have said as a libel upon you ? " 
 "Most certainly I do," he answered. 
 
86 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 " You believe then that I have laid a plot to 
 damage your argument, and that this is why I 
 question you as I have been doing ? " 
 
 "I know it perfectly well," he said, "but you 
 shall not gain any thing by it; for in all your 
 efforts to damage me you shall never find me off 
 my guard, nor will you be able to get the better 
 of me in open argument either." 
 
 "I should certainly never attempt this, my 
 good friend," I said. "To make sure, however, 
 that nothing of the kind takes place, pray state 
 definitely whether when you speak of the man 
 whose interest as the stronger it is right for 
 the weaker to further, you mean the man who 
 might pass for being the ruler and the stronger, 
 or the man who is such in the strict sense of 
 ' the word." 
 
 " I mean him who is a ruler in the strictest 
 sense of the word," he answered. " Now then, 
 do me a mischief, and libel me if you can. I 
 will ask no mercy. But you cannot possibly do 
 it." 
 
 "Do you think me so mad," I said, "that I 
 would attempt to shave a lion,^° and libel Thrasy- 
 machus } " 
 
 "You tried it, forsooth, just now," he said, 
 "but did not make much of it." 
 
 "Enough of this," I said, " pray answer what 
 I am going to ask." 
 
THE REPUBLIC. Z7 
 
 342-344 [To the following chain of statements 
 Thrasymachus, not suspecting at first the con- 
 clusion to which they lead, yields a ready 
 assent : 
 
 The true physician is no mere money-maker, 
 but a ruler, so to speak, over the human body, 
 to supply the wants and deficiencies of which 
 medicine was invented. Every created object, 
 whether person or thing, being by its very na- 
 ture imperfect and incomplete, is dependent 
 upon some extraneous art or faculty to bring out 
 its distinctive properties. Thus the eye is use- 
 less without the faculty of seeing, while for the 
 ear, hearing is an equal necessity. An art or 
 faculty, on the other hand, being in itself perfect 
 and complete, needs not to seek its own inter- 
 est, but only that of the object whose needs 
 it is intended to supply. In the act of supply- j 
 ing those needs it fulfils its own end, and thus 
 brings about its own perfection. 
 
 Neither of the physician nor of the pilot, 
 both of whom consider solely the interest e^ 
 those under their charge, nor of the horseman, 
 who brings out the good qualities of the animal 
 under his control, nor indeed of a man who 
 rightly exercises any art, can it be said that he 
 works in his own interest ; and in like manner 
 he who exercises the art of government, if he 
 indeed be a ruler of men in the same way that 
 the physician is a ruler over their bodies, will 
 
88 THE REPUBLIC, 
 
 ever seek the advantage of his subjects, not his 
 own. 
 
 Thrasymachus, ever since the real import of 
 these illustrations dawned upon him, has re- 
 sponded with increasing reluctance. At this 
 juncture he breaks loose from the logical entan- 
 glement, and assuming a tone of contemptuous 
 bravado, tries to browbeat his adversary. 
 
 He begins by enquiring whether Socrates still 
 has a nurse, and to the mild rejoinder that it 
 would be better to keep to the point than to 
 branch off into such irrelevant questions, he 
 insolently remarks that Socrates has need of 
 one to stop his drivelling, and to sharpen his 
 wits into a better understanding of the well- 
 known truth that shepherds tend their flocks 
 not for the pleasure of the animals themselves, 
 but for their own or their master's benefit. He 
 then proceeds to reinforce his original state- 
 ment, that justice is the interest of the stronger, 
 by maintaining that it is always the unjust man 
 who pushes himself into positions of authority 
 and command. The unjust man takes advan- 
 tage of the law-abiding propensity which forms 
 a part of justice, to force his own will upon 
 the just man, who thus becomes a mere tool in 
 the hands of selfishness. Justice, therefore, far 
 from benefiting those who practise it, actually 
 works in the interest of the unjust ; the just 
 man neglects his private interests in order to 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 89 
 
 work out the behests of his superior in com- 
 mand, while the unjust man gains success and 
 consideration at the expense of the just. 
 
 To appreciate the full bearing of the forego- 
 ing statements, we have but to consider in what 
 esteem is held that archetype of injustice, — the 
 tyrant. From every quarter successful injustice 
 receives full meed of praise and admiration, or 
 if it is ever censured, this is only because men 
 fear, not to commit it, but to suffer from it.] 
 
 With this, having like an attendant at the 
 bath deluged our ears with a plenteous and un- 
 broken stream of words, Thrasymachus had a 
 mind to go away. The rest of the company, 
 however, would not allow this, but compelled 
 him to remain and make good his argument. I 
 myself also earnestly entreated him, saying : — 
 " Can you have the heart, my excellent Thrasy- 
 machus, after springing such a proposition as 
 this upon us, to go away before you have fully 
 expounded it, or understood whether it be really 
 true or not } Do you then regard what you are 
 undertaking to define as a small matter, and not 
 rather as the very way of right living, by walk- 
 ing in which every one of us may live his life to 
 the best advantage } " 
 
 " I regard the matter quite differently," Thrasy 
 machus answered. 
 
90 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 " It would so appear," I answered. " Certainly 
 you seem not to be at all concerned for us, nor 
 to care whether, from our ignorance of what 
 you profess to know, we are to lead a better or 
 a worse life. Come, my good friend, do your 
 best to explain yourself. There are so many of 
 us, that you will be none the worse for doing us 
 345 this kindness. I, for my part, tell you plainly 
 that I do not agree with you, nor can I believe 
 that injustice is more advantageous than justice, 
 even if one has perfect liberty to exercise it and 
 is not prevented from doing whatever one may 
 wish. Yes, my friend, let the unjust man have 
 full power to commit injustice, whether in secret 
 or by open warfare, all the same you will not 
 convince me that there is more to be gained by 
 it than by justice ; and perhaps I am not the 
 only one here who thinks so. Convince us then, 
 my good fellow, if you can, that we are not in 
 the right when we place justice so far above 
 injustice." 
 
 "And how," he said, "shall I convince 
 you .-* If you are not convinced by what I 
 have just said, what is left for me to do .-* 
 Shall I drive the argument into your soul by 
 force.?" 
 
 " Not so, by Zeus," I answered. " But when 
 you say a thing, stand by it ; or if you must 
 needs change, do so openly and do not try to 
 cheat us." 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 91 
 
 345-347 [The above injunction is not uncalled for. 
 The last statement of Thrasymachus contradicts 
 his previous admission, — that all men who exer- 
 cise an art seek the good of others, not their 
 own, — and thus confounds the shepherd with the 
 mercenary dealer, whose sole object is to make 
 a good bargain, or with the feaster, who tends 
 the sheep solely with a view to some future 
 banquet. 
 
 Socrates now enquires whether, in the opinion 
 of Thrasymachus, the true ruler finds his pleasure 
 in ruling. 
 
 Upon receiving an eager assent, he goes on to 
 ask why then a salary is necessary as an induce- 
 ment to rule. Surely the explanation lies in the 
 fact that no benefit accrues to the ruler from 
 the exercise of his office. In this as in every 
 other art, the subject, not the ruler, is bene- 
 fited. 
 
 Now the result brought about by each art is 
 peculiar to that art, and has no connection with 
 any other. The result aimed at by the physi- 
 cian is to restore health, that by the pilot to 
 ensure safety at sea. If in process of exer- 
 cising his art the pilot improves in health, the 
 art of seamanship must not on this account be 
 confounded with that of medicine. And if the 
 physician is paid a salary in return for his 
 services, his own art, which seeks a totally differ- 
 ent result, must not, simply on account of this 
 
92 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 transaction, be confounded with that of the con- 
 tract-maker or the payer of salaries, which bene- 
 fits him only in common with many others. 
 
 Now to induce men to accept offices of state 
 three kinds of rewards are offered, — money, 
 honours, or some penalty for refusing to govern.] 
 
 "What do you mean, Socrates, by this.?" said 
 Glaucon. **I know about the first two kinds 
 of rewards, but what you mean by this penalty 
 which you say is in some sort a reward, I do 
 not understand." 
 
 "Is it possible," I said, "that you do not 
 understand what the reward is which appeals 
 to the best men, for the sake of which alone 
 those who are most worthy hold office when they 
 consent to do so at all t Do you not know, then, 
 that the love of honour, and that of riches as 
 well, is considered to be, and in reality is, a mat- 
 ter of reproach .?" 
 
 " I do," he answered. 
 
 "This is the very reason," I said, "that neither 
 money nor honour can arouse in good men a 
 desire to govern. They are neither willing to 
 receive pay for governing and get the name of 
 hireling, nor are they willing, by secretly mak- 
 ing profits out of their office, to get the name 
 of thief ; nor again will they consent to govern 
 for the sake of honours, for they are not ambi- 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 93 
 
 tious : so that it is necessary to lay some stress 
 or penalty upon them, if they are ever to be 
 induced to take office. And this I imagine is 
 the reason why to enter public life voluntarily, 
 and not rather to hold back until stress has 
 been laid upon one, is accounted dishonour- 
 able. Now the greatest of all penalties which 
 can be inflicted upon a man who will not himself 
 consent to take office, is that of being governed 
 by a man worse than himself, and it is the fear 
 of this I think that induces honourable men 
 to govern, whenever they do govern ; and even 
 then, they enter upon office regarding it not as a 
 good thing, nor expecting to get pleasure from 
 it, but rather as a thing to be accepted from 
 necessity, and from lack of men better, or even 
 as good as themselves, to whom the office might 
 be entrusted. If there did anywhere exist a 
 city of good men, then would men probably vie 
 with each other not to govern, just as they now 
 do to govern ; for then it would be clearly seen 
 that it is the nature of the true ruler to consider 
 not his own interest but that of his subjects ; 
 and every one who knew this would choose 
 to be benefited by his neighbour rather than to 
 put himself out to benefit him." ^^ 
 
 348-350 [Setting aside just here the definition of 
 justice, Socrates proposes to take up the state- 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 ment of Thrasymachus in regard to the advan- 
 tages of the unjust over the just life. Instead 
 of opposing to the tirade of Thrasymachus in 
 defence of injustice, one equally long on the 
 other side, he proposes to use in the discussion 
 the more informal process of question and an- 
 swer. As this proposition meets with general 
 approval, Socrates sets about obtaining from 
 Thrasymachus a more detailed account of his 
 theory. He starts with the supposition that 
 even Thrasymachus must admit justice to be a 
 virtue and injustice to be a vice ; but this is by 
 no means granted by the champion of injustice, 
 who exclaims : * That is very likely, my simple- 
 minded friend, seeing that I declare injustice to 
 be advantageous and justice not. . . . No in- 
 deed, it is exactly the reverse.' 'What!' ex- 
 claims Socrates, ' Is justice a vice t ' ' Not 
 exactly that, but it is folly pure and simple.' 
 *Then do you call injustice vice.?' 'Not at 
 all. I call it prudence.' 'And do you hold 
 unjust men to be wise and good }' 'I do, that 
 is, all who are perfect in injustice.' 
 
 This audacious statement Socrates confesses 
 himself at a loss to answer. Had injustice been 
 simply proclaimed a source of profit to those by 
 whom it is not shunned as a shameful vice, this 
 proposition could have been met as it has often 
 been met before. But in declaring injustice to 
 be synonymous with wisdom and virtue, we are 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 95 
 
 at the same time declaring it to be powerful and 
 noble, and ascribing to it all the other attributes 
 which we are wont to ascribe to justice. But 
 although this proposition is difficult to deal with 
 Socrates is ready to attempt the task, since 
 Thrasymachus doubtless has the matter as much 
 at heart as he himself has. Blurting out the 
 rude rejoinder that it is no one's business 
 whether he has the matter at heart or not, 
 Thrasymachus defies his adversary to refute the 
 proposition, and Socrates loses no time in taking 
 up the incautious challenge. He obtains without 
 difficulty the admission, that while just men try 
 to gain an advantage over the unjust only and 
 not over other just men, the unjust seek the 
 discomfiture of just and unjust alike. He then 
 points out that the skilful practitioner, in what 
 profession soever, since he wishes to further the 
 advancement of his art, tries to gain advantage, 
 not over fellow-labourers equally skilled with, 
 himself, but over the ignorant and the unskilled / 
 while the latter, on the other hand, look to their 
 own interest alone, and try to defraud not only 
 their superiors, but their fellows in ignorance. 
 
 With great reluctance Thrasymachus acknowl- 
 edges the truth of these statements, from which 
 there is but a step to the admission that while 
 the just man is identical with the skilful and the 
 wise practitioner, the unjust and the unskilful 
 must be classed in one category.] , 
 
THE REPUBLIC, 
 
 Thrasymachus admitted all this, not with 
 readiness, however, as I am now speaking ; only 
 with the greatest difficulty were his words 
 drawn out of him, and, it being summer-time, 
 he sweated most amazingly. And then I saw a 
 sight that I had never seen before — Thrasy- 
 machus blushing. And now having come to 
 the agreement that justice was virtue and 
 wisdom, and injustice wickedness and igno- 
 rance, — 
 
 "Let us," I said, "leave this point at rest 
 and proceed. Besides this we said that injus- 
 tice was strong ; do you not remember that, 
 Thrasymachus } " 
 
 "I remember," he said, "but I am not satis- 
 fied with what you have just said, and I myself 
 have something to say on the subject. If I 
 were to speak, however, I know very well that 
 you would say I was making an harangue. 
 Either let me, therefore, speak as much as I 
 choose, or if you prefer to ask questions, ask 
 them, and I will encourage you to go on by 
 nodding and shaking my head, as we do to old 
 women when they tell their stories." 
 
 "On no account," said I, "unless you really 
 agree with me." 
 
 " I might as well please you," he said, " since 
 you will not let me talk. What more can you 
 ask } " 
 
 "Nothing at all, by Zeus," I said. "If you 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 97 
 
 are willing to do this, pray do it ; I then will 
 question you." 
 
 351-354 [Thrasymachus proves to be better than 
 his word, for he answers, to quote the commen- 
 dation of Socrates, ' most excellently well.' In 
 the absence, therefore, of any further opposition, 
 the following result is soon reached : 
 
 Justice must ever be the guiding principle 
 of every society, whether state or army, bg^nd of 
 free-booters or gang of thieves ; for no society 
 can attain strength, unless its members seek to 
 benefit not injure one another ; and thus a state 
 under the rule of injustice is of necessity a weak 
 state. Nor does injustice further the interests 
 of the individual to a greater extent. If he be\ 
 not at one with himself, he becomes a prey to 
 the contending emotions which arise in his own 
 soul, as dissensions arise in a state, and soon 
 finds himself powerless to act, like a state in a 
 similar condition. If such a state or such an in- 
 dividual be found to succeed in any enterprise, 
 it can only be by reason of some trace or rem- 
 nant of justice which prevents entire incapacity 
 for action. And not only does injustice render 
 a man thus inefficient in action, but it makes 
 him also the enemy of all just men, and above 
 all of the gods, whose friends are the just alone. 
 
 * Well, feast and make merry over your argu- 
 
98 THE REPUBLIC, 
 
 ment/ is the rejoinder of Thrasymachus. ' I am 
 not going to gainsay you, for fear of making 
 myself disagreeable to our friends here.' * Go 
 on, then,' Socrates says, 'and fill my cup to 
 the brim, by continuing to answer me as you 
 are now doing.' He then proceeds to consider 
 whether the life of the just man is in reality the 
 pleasanter and the happier because of his jus- 
 tice. The fact that the just man is in himself 
 wiser and better and more able than the unjust 
 man has been amply proved, but this other ques- 
 tion, so intimately bearing upon the way our 
 own lives ought to be led, is one not lightly to 
 be passed over. 
 
 Every object, whether living or inanimate, 
 was, we find, created in order to bring about its 
 own peculiar end, which end is compassed only 
 , by means of some virtue peculiar to itself. Now 
 I justice is the virtue of the soul, by which it is 
 ^ enabled to compass the end peculiar to itself, — 
 that of exercising not only judgment, oversight 
 and will, but every:^ other function which right 
 , living includes.-^Thus none but the just man) 
 ' j can live rightly, and since he only who lives - 
 I rightly can lead a life of happiness, and since to , 
 .' be happy profits a man more than to be unhappy, 
 \ it follows that justice, not injustice, is profit- 
 able. 
 
 Thrasymachus, no longer attempting any show 
 of resistance, exclaims :] 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 99 
 
 "With this, Socrates, you may regale yourself 
 at the Bendidea.*" 
 
 "It is you I have to thank for it, Thrasy- 
 machus," I replied, ''inasmuch as you have be- 
 come gentle with me, and no longer treat me 
 harshly. Nevertheless I have not feasted well, 
 but this is my own fault, not yours. For it 
 seems to me that I have behaved just as glut- 
 tons do who, when a new dish is brought in, 
 snatch eagerly at it and taste of it before they 
 have properly enjoyed what came before. So I, 
 before discovering the thing we began by 
 searching for, namely, the definition of justice, 
 have abandoned the quest, and plunged into the 
 examination of whether it was vice and igno- 
 rance, or wisdom and virtue ; and afterwards, 
 when the question came up whether or not in- 
 justice were preferable to justice, I could not 
 prevent myself from turning to this point and 
 dropping the other, and so I now find that I 
 have learned nothing from our conversation. 
 For since I do not know what justice is, I can 
 hardly know if it be really a virtue or not, and 
 whether he who possesses it is happy or not 
 happy." 
 
 * See note 43, 
 
BOOK 11. 
 
 357 Now I, in saying this, thought I had got clear 
 of the discussion, but, as it soon appeared, all 
 that had gone before was only a preamble ; for 
 Glaucon, who in every encounter is always the 
 boldest of men, not satisfied with the surrender 
 of Thrasymachus, said : — 
 
 " Socrates, which do you wish, to appear to 
 have convinced us, or to convince us in good 
 . earnest, that in every way it is better to be just 
 than unjust ? " 
 
 "If it were a question of choice," I said, "I 
 should certainly prefer to convince you in good 
 earnest." 
 
 "Then," said he, "you are not doing what you 
 wish. Tell me now, do 'you think there is such 
 a thing as a good which we might desire to pos- 
 sess, not because of the things that result from 
 it, but because we love it for its own sake, such 
 for instance as pure enjoyment and all pleasures 
 which are blameless and have no after-results, 
 Ijbut consist in the pure enjoyment derived from 
 I them at the time ? " 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 10 J 
 
 *' I think," I said, "that there is such a thir . 
 as this," 
 
 " Now then, is there any thing which we lev 
 both for its own sake and also for the sak 
 of the things that result from it, as thought, for 
 instance, and sight and health ? We may be 
 said to care for such things as these in both 
 ways." 
 
 " Yes," I answered. 
 
 "And do you recognise a third kind of good 
 which includes gymnastic training, and the treat- 
 ment and care of the sick, and the art of heal- 
 ing, and the different ways of money-making.? 
 For these we might say involve hardship, and 
 yet they are for our advantage ; and these we 
 might desire to possess, not for their own sake, 
 but for the sake of the rewards- or whatever else 
 results from them." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "there is certainly this kind 
 also. But what then } " 
 
 "Under which head," he asked, "do you 
 place justice .'* " 
 358 "In my opinion," I answered, "it belongs to 
 the hi ghest kind, where the man Who is in 
 search"^! happiness should love it both for its 
 own sake and also for its results." 
 
 "But most people," he said, "do not take 
 this view. They think it belongs to the kind 
 which should be cultivated indeed for the sake 
 of what are commonly held as honours and re- 
 
102 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 wards, but which in itself should be avoided on 
 account of the hardship it involves." 
 
 ''I know," said I, ''that this is the view they 
 take, and this is what Thrasymachus also had 
 in mind when, a while ago, he was abusing jus- 
 tice. But I am afraid I must be very stupid, 
 for I cannot understand this view." 
 
 "Come then," he said, "listen to what I too 
 have to say, and see if you can agree with me. 
 For Thrasymachus seems to me, like a snake, 
 to have been charmed by your words far sooner 
 than he ought ; but as for me, neither the ex- 
 planation of justice nor that of injustice is yet 
 to my mind. What I long to do is to say good- 
 bye to rewards and to every thing that ^rows 
 out of rewards, and to learn in what justice 
 and injustice each by itself consists, and what 
 inherent power each has by its own presence in 
 the soul. This then I will do, if you think well 
 of it. I will renew the argument of Thrasy- 
 machus, and in the first place I will state what 
 justice is said to be, and whence it is said to 
 have sprung ; in the secorS^place, I will show 
 that all who practise it do so unwillingly, regard- 
 ing it as a necessity, not as a good ; and in the 
 3 third place, that they are justified in so doing, 
 since the life of the unjust man is far better 
 than that of the just, — so they say. Now you 
 know, Socrates, that I, for my part, do not be- 
 lieve this at all ; but my ears have been so deaf- 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 103 
 
 ened by listening to Thrasymachus and hosts 
 of others, that I am at a loss what to think ; and 
 the opposite proposition, that justice is better 
 than injustice, I have never heard any one main- 
 tain as I could wish ; for what I wish is to" hear 
 it praised for itself alone. Now you, I believe, 
 are the man from whom I am most likely to hear 
 this, and so I shall do my utmost to speak in 
 praise of the unjust life, and by so doing I shall 
 be showing you how I wish to hear you blame 
 injustice and praise justice. Consider, then, 
 whether you agree to what I propose." 
 
 "I should like it of all things," I said, "for 
 what is there about which a man of sense could 
 prefer to speak or to hear, rather than about 
 this } " 
 
 tC 
 
 359-360 [To commit injustice, says Glaucon, in 
 the character of its eulogist, is undoubtedly 
 pleasant ; but to suffer from it is so much the 
 reverse, that men soon learn the expediency of 
 coming to some agreement for mutual protec- 
 tion. Such, then, is the origin of justice, — it 
 is a compromise between the state most to be 
 desired, freedom to commit injustice with impu- 
 nity, and that most to be avoided, enforced sub- 
 • mission to wrongs without power of retaliation ; 
 and this is a compromise to which no man in 
 his senses would submit were the case not one 
 of necessity. 
 
I04 THE REPUBLIC, 
 
 In illustration of one form of injustice, Glau- 
 con relates the story of Gyges, the ancestor of 
 Croesus. Gyges, a shepherd and hireling of the 
 king of Lydia, was one day tending his flock, 
 when a great storm arose, and an earthquake 
 rent the ground, opening a chasm almost un- 
 derneath his feet. Down this he found his 
 way, and beheld, amidst many wonders there 
 below, a great brazen horse, containing a dead 
 body of more than human size, which had upon 
 its hand a ring. This, placing it upon his own 
 finger, Gyges took away with him, and wore at 
 the next monthly assembly of the shepherds, 
 when they met to take the tale of their flocks. 
 Chancing to turn the signet of the ring towards 
 the inside of his hand, he immediately became 
 invisible, as to his amazement he learned, on 
 hearing his fellow shepherds speak of him as 
 if he were not present. He then made further 
 trial of the ring, always with the same result. 
 On this he contrived to get himself sent to 
 court as bearer of the shepherds' count. No 
 sooner had he arrived there than he began to 
 plot with the queen, and finally, by help of the 
 magic ring, he " slew the king and reigned in his 
 stead. 
 
 Now if a ring like this were bestowed upon a 
 just, and another upon an unjust man, it is evi- 
 dent that both men would take the course 
 prompted by self-interest ; for no one is of stufl 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 105 
 
 so adamantine that he would keep his hands 
 from his neighbour's goods, had he the power of 
 taking them without being seen ; and did such 
 a man exist, although the fear aroused by this 
 god-like attribute might induce his fellows to 
 praise his conduct to his face, he would be 
 accounted by all the most despicable of fools. 
 
 Glaucon now closes his defence of injustice 
 with the following sketch of the contrasted lives 
 of the just and the unjust man.] 
 
 "Now in passing judgment upon the two 
 forms of life in question, we must set up the 
 perfection of justice, and over against it the per- 
 fection of injustice ; for in this way we shall be 
 able to judge aright, otherwise not. What then, 
 you will ask, is this contrast which you think of 
 setting up } Let me tell you. We will take away 
 from the unjust man nothing that belongs to in- 
 justice, and from the just, nothing that belongs 
 to justice; each we will make perfect for his own 
 career. In the, first place, then, let the unjust 
 man act as all men do who are skilled in any 
 vocation. Just as the skilful pilot or the phy- 
 sician recognises at once the impossibilities 
 and the possibilities of his art, and puts his 
 361 hand to some things, while others he leaves 
 undone, and even if he does make a mistake is 
 still able to set it right, so let the unjust man 
 
I06 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 who is to have success in putting his hand to 
 unjust deeds, keep under cover if he wishes to 
 attain the height of injustice. The man who 
 allows himself to be found out must be set down 
 I as nothing better than a bungler ; the height of 
 j injustice being to appear just when one is not 
 just. To the perfectly unjust man, then, must 
 be allotted the most perfect injustice; nothing 
 must be taken away ; his greatest acts of injus- 
 tice must be the very means of winning him the 
 greatest reputation for justice. If he makes 
 any mistake, he must have the power of setting 
 it right again, using his gift of persuasion in 
 case any of his evil deeds come to light, and 
 resorting to violence where violence is called 
 for, by dint of sheer audacity and brute strength 
 as well as by the help of friends and money. 
 
 Having then made him out to be such a man 
 as this, let our argument produce and place by 
 his side the just man, the man who is single- 
 hearted and noble, the man who, according to 
 J Aeschylus, is resolved not to seem but to be 
 good.* Take away all seemijig ; for if he seem 
 to be just, gifts and honours will accrue to him 
 as so seeming, and then it will become uncertain 
 whether he is just for the sake of justice itself, 
 or for the sake of the gifts and honours. Strip 
 him, therefore, of every thing save justice; put 
 him in a plight which is the exact reverse of the 
 
 * See note 63. 
 
THE REPUBLIC. lO/ 
 
 unjust man's condition. Unjust in no respect, 
 let him have the greatest reputation for in- 
 justice, that thus his justice may be put to the 
 test, whether it be so firm that evil repute with 
 all its consequences may not undermine and 
 make an end of it. Let him continue thus stead- 
 fast unto death, seeming his whole life through 
 to be unjust though in reality just, and when 
 both men shall have reached the highest point, 
 the one of justice, the other of injustice, then 
 let judgment be passed which of the two is the 
 happier. "^^ 
 
 "Really, my dear Glaucon," I said, "you are 
 polishing up each of these men in order to pre- 
 sent them to judgment, as vigorously as if they 
 were a couple of statues ! " 
 
 "I do it as best I can," he answered, "and 
 now that we have the two before us as they 
 really are, it will be no difficult task to go on and 
 give in detail the sort of life which is in store 
 for each one of the two. It must needs be told ; 
 and if it sound too brutal, do not think of it, 
 Socrates, as coming from me, but from those 
 who laud injustice above justice. ^ This, then, is 
 what they will say, — that the just man, being 
 such as I have described, will be scourged, put 
 to torture, bound in irons, have his eyes burned 
 362 out, and that finally, after he has suffered all 
 manner of evil, he will be impaled ; and then 
 shall he know that not to be, but to seem just is 
 
I08 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 what one ought to wish. And they wi!.! say that 
 far more truly of the unjust man than of the 
 just may the words of Aeschylus be spoken ; 
 since it is in fact the unjust man, who, pursu- 
 ing such things as serve some real end and 
 not living for a mere idea, is resolved not to 
 appear but to be unjust, — 
 
 * Garnering from the deep-spread plough-land of his 
 mind, 
 Harvests rich in wholesome wisdom's ripened fruit. 63' 
 
 In the first place, to the man who appears to be 
 just it is given to bear rule ; then he may marry 
 as he wishes and may give his children in mar- 
 riage to whom he sees fit ; or he may make con- 
 tracts and have dealings with any one he 
 chooses : and in all these transactions he reaps 
 advantage from not letting injustice stand in the 
 way. In entering upon any contests, whether 
 private or public, he gets the better of his ene- 
 mies and takes advantage of them, and by thus 
 taking advantage he becomes rich, and so does 
 good to his friends and harm to his enemies ; 
 and moreover he is able to make grand and 
 magnificent offerings and sacrifices to the gods. 
 And both to the gods and to any man whom 
 he may wish to benefit, he can render services 
 far greater than can the just man ; so that he 
 must in all probability be dearer also to the 
 gods than is the just man. In such wise, Socra- 
 tes, do they speak who sa}*- that in the sight of 
 
THE REPUBLIC. IO9 
 
 gods, and of men also, the life of the unjust is 
 far better than that of the just." 
 
 a Now that Glaucon had finished speaking I 
 was intending to say something in reply, when 
 his brother Adeimantus began thus, — 
 
 " Does it seem to you, Socrates, that enough 
 has been said on this side of the argument ? " 
 
 "Why, what else is there to say?" I an- 
 swered. 
 
 "The very thing," said he, "which is best 
 worth the saying." 
 
 " You know the proverb," I said, " * Call in a 
 man's brother to help him.' So do you now 
 come to your brother's rescue if he stand in 
 need of help ; although I must confess that the 
 words he has spoken are quite sufficient to 
 throw me, and unfit me for giving any help 
 to the cause of justice." 
 
 "That is all nonsense," he said, "but now 
 hear what I too have to say." 
 
 363-366 [With the object of laying more stress 
 upon the argument of Glaucon, Adeimantus 
 proceeds to give what he calls its converse side, 
 — namely, the point of view taken by those who 
 profess to be on the side of justice. All parents 
 and instructors, he says, enjoin the practice of 
 virtue not for its own sake, but for the sake 
 of the very benefits pronounced by Glaucon to 
 
no THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 be the portion of the unjust man who passes for 
 just. They sum up all the good things which 
 the gods shower down upon generation, after 
 generation of just men ; and in this they are 
 seconded by the poets, some of whom have fol- 
 lowed the just man's fortunes even into the 
 world below, and have shown him to us seated 
 at the banquets of the blest in a perpetual state 
 of drunkenness, as if forsooth that were the best 
 reward of virtue. 
 
 As for the unjust man, it is said that not only 
 in the other world does he meet with the reward 
 of his wickedness, but that while yet on earth 
 he suffers the evils which Glaucon has described 
 as falling to the lot of the just man who passes 
 for unjust. 
 
 But all this talk is far from representing the 
 commonly received belief. Even those who are 
 loudest in their praise of justice secretly believe 
 that injustice is in reality more profitable, and 
 they pay honour to the wealth and power which 
 so frequently go with it, while they despise the 
 weak and helpless condition of the just man who 
 lives in poverty. Indeed, the gods themselves 
 would seem to smile upon the unjust ; at least 
 if we may trust the report of the soothsayers 
 who go about promising to secure their favour 
 and good will by means of certain costly propitia- 
 tory rites and ceremonies, to the non-perform- 
 ance of which direful penalties are attached. 
 
THE REPUBLIC, III 
 
 What effect does all this produce upon the 
 young ? Does it not lead them to believe that 
 since the semblance of justice is all that is need- 
 ful, to this semblance alone they will turn their 
 attention, and spare themselves the trouble of 
 practising justice ? And if it be urged that it 
 is impossible to conceal our injustice from the 
 gods, it may be answered that it is not certain 
 whether there are any gods at all, and if there 
 are, whether they take thought of men ; or 
 again, as has just been said, their displeasure 
 may be averted by means of propitiatory gifts, 
 and we may still enjoy the advantages of injus- 
 tice without losing the favour of the higher 
 powers.] 
 
 " Now at the bottom of all this, Socrates, is 
 the very thing which started our discussion with 
 you, I mean my brother's and my own, and this, 
 my dear friend it is, — that of all those amongst 
 us whom you name as praising justice, begin- 
 ning with those heroes of old of whom traditions 
 remain and coming down to men of our own 
 day, not one has ever blamed injustice or praised 
 justice, except for the glories and honours and 
 gifts which result from them. No one has ever, 
 either in poetry or in common speech, adequately 
 followed up the idea of the two principles, and, 
 dwelling upon the inherent power exerted by 
 
112 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 each of them in the soul, albeit unknown to 
 gods and men, proved that of all evils which 
 a soul may harbour injustice is the greatest, 
 and- that justice is the greatest good. If from 
 367 the beginning all of you had proclaimed this 
 doctrine and from our youth up had persuaded 
 us of its truth, we should have no need to be 
 on the watch for the misdeeds of our neigh- 
 bours, for each man would stand watchman 
 over himself, lest if he commit injustice' he 
 may be harbouring as a familiar friend the 
 greatest of evils. Thrasymachus, and perhaps 
 others, would very likely say all this, Socrates, 
 and more too, in regard to justice and injustice, 
 reversing thereby their very natures* out of 
 mere ignorance I suppose. But for my own 
 part, I do not care to conceal from you that it is 
 because of my anxiety to hear you take the 
 opposite side that I have brought every thing 
 within my power to bear upon what I have 
 been saying. Do not then prove by words alone 
 that justice is better than injustice, but show 
 what work each, and each by itself alone, effects 
 through its presence in the soul, which proves 
 the one to be an evil, the other a good.^^ As for 
 seeming, let that, as Glaucon bade, be put out 
 of the question. For if you do not strip each 
 one of its true external attributes and invest it 
 with spurious ones, we- shall say that you are 
 praising not justice but the semblance of it, and 
 
THE REPUBLIC, II3 
 
 again that you are blaming not injustice but only 
 the semblance of that, and that you are exhort- 
 ing us to be unjust indeed, but to conceal it, 
 and are admitting with Thrasymachus that 
 justice is a good which belongs to another man, 
 being the interest of the stronger, while injus- 
 tice is the interest and advantage of the same 
 man, being at the same time the disadvantage 
 of the weaker. But now you have admitted that 
 justice is one of those greatest goods, worthy 
 indeed to be prized for the sake of what results 
 from them, but even more for their own sakes, 
 — such as sight, hearing, thought, and health, 
 you remember, — all goods in fact which are 
 genirinely good in their own nature and not in 
 mere seeming. And therefore you are bound 
 to praise justice, for the reason that it bene- 
 fits him who possesses it in its very essence, 
 just as injustice does him harm. Let others 
 praise rewards and honours ; I could bear to 
 hear injustice thus praised and justice blamed 
 by men who glorify honours and rewards and 
 heap reproaches upon their opposites, but I 
 could not bear it from you unless you yourself 
 bade me, because your whole life through you 
 have been intent upon this thing and this alone. 
 Do not then prove to us by words only, that 
 justice is better than injustice, but show what 
 work each, and each by itself alone, effects 
 through its presence in the soul, whether hidden 
 
114 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 or not to gods and to men, which proves the one 
 to be a good, the other an evil." 
 
 On hearing this, I who have always admired 
 the natural gifts of Glaucon and Adeimantus, 
 368 was more than ever delighted with them, and 
 said : — 
 
 " Sons of that man so well known to us all, 
 well do you deserve the opening lines of the 
 Elegiacs ^s written in your honour by the ad- 
 mirer of Glaucon, where in speaking of the 
 glory you won for yourselves at the battle of 
 Megara,^^ he calls you 
 
 j* God-like heirs of a hero illustrious, sons of Aristc' \ 
 
 I, for my part, my dear friends, think this epithet 
 well deserved, for god-like indeed has been your 
 behaviour if, not believing injustice to be better 
 than justice, you are yet capable of making such 
 a plea for it. Not for a moment do I suppose 
 that you really do believe this. The whole bent 
 of your character is proof positive of the con- 
 trary; although I must confess that if I judged 
 from your own words, I could put no faith in you 
 at all. But the greater my faith is in you, the 
 more am I at a loss what to say. I am at my 
 wits' end to find an answer, for I feel myself 
 utterly incompetent. And there is reason for 
 my feeling thus, since what I thought I had 
 entirely proved in my talk with Thrasymachus, 
 namely, that justice is better than injustice, you 
 
THE REPUBLIC, Il5 
 
 seem not to have accepted at all. But on the 
 other hand, I must not refuse to give what 
 answer I can ; for I fear it may be an impious 
 act for a man who happens to be present when 
 justice is evil entreated, to yield to weariness and 
 not come to her rescue so long as he has breath 
 and power of utterance. And therefore, it is 
 best for me to do all in my power to help her." 
 
 On this, Glaucon and the others besought me 
 by all means to lend my aid and not let the 
 discussion drop, but closely to examine what 
 both justice and injustice really are, and where 
 the truth lies as to their relative advantages. 
 I then told them that in my opinion the search 
 we were undertaking was no easy one, and called 
 for good eyesight. 
 
 "And since we," I said, "are not clear sighted, 
 it seems to me that we ought to make our search 
 just as people would do who had defective eyes, 
 and were bidden to read small letters from a 
 distance. If one of them suddenly remembered 
 that the same letters were elsewhere to be 
 found written upon a larger page and in larger 
 characters, they would deem it a godsend if 
 they might first read the larger letters, and then 
 examine the smaller ones, always supposing the 
 two to be alike." 
 
 "Doubtless," said Adeimantus, "but what 
 resemblance, Socrates, do you see between this 
 and the search for justice ? " 
 
Il6 THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 "I will tell you," I answered. "We speak of 
 justice, do we not, as existing in the individual ? 
 I suppose, however, that it exists likewise in 
 the whole state ? " 
 
 " Certainly," was his reply. 
 
 " And the state is larger than the individual, 
 is it not.?" 
 
 " It is larger," he said. 
 
 "Then we may assume that justice in the 
 larger thing would be on a larger scale, and 
 hence more easily seen. If you therefore ap- 
 prove, we will first make our search for it as it 
 369 exists in the state, and afterwards come to the 
 examination of it in the individual, looking for 
 the likeness of the larger in the image of the 
 smaller." 
 
 " This seems to me an excellent idea of yours," 
 he said. 
 
 "And supposing we were to picture to our- 
 selves a state during its growth, should we not 
 behold also the growth of justice and injustice.?" 
 
 "I suppose we should." 
 
 "Then when it is once grown, is there not 
 reason to expect that we shall more easily find 
 what we are in search of .? " 
 
 "Much reason." 
 
 " What say you, then } Shall we attempt to 
 go through to the end } It will be no slight 
 task, I believe ; so reflect well." 
 
 "I have reflected," said Adeimantus, "pray 
 go on." 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 11/ 
 
 [With this proposal to construct a state, which 
 when described proves to be an ideal common- 
 wealth, ends what may be termed the Prelude 
 of the "Republic." The keynote has been 
 struck which, through the ensuing and con- 
 stantly changing modulations, ever and anon 
 makes itself heard, until in the story of Er the 
 Armenian and the revelation made to him of 
 the future life, we are again brought back to 
 the original theme, and find full satisfaction 
 in the truth that for every man, "whether he 
 be dead or yet alive, justice is the better 
 choice."] 
 
NOTES. 
 
NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS. 
 
 Note i, p. 3. 
 Every Athenian youth at the age of eighteen was enrolled 
 upon the list of citizens, and admitted to the rights and duties 
 of manhood. 
 
 Note 2, p. 3. 
 This passage occurs in the description of Hermes, when he 
 meets Odysseus and gives him the charmed herb "moly" as a 
 protection from the wiles of Circe : — 
 
 " But while through the glorious woodland I wended my way, 
 Ere I reached the wide dwelling of Circe, in simples well versed, 
 As I took my way thither, a wand in his hand, made of gold, 
 There encountered me Hermes : a stripling with beard of first growth 
 Even such did he seem, for a youth with most charm then is graced." 
 
 — Odyssey^ X., 275 ff. 
 By this allusion to the youth of Alcibiades, Plato seems to 
 suggest that the dialogue took place in the year 433 B.C., when 
 Alcibiades was eighteen years old. But no date can be as- 
 signed which does not involve grave chronological inaccuracies, 
 since it is impossible that all the characters should havf ap- 
 peared together at the respective ages here ascribed to them. 
 
 Note 3, p. 4. 
 
 Abdera was a Greek colony in Thrace, which, although the 
 
 Lirthplace of the philosophers Protagoras, Democritus, and 
 
 Leucippus, of the historian Hecataeus, and of other noted 
 
 men, was proverbial for the dulness of its inhabitants. Thus 
 
122 NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS. 
 
 Cicero, in one of his letters, characterises a foolish proposition 
 which he has rejected, as " worthy of Abdera." — Ad Att, vii. vii. 
 
 Note 4, p. 4. 
 
 Protagoras is said to have begun life as a porter. By- 
 assiduous study, however, he made up for the deficiencies of 
 his earlier years, and came to be esteemed the most learned 
 of his contemporaries, who nicknamed him " Wisdom." His 
 celebrated doctrine, — "Man is the measure of all things; of 
 things that are, that they exist, and of things that are not, that 
 they do not exist," is explained by Plato {Thecetetus, 161 C) as 
 meaning that all knowledge is derived through the senses only. 
 Unlike many of his contemporaries, he looked upon his duties 
 as a teacher in an earnest light, and was fearless in the ex- 
 pression of his opinions (see Protagoras^ 316 E-317 B). Ha 
 did not hesitate to declare : — " Concerning the gods, whether 
 they are or are not, I know nothing: the shortness of life, the 
 difficulty of the subject, and many other things render such 
 knowledge impossible ; " and this bold assertion, it is said, led 
 to his arraignment as an atheist, when without awaiting the 
 result of the trial he fled to Sicily, and was, so the story runs, 
 drowned on the passage, at the age of seventy. 
 
 Protagoras was the first philosopher who took pay for his 
 instruction, his fee amounting in some cases to one hundred 
 mincB (more than eighteen hundred dollars). His example was 
 followed by his contemporaries ; and on this account they 
 were censured by Socrates as "barterers of their manhood, 
 through the necessity under which they lay themselves to hold 
 discourse at the will of any from whom they receive pay." — 
 Xen. Mem. I. ii. 6. 
 
 Note 5, p. '5. 
 
 Of the subsequent career of Hippocrates nothing is 
 known, nor do we find his brother Phason elsewhere men- 
 tioned. Their father Apollodorus, well known as an ardent 
 admirer of Socrates, is mentioned in the Apology (38 B) as 
 
NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS. 123 
 
 one of the four who offered security for the fine proposed by 
 Socrates for himself, and is described in the death-scene of 
 the Phcedo (117 D) as giving way to the most passionate grief. 
 
 Note 6, p. 5. 
 Oenoe was situated on the border of Bceotia, which frontier, 
 as nearest to Athens, the slave* would naturally have attempted 
 to reach. 
 
 Note 7, p. 7. 
 
 Callias belonged to an ancient and honoured family, in 
 which the office of herald at the Eleusinian mysteries was 
 hereditary. To this office, in the particular branch of the 
 family to which Callias belonged, was added that of torch- 
 bearer in the same mysteries, as well as that of Spartan proxe- 
 nus at Athens, — an office roughly corresponding to our consul. 
 Members of the family of Callias, moreover, had not unfre- 
 quently been sent upon embassies to the neighbouring states ; 
 and probably for this reason rather than from any merit of his 
 own Callias was three times chosen to head a delegation to 
 Sparta. His passion for surrounding himself with all the 
 celebrities of the day was doubtless one cause of his rapid 
 dissipation of the large fortune left him by his frugal father ; 
 for, as we learn in the Apology (20. A), "he spent more money 
 upon the Sophists than all other men put together." 
 
 Note 8, p. 7. 
 The celebrated physician Hippocrates of Cos belonged to 
 the Asclepiadce, a family in which the practice of medicine was 
 hereditary, and which boasted d'escent from Asclepios, the god 
 of medicine, the Roman Aesculapius. As a reward for having 
 delivered Athens from a pestilence he was presented with a 
 golden crown and admitted to the rights of citizenship. So 
 wide became his renown that he was bidden to the Court of 
 Persia, by Artaxerxes : he refused however to obey the sum- 
 mons, on the plea that he owed his services to his own country, 
 and not to any foreign land. 
 
124 NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS, 
 
 Note 9, p. 8. 
 
 PoLYCLEiTUS was particularly celebratec for his figures of 
 athletes, and is ranked in Xenophon's Metnorabilia (I. iv.3) as 
 highest among sculptors, as Homer is among epic poets, and 
 Sophocles among dramatists. 
 
 Pheidias was entrusted by Pericles with the charge of beau- 
 tifying the public buildings of Athens, and the cessation of this 
 work was not the least of the evils consequent upon Pericles' 
 loss of favour with the people. Failing to convict Pheidias 
 upon the ground of having misappropriated public moneys, his 
 enemies finally succeeded in having him banished from Athens 
 on the charge of impiety, because he had presumed to carve his 
 own likeness and that of Pericles upon the shield of Athene, a 
 colossal statue made by him, to adorn the Parthenon. Pheidias 
 then took up his abode at Ehs, where his first work was a 
 statue of Olympian Zeus. This he vowed should surpass the 
 Athene in beauty ; and so well did he keep his promise that 
 in token of their gratitude, so Pausanias tells us, the people 
 of Elis appointed his family to be perpetual guardians of the 
 statue. From the allusion here made to Pheidias, we may pre- 
 sume that at this time he was still alive. 
 
 Note 10, p. 14. 
 
 Like many of the other Sophists, Hippias travelled through- 
 out Greece, where he taught and lectured with a view to acquir- 
 ing fortune as well as fame. He was'wont to maintain that virtue 
 consisted in being independent in all things, and he asserted his 
 own claim to its possession, by pretending to universal knowl- 
 edge. At one of the Olympian festivals he boasted that he 
 was master of every art, mechanical as well as liberal, stating 
 in proof of this, that every article he wore was the work of his 
 own hands {Hippias Minor, 368 B-C). He was noted for 
 his memory, and it is said could remember fifty names after 
 hearing them once repeated. The authenticity of the two Pla- 
 tonic dialogues which bear his name is disputed, but the same 
 
NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS. 1 25 
 
 traits of superficiality and self-importance which characterise 
 the Hippias of the Protagoras are there displayed : witness the 
 passage where he excuses himself for not coming oftener to 
 Athens, on the plea that " When Elis has business to negotiate 
 with any of the cities, I am always the one chosen from among 
 her citizens to be chief ambassador ; for it is held that I am 
 the one best fitted to be judge and envoy in such negotiations 
 as are customary between one city and another." — Hippias 
 Major ^ 281 A. 
 
 Prodicus made his first appearance in Athens at the head 
 of an embassy. In this capacity he displayed such powers of 
 oratory that he excited great admiration among the Athenians, 
 and, finding himself much in request, remained and taught in 
 their midst, enjoying the friendship of the most distinguished 
 men of the day. In such high esteem were his lectures held, 
 that Xenophon, when in prison, is said to have obtained bail 
 for the express purpose of hearing one of them ; and " Wiser 
 than Prodicus " became a proverb to express the unattainable. 
 His strong point was the use of synonymes, — a study which 
 was a matter'of mere guess-work, when etymology as then was 
 yet in its infancy: hence his speculations in the Protagoras 
 are not unniiturally turned into ridicule by Socrates, who 
 speaks, however, of having attended his single-drachma read- 
 ing, referring to the fifty-drachma lecture, which professed to 
 be a " complete education in grammar and language," as be- 
 yond his means. — [Plato, Cratylus, 384 B.] The allusion to 
 his voice, the "deep tones " of which awakened an echo in the 
 room, may be intended as a reflection upon the well-known 
 harshness of its quality; while in the description given of 
 him as still in bed, and wrapped in many coverings, we may 
 see a reference to his weak state of health. What we know 
 of Prodicus inclines us to believe that, if not the wisest, he 
 was the best of the Sophists. The summary of his excellent 
 fable of the Choice of Heracles, to be found in Xenophon's 
 Afemorabilia (II. i. 21), is all that has come down to us of his 
 writings. 
 
126 NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS. 
 
 Note ii, p. 15. 
 
 The house of a well-to-do Athenian like Callias was divided 
 into the men's quarters {andronitis\ where is laid the scene of 
 the Protagoras^ and those devoted to the women {gunaikuni- 
 tis), the two being separated by a strongly bolted door. Each 
 of these divisions was composed of various apartments, all open- 
 ing upon an uncovered court surrounded by arcades, which, 
 upon the side nearest the entrance, an^ perhaps also upon that 
 opposite to it, formed a species of portico. 
 
 Note 12, p. 15. 
 
 Xanthippus and Paralus bore, during their short lives, the 
 unenviable nickname of " Boobies." They were half-brothers 
 of Callias, he being the son of their mother by her former 
 marriage with Hipponicus. 
 
 Charmides, upon the death of his father Glaucon, became 
 the ward of his cousin Critias. That Charmides was most 
 carefully educated is a point to be remembered in favour of his 
 much condemned guardian. He is represented by Plato, whose 
 uncle he was, and also by Xenophon, as equally charming in 
 appearance and in disposition, and is said to have been some- 
 thing of a poet withal. In the Memorabilia (III. vi. 2) a con- 
 versation between him and Socrates is recorded, in which the 
 latter asks Charmides, who has pleaded bashfulness as an 
 excuse for not entering public life, whether a man endowed 
 with such capacity for playing a useful part there has the right 
 to withhold his services from the state. These exhortations 
 seem to have been unfortunate in their effect. Charmides 
 afterwards became one of the board of Ten in the Peirasus, 
 appointed during the bloodthirsty rule of the Thirty Tyrants, 
 and fell by the side of Critias in the encounter with Thrasybulus 
 and the returning democrats. 
 
 Nothing is known of the other two personages here intro- 
 duced. 
 
NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS. 127 
 
 Note 13, p. 16. 
 
 " Uplifting mine eyes I beheld mighty Heracles next, 
 His image, I say; for himself midst the gods that are deathless 
 Takes joyance and feasts."' 
 
 , — Odyssey^ xi., 601-603. 
 
 Note 14, p. 16. 
 
 Eryximachus, like his father Acumenus, was a learned and 
 respected physician, as well as a natural philosopher. 
 
 For Phaedrus Plato had a peculiar fondness, as is shown in 
 the dialogue which bears this name. Although we are told that 
 he was a great reader and lover of literature, nothing is known 
 of the writings of Phaedrus. He seems to have attached value 
 to the medical advice of Acumenus, the father of Eryximachus 
 his intimate friend, as we gather from the opening of the 
 dialogue just mentioned (227 A), where Socrates falls in with 
 him as he is on his way to take a walk outside the wall, because 
 Acumenus has advised his exercising in the country. 
 
 Of Andron no mention is elsewhere found. 
 
 Note 15, p. 16. 
 
 ** And Tantalus, too, I descried, by fierce torments possessed, 
 Who stood amidst waters uplifting, that reached to his chin, — 
 Stood panting with thirst ; yet vainly to quench it he sought : 
 For eager to drink, whene'er the old man bent him down, 
 So often the water would vanish and sink, round his feet 
 The black earth appear ; for a god made it dry." 
 
 — Odyssey^ xi., 582-88. 
 
 Note 16, p. 16. 
 In order to protect the household supplies from thieving 
 slaves, it was customary to connect all the store-rooms with the 
 women^s apartments ; but the thrifty Hipponicus seems to have 
 required extra room to hold his stores, and thus to have re- 
 served for them an additional place in the men's quarters. 
 
 Note 17, p. 16. 
 Attica was subdivided into demes, which corresponded roughly 
 to our townships, or to the wards of our cities. 
 
128 NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS. 
 
 Note i8, p. 17. 
 
 Pausanias is chiefly known as having been the lifelong 
 friend of the " fair Agathon." 
 
 Agathon's reputation for extreme beauty is said to have ren- 
 dered him somewhat vain and foppish. He afterwards attained 
 distinction as a writer of tragedies, certain fragments from 
 which are preserved by Aristotle. He aimed chiefly at novelty, 
 adorning his works with the figures and embelHshments then in 
 vogue, and was ranked as the best of the second-rate tragic 
 poets. It was upon the occasion of receiving a prize for his 
 first tragedy, that he gave the banquet, the conversation at 
 which forms the subject of Plato's Syinposiuin. 
 
 Of Adeimantus the son of Cepis nothing is known, but 
 the other Adeimantus is supposed to be the same who was 
 implicated with Alcibiades in the profanation of the mysteries. 
 He was one of the oligarchical faction, and was accounted by 
 Aristophanes one of the most dangerous men in Athens. In 
 the Peloponnesian war he proved himself a successful strategist. 
 Taken prisoner after the disaster of Aegospotami, he alone of 
 all the Athenians was set at liberty by Lysander, — in reward 
 for an act of treachery. 
 
 Note 19, p. 18. 
 
 In the charming youth described in Plato's dialogues, as well 
 as in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, we fail to recognise the 
 future traitor Alcibiades ; nor is it less difficult to trace in 
 his friend, the devotee of philosophy and literature, any likeness 
 to the merciless Critias, so soon to become the most hated of 
 men. The accusation brought against Socrates as a corrupter 
 of youth was partially founded upon the fact that both these 
 men had been his disciples. The charge is disproved by 
 Xenophon, who insists that as long as they remained with 
 Socrates both practised self-control, because he had taught 
 them to believe that this was right. We are told, however, 
 that as soon as they imagined themselves to have acquired that 
 
NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS, 129 
 
 mental superiority over the rulers in the state which it had been 
 their object to attain, they no longer went with Socrates ; for 
 they were " by nature the most ambitious of all the Athenians, 
 and their desire was that every thing should be brought about 
 through them, and they themselves become the most noted of 
 men." " It is my behef," continues Xenophon, "that had a god 
 given them the choice, whether they would prefer to live their 
 whole life through as they saw Socrates live or to die, that they 
 would have chosen rather to die." — Xen. Mem. I. ii. 14-18. 
 
 Note 20, p. 19. 
 
 Protagoras asserts that the ethical side of philosophy — the 
 task of "educating men" — constitutes the art of sophistry, 
 and attempts to prove that former teachers of morality had 
 escaped unpopularity only by professing openly some other art, 
 which served as a disguise. As to the illustrations he uses, 
 and how convincing they may have been, our scanty knowledge 
 concerning them forbids us to form any judgment. 
 
 Homer often, it is true, especially in the Odyssey^ taking ad- 
 vantage of the rapt attention lent by his auditors to his vivid 
 narrative, inculcates the performance of certain moral duties ; 
 while Hesiod also, in his Works and Days, enforces the ob- 
 servance of the rules of right living. But what has come down 
 to us of the poems of Orpheus and Musaeus is of too frag- 
 mentary a nature and of too doubtful authenticity to enable us 
 to decide whether or not the mystic teachings of these legen- 
 dary poets were symbolic of practical truths and precepts. 
 
 It was probably because I ecus of Tarentum was a reputed 
 follower of the Pythagorean school that he is given a place 
 upon this list. A victor in the Olympic games, he gained the 
 reputation — perhaps the one most coveted by the Greeks — of 
 being the best gymnast of his time. He taught that gymnastic 
 training induced temperance, which virtue he himself practised 
 to such an extent that the "dinner of Iccus" became a pro- 
 verbial saying. 
 
 No trace can be discovered of the ethical teachings of 
 
130 NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS, 
 
 Herodicus. He is chiefly known as the instructor of the cele- 
 brated Hippocrates in the art of medicine. Himself in delicate 
 health, his whole attention was devoted to the hygienic side of 
 gymnastics ; namely, the systematic observance of the rules 
 of health and the regimen and care of the body. Plato throws 
 ridicule upon him for having originated the "present fashion 
 of cultivating diseases," and declares that although by the 
 help of science he arrived at old age, the struggle against death 
 was nothing but a process of torture {Republic^ 406 A-B). 
 
 Of Agathocles we only know that he was the teacher of 
 the celebrated musician Damon. Pythocleides, as well as 
 this same Damon, was supposed to have used the art he pro- 
 fessed, merely as a screen for the political instruction which he 
 wished to disseminate. 
 
 Note 21, p. 21. 
 The celebrated painter Zeuxippus is more generally known 
 as Zeuxis, an abbreviation of the longer name. 
 
 Note 22, p. 22. 
 The Thebans were regarded as the best flute-players in 
 Greece. 
 
 Note 23, p. 24. 
 
 Under the name of prytanes, the ten groups, each of fifty 
 senators, representing severally the ten Athenian tribes in the 
 senate of five hundred at Athens, took turns in presiding over 
 the senate, and assuming general direction of affairs. 
 
 Note 24, p. 24. 
 The following passage from the Mefnorabilia is a caricature 
 of the popular notion so distasteful to Socrates, that ignorance 
 of statesmanship need be no bar to success in public life. 
 After giving a parody of the maiden speech in the popular 
 assembly, which was to be expected from a certain Euthyde- 
 mus, a youth wise in his own conceit, and anxious to avoid the 
 
NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS. 13I 
 
 reputation of having " learned any thing from anybody," Soc- 
 rates imagines this same youth to have turned physician, and 
 to be applying the self-same principles to his new art after the 
 following fashion:^" Never, men of Athens," he boasts, "have 
 I learned the art of medicine from any man, nor have I sought 
 to have any of the physicians as my teacher ; for, my whole life 
 through, I have been on my guard, not only against learning 
 any thing from the physicians, but against even appearing to 
 have learned this art. Nevertheless, appoint me to be your 
 physician ; and I will do my best to learn by experimenting 
 upon you." — Xen. Mem. IV. ii. 5. 
 
 Note 25, p. 24. 
 To account for this identification of politics with virtue, we 
 must remember that to the Greek the art of politics comprised 
 all excellence. To him the state was the moral and religious 
 law in one, a community in good living, its end being the full 
 and harmonious development of human nature in the citizen ; 
 or, in other words, the unimpeded activity of his moral and 
 intellectual power to work, — of his "excellence" or virtue. 
 For if we examine the virtues in the exercise of which this 
 " good living " consists, we shall find that they all imply social 
 relations, and that thus the individual who realises his chief 
 good or happiness is necessarily a citizen, — what is meant by 
 citizenship being, not the mere possession of civil rights, but 
 the becoming a part of the state, the living its life. Thus, 
 ruling and being ruled, a man exercises not only the virtues of 
 obedience, not only the common moral virtues, but also the 
 excellences of moral wisdom and command : his life is pre- 
 eminently one of virtue. See " Hellenica^'' Essay on Arisiotle^s 
 Conception of the State, by A. C. Bradley, M.A. 
 
 Note 26, p. 24. 
 
 The allusion is to the sacred flocks, who, being dedicated to 
 the gods, were exempted from work and allowed to range at will 
 
132 NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS. 
 
 in what may be called the "glebe" or land belonging to the 
 temple. This notion was familiar to the Greeks from Homer's 
 description of the catastrophe which Odysseus' men brought 
 about by their impious slaughter of the sacred sheep and cattle 
 of the sun {Odyssey^ xii. 1 27-141). Herodotus also (ix. 93), in 
 speaking of the Corinthian colony Apollonia in Epirus, says, 
 " In this town there are likewise herds of cattle sacred to 
 Helios. In the daytime they feed by the side of the river. 
 . . . During the night men who are elected from amongst the 
 citizens as conspicuous for their wealth and lineage take turns 
 in watching over them, each one for a year's length." 
 
 Note 27, p. 25. 
 Alcibiades and Cleinias were distant cousins of Pericles 
 and his brother Ariphron. Alcibiades, in one of the two dia- 
 logues bearing his name, which are somewhat doubtfully attrib- 
 uted to Plato, remarks that the ill-success of Pericles in the 
 education of his sons and Cleinias does not detract from his 
 wisdom ; for the former were born simpletons, and the latter 
 was a madman, which epithet is explained by one of the scholi- 
 asts as meaning that Cleinias was too obstinate to take any 
 one's advice. 
 
 Note 28, p. 26. 
 
 The history to be related is foreshadowed in the names of 
 these Titan brothers, the significations of which are Forethought 
 and Afterthought. 
 
 Note 29, p. 28. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to state that the Latin divinities corre- 
 sponding to this god and goddess are Vulcan and Minerva, 
 and that Hermes, who appears in the latter part of the myth, 
 is the Roman Mercury. With the change of name which 
 followed upon the transplanting of Greek divinities to Roman 
 soil, a corresponding transformation was brought about in their 
 character. If we would see them divested of the Roman mask 
 
NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS. 133 
 
 under which they have too long been travestied, and assume 
 again their Greek features, the old names must be restored 
 under which they were called into existence by the Hellenes, 
 that pliant and mobile race, the creations of whose graceful 
 fancy the unimaginative Romans could but imitate, and, in so 
 doing, vulgarise. (See preface to Les Deux Masques^ by Paul 
 de Saint Victor.) 
 
 Note 30, p. 28. 
 
 In Hesiod's version of this story {Theogony, 534-537), Pro- 
 metheus is punished, — 
 
 " Because he had striven in counsel with Zeus the almighty, 
 And practised deception against the dread son of old Cronos," 
 the deception consisting, not in any benefactions wrought for 
 mankind, but in the unequal division, at a sacrifice, of a 
 * slaughtered ox.' 
 
 His punishment is described as follows: — 
 " Prometheus the wily he punished with bondage most grievous. 
 And fast to a pillar in strong-riven bonds him enchained ; 
 And he sent forth an eagle upon him with pinions wide spreading, 
 To prey on his liver forever renewed for the feeding ; 
 Since what by the broad-winged bird every day was consumed 
 Grew again, by each night for each morrow made good and restored." 
 
 — Hes. Theogon^', 521-525. 
 Aeschylus gives no special prominence to the deceit of 
 Prometheus, but represents him as a martyr in the cause 
 of man, of whom Zeus, as he bitterly complains, — 
 " Took no heed, but purposed utterly 
 To crush their race and plant another new ; 
 And, I excepted, none dared cross his will ; 
 But I did dare, and mortal man I freed 
 From passing thunderstricken on to Hades' depths ; 
 And therefore am I bound beneath these woes 
 Dreadful to suffer, pitiable to see : 
 And I, who in my pity thought of men 
 More than myse'f, have not been worthy deemed 
 To gain like favour ; but all ruthlessly 
 I thus am chained, foul shame this sight to Zeus." 
 
 — Prom, vinci. 239-249. [Piumptre's translation. 
 
134 NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS, 
 
 Note 31, p. 28. 
 The clause ' on account of his kinship with the gods ' which 
 occurs here in the Greek MSS. so mars the sense of this pas- 
 sage that some of the editors suppose it to be by a later hand 
 and enclose it in brackets. Accordingly in this translation it 
 has not been retained. 
 
 Note 32, p. 38. 
 The authenticity of the additional clause *as is proved by 
 their committing injustice ' which occurs in the text has also 
 been questioned, and it is here omitted as interfering with the 
 connection of thought. 
 
 Note 33, p. 42. 
 
 The length of the " long course," from the starting-point to 
 the farther goal and back, \^as twenty-four stadia (about three 
 miles). 
 
 That the professional runners who were employed for special 
 emergencies were trained to wonderful speed is shown by the 
 story of the Plataean Euchidas, who, on being sent after the 
 battle of Salamis to fetch fire from Apollo's altar, made in one 
 day the distance between Plataea and Delphi and back, — a 
 thousand stadia (about a hundred miles). The exertion, how- 
 ever, cost him his life. 
 
 Note 34, p. 45. 
 The prytaneium was a large hall where the prytanes (see 
 note 23, p. 24) transacted their business, and dined at a com- 
 mon table, maintained at public expense for them, for guests 
 of the city, and for certain citizens to whom this honour was 
 awarded in return for distinguished services to the country. 
 
 Note 35, p. 47. 
 SiMONiDES, the author of this ode, was a native of the island 
 of Ceos. He cultivated all styles of poetry, but particularly 
 excelled in epigrams, of which some hundred remain. In the 
 
NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS, 1 3$ 
 
 ode in question, which was written to celebrate a chariot victory 
 of Scopas one of the tyrants of Thessaly, Simonides, to ^void 
 censure for awarding open praise to a tyrant, dwells upon a 
 saying of Pittacus to the effect that it is hardly possible for 
 m en to bg -CFOod, and declares that since it is useless to war 
 against the impossible, they who are not absolutely vicious are 
 worthy of respect and honour. Scopas, far from satisfied by 
 this generalisation, withheld from Simonides the half of his 
 payment, bidding him seek the rest at the hands of the Dioscuri 
 (Castor and Pollux), with whose eulogy the ode ended. Their 
 reward was not long in forthcoming. Shortly after, as the poet 
 sat at table with Scopas and his guests he received an urgent 
 summons in obedience to which he left the building and no 
 sooner had he done so than the walls fell, burying all within. 
 The bodies of the dead were recognised only by the help of 
 Simonides, whose memory enabled him to recollect the place 
 of each guest at the table. This anecdote, which is at least 
 beii trovato, accounts for a tradition that Simonides was the 
 inventor of the art of mnemonics. 
 
 Note 36, p. 47. 
 Pittacus of Mitylene in Lesbos, who, like many others, was 
 classed among the seven nrise men of Greece, played an im- 
 portant part in the history of his native city. His services were 
 rewarded by his appointment as governor, in which capacity he 
 ruled with the greatest moderation and sagacity. One of the 
 laws attributed to him was that any fault committed under 
 the influence of wine should receive double punishment. His 
 practical wisdom was shown no less by his pithy sayings than 
 by his political sagacity. 
 
 Note 37, p. 48. 
 This quotation is from Hesiod's Works and Days (285 fol.). 
 Compare Matt. vii. 14: "Strait is the gate and narrow is the 
 way which leadeth unto life." 
 
136 NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS, 
 
 Note 38, p. 51. 
 In the Symposium^ 220 A, Alcibiades tells us that Socrates, 
 at Potidaea, " although he did not care to drink, yet when con- 
 strained to do so outdid everybody else ; and, most wonderful 
 of all, no man had ever beheld Socrates drunk." 
 
 Note 39, p. 52. 
 This reference is to the passage where Diomede, on volun- 
 teering to visit the Trojan camp as a spy, asks that a compan- 
 ion may go with him. 
 
 " My heart and the spirit of valiance within me, O Nestor 
 Is prompted to enter the lines of the foeman hard by us, — 
 The Trojan's ; but now, if some comrade will join and go with me, 
 More spirit and comforting warmth shall there be in the venture. 
 Let two go together, and one understands ere the other 
 How gain shall be compassed ; alone, even well understanding. 
 Yet one man in forethought is scant, and of flimsy devices," 
 
 — Iliad, 220-229. 
 
 Note 40, p. 56. 
 
 This passage has been variously interpreted, and the want of 
 logic no less than of candour displayed in the argument by both 
 interlocutors makes the drift of their statements somewhat prob- 
 lematic. Plainly put, the case would seem to stand as follows : — 
 
 The admission of Protagoras, to the effect that the confidence 
 derived from knowledge is a predicate of courage, supposes the 
 union of courage and knowledge, and is therefore a step towards 
 the identification of the two, — that being the end which Soc- 
 rates has in view. But the attempt of Socrates to prove an 
 absolute identification through the assumption of an ungranted 
 premise, gives Protagoras an excuse for escaping from his pre- 
 vious assertion of the absolute independence of courage and 
 knowledge, and for advancing a new proposition, that courage 
 in the soul is like strength in the body, the result partly of 
 nature and partly of training. 
 
 At this juncture, we should expect Socrates to maintain afresh 
 that the distinctive mark of courage, that which makes it other 
 
NOTES ON THE PROTAGORAS. 1 37 
 
 than pure recklessness, is an intimate knowledge of the dan- 
 gers which it must confront, since only when possessed of this 
 knowledge may a man " unarmed, face dangers with a heart of 
 trust," anci to urge on new grounds the absolute identification of 
 this knowledge with courage. That Socrates instead of urging 
 this point should, as he does, abruptly shift his ground and 
 adopt another line of attack, implies a tacit though tardy recog- 
 nition of the truth contained in the last proposition of Protag- 
 oras. 
 
 The identification of knowledge and virtue was a favourite 
 doctrine with Socrates, and it constantly recurs in the dialogues 
 of Plato, though often in a modified form. In the Republic 
 (429 C-430 C), the lawless daring of the wild beast and the 
 slave, which has nothing to do with education, is spoken of as 
 unworthy to be called by the name of courage. We read there, 
 that, as the dyer is at great pains to prepare the white ground 
 which best receives and longest retains all other dyes, so the 
 wise man, by right education, prepares the soul to receive and 
 retain the dye of the laws and of right convictions concerning 
 dangers and all other matters, that thus no lye, such as pleas- 
 ure or fear or pain, which may come thereafter, may have 
 any power to wash it away. 
 
 "Ethical virtue," says Aristotle {Nkomachean Ethics, B. VI. 
 c. 2), "is a habit informed by purpose, and purpose is impulse 
 guided by deliberate choice. If, therefore, the purpose is to 
 be worthy, the principle must be true and the impulse right ; 
 whatever is affirmed by the one, the other must pursue." Here 
 we see both sides of the truth in their relation to each other. 
 In the union of impulse and reason all virtue is comprised; 
 only in the light of practical wisdom, which alone can point out 
 the end to be striven for, does virtue unfold itself. 
 
NOTES ON THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Note 41, p. 65. 
 
 The Peiraeus was the chief port of Athens. It was the 
 
 ome of the metics — this term including all resident Greeks 
 
 not of Athenian parentage — and of the foreign residents, as 
 
 at this day are the ports of Galata and Pera in Constantinople. 
 
 Note 42, p. 6$. 
 
 Plato and his two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, 
 claimed descent on their father's side from Codrus, the last 
 king of Athens ; while through their mother, Perictione, they 
 were nephews of Critias, the leader of the violent faction of 
 the Thirty Tyrants, and were also connected with the great 
 law-giver Solon. Glaucon is said to have written a number of 
 dialogues, none of which, however, are extant. A conversation 
 between him and Socrates is given in the Memorabilia of 
 Xenophon (iii. 6) in which Glaucon is cured of a wild ambition 
 to put himself at the head of public affairs, by being led to 
 perceive and acknowledge his own ignorance and incapacity. 
 
 Adeimantus, who is shortly to be introduced, is known to 
 us only by the representation of him in the Republic. 
 
 Note 43, p. 65. 
 
 The worship of Bendis, the Thracian Artemis, was first cele- 
 brated in Athens by a public festival at the time when Plato 
 represents this dialogue as opening. 
 
NOTES ON THE REPUBLIC. 139 
 
 Note 44, p. (>$. 
 
 PoLEMARCHUS and his younger brother Lysias subsequently 
 joined the Athenian colony which had been sent by Pericles 
 to found Thurii, a city in the southern part of Italy, or Magna 
 Grecia. Here the two brothers remained until the disturbances 
 which followed the failure of the Athenian expedition against 
 Syracuse compelled their return to Athens. They there founded 
 a manufactory of shields, and amassed a large fortune which 
 excited the cupidity of the Thirty Tyrants. Without accusa- 
 tion or trial, Polemarchus was sentenced to drink the hemlock, 
 while Lysias only escaped with his life by fleeing to Megara. 
 The oration which, upon his return to Athens, he pronounced 
 against Eratosthenes in order to .avenge his brother's death, 
 gave him great reputation ; and he was able to retrieve his for- 
 tune by carrying on a school of oratory, but principally by the 
 speeches which he wrote to be delivered in the law-courts by 
 his clients, on their own behalf. Of these he is said to have 
 written no less than four hundred and twenty-five, of which 
 however one hundred and ninety-two were believed to be 
 spurious. 
 
 Note 45, p. (£. 
 
 The riches of Niceratus rendered him also a victim of the 
 Thirty. He is said to have taken a deep interest in literary 
 matters, and to have known by heart so much of Homer that 
 upon one occasion he held a contest with certain rhapsodists, — 
 men whose profession it was to recite verses publicly, especially 
 those of Homer. But he is best known as the son of Nicias, 
 whose career, characterised by its patriotism and successful 
 generalship during the early part of the Peloponnesian war, 
 had the disastrous ending which Browning has summed up in 
 these words : — 
 
 " When poor, reluctant Nicias, pushed by fate, 
 Went falteringly against Syracuse, 
 And there shamed Athens, lost her ships and men. 
 And gained a grave, or death without a grave." 
 
 — BalaustiorCs Adventure, 
 
I40 NOTES ON THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Note 46, p. Gd. 
 
 The closing line in the following passage from Lucretius is an 
 evident allusion to this feature of the Athenian Bendideia : — 
 " The sum of all things always thus renews, 
 And man lends man the borrowed life men use ; 
 Some races wane, while others wax more strong ; 
 Changed in brief time all kinds through life that throng 
 Shall all like runners pass life's torch along." 
 
 — De R, N. II., 45-79. 
 
 * Note 47, p. (y^. 
 
 For Lysias see note 44. 
 
 Thrasymachus was a famous teacher of rhetoric, his style 
 being regarded as a happy medium between the flowery elo- 
 quence of Gorgias and the simple directness of Lysias. Grote 
 thinks that he is here misrepresented by Plato ; but the account 
 of him given in the Republic is confirmed by Aristotle's allusion 
 {Rhet. IIL, 141 3 a. 8) to his jeers at Niceratus on the occa- 
 sion of his defeat in the contest above mentioned (note 45), and 
 also by a pun upon the name of Thrasymachus, made to ridi- 
 cule his contentiousness {Rhet. IL, 1400 b. 20). In the Phadrus 
 he is nicknamed the " rhetorical giant of Chalcedon." 
 
 Of EuTHYDEMUS, Charmantides, and Cleitophon noth- 
 ing is known. 
 
 Note 48, p. ^t. 
 
 Cephalus was a native of Syracuse, who, at the instance of 
 his friend Pericles, had taken up his abode in the Peiraeus, the 
 foreign quarter of Athens. Lysias, in the celebrated speech 
 above mentioned, alludes to the fact that three houses were at 
 this time owned by the family, and we have other evidence of 
 the ease and prosperity which surrounded its members. 
 
 Note 49, p. ^t. 
 
 Acts of private worship amongst the Greeks may be classed 
 under three heads : — 
 
 A, Those which involved ceremonies of a special nature, 
 
NOTES ON THE REPUBLIC, 141 
 
 being connected with certain divinities who were patrons of 
 certain families, races, or trades. 
 
 B. Those which had to do with family events, as marriages, 
 births, and deaths. 
 
 C. Those which were binding upon every God-fearing man in 
 his own house, and of whicli domestic sacrifices, such as 
 Cephahis is about to make, formed a chief part. Of these 
 Hesiod speal<s when he says {Works afid Days, v. v. 335-339), — 
 
 '* The rites to the utmost fulfil of the gods everlasting, 
 Be holy and pure : thou shalt burn richest thighs as thine offering, 
 And oft with libations and incense propitiate Heaven, 
 When darkness prompts thee to sleep, as when sun-dawn awakes thee." 
 Before paying homage to other gods, an appeal was made to 
 Hestia, whose holy place was the family hearth, and often also 
 to Zeus Ephestios, the protector of the home. Both of these 
 divinities were connected with public as well as with private 
 worship; while a third, Zeus Ktesios (the provider), was wor- 
 shipped almost exclusively in private. The opinion given 
 a little later by Cephalus as to the true value of riches has a 
 peculiar appropriateness, if we imagine him as about to com- 
 plete a thank-offering to Zeus Ktesios for the good gifts with 
 which his family was so bountifully supplied. 
 
 Note 50, p. 68. 
 
 A Homeric phrase frequently met with in the poets. See 
 Iliad^ xxii. 60 ; Odyssey, xv. 348 ; Hesiod, Works and Days, 
 
 329- 
 
 Note 51, p. 68. 
 
 " Equals delight in equals " is Towett's translation of the 
 proverb here alluded to, which is quoted in the Phcedrus, 240 C. 
 It is meant, however, to apply only to equals in age. 
 
 Note 52, p. 70. 
 
 The island of Seriphos was one of the smallest and least 
 important of the Cyclades. 
 
142 NOTES ON THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 Note 53, p. 70. 
 Cicero's treatise on old age (ii. and iii.) contains an almost 
 literal translation of this passage. The question about the 
 road which all must travel is asked by Laelius and is followed 
 by Cato Major's answer, — an exact reproduction of that of 
 Cephalus, with the single exception that the anecdote about 
 Sophocles is reserved for later use (xiv). Laelius then asks the 
 question about money, which receives the same answer as 
 that given by Cephalus, neither anecdote nor comment being 
 omitted. 
 
 Note 54, p. 72. 
 
 Fragments of Pindar^ 198 [233]. Bergk's edition. 
 
 Note 55, p. 74. 
 On being criticised by his friend Atticus for having in the 
 second and third books of the dialogue, called De Oratore, 
 suppressed Scaevola, one of the prominent characters in the 
 first book, Cicero writes : "I did exactly what Plato, our inspired 
 master, has done in his Republic. For when Socrates first 
 arrives at the house of Cephalus, his aged and cheerful host 
 takes part in the discussion until the first topic of discourse is 
 exhausted : then, as soon as he has comfortably said his own 
 say, he declares that he must go to attend to the sacrifices ; 
 nor does he again appear. I believe that Plato thought it 
 hardly proper to involve a man of his yeais in so protracted a 
 discussion." — Ad Alt. iv. xvi. a. 3. 
 
 Note 56, p. 75. 
 
 Justice is here taken, not in its narrow meaning of simple 
 equity, but in its broad scriptural sense of righteousness. 
 
 That justice — which embraces the whole duty of man — 
 is essentially an art, is maintained by Aristotle, who asserts that, 
 even more than other arts, it requires the most practiced skill 
 to be brought to perfection. Thus he says {Nic. Ethics, I. 
 p. iioi, 1-5 a.),— 
 
NOTES ON THE REPUBLIC, I43 
 
 " We believe that the truly good and sensible man bears all 
 fortunes with dignity, and always makes the best of whatever 
 falls to his lot; just as a good general uses the army ready to 
 his hand so as best to fulfil the purposes of war, and as the 
 shoemaker makes the best shoe out of the leather that has 
 been given him." 
 
 Note 57, p. 76. 
 
 This quotation is from the passage descriptive of the visit 
 paid by Odysseus to 
 
 " Aiitolycus, sire of his mother, who greatly exceeded 
 All men both in falsehood and thieving, — a god gave the gift. 
 Even Hermes himself ; of lambs and of kids, grateful offerings, 
 The thigh-bones he burned ; and the god, not displeased, sent his help." 
 
 — Odyssey^ xix. 395-398. 
 
 Note ^'^^ p. ']Z. 
 
 The tradition was, that, on meeting a wolf, the man must be 
 the first to catch the beast's eye, otherwise he would be struck 
 dumb. 
 
 Note 59, p. 79. 
 
 " Verbal irony may be described as a figure which enables the 
 speaker to convey his meaning with greater force, by means of 
 a contrast between his thought and his expression, or, to speak 
 more accurately, between the thought which he evidently designs 
 to express, and that which his words properly signify. . . . 
 There is, however, an irony which deserves to be distinguished 
 from the ordinary species by a different name, and which may 
 be properly called dialectic irony. . . . The writer effects his 
 purpose by placing the opinion of his adversary in the fore- 
 ground, and saluting it with every demonstration of respect, 
 while he is busied in withdrawing, one by one, all the supports 
 on which it rests ; and he never ceases to approach it with an 
 air of deference, until he has completely undermined it, when 
 he leaves it to sink by the weight of its own absurdity." — 
 Thirlwall's Irony of Sophocles. Philological Museum, Cam 
 bridge, 1833. 
 
144 NOTES ON THE REPUBLIC, 
 
 Note 6o, p. 86. 
 Tliis proverb was used to ridicule those who undertook what 
 was beyond their strength. 
 
 Note 6i, p. 93. 
 In emphasising this reason as an inducement to enter public 
 life, Socrates appeals to a lower motive than he usually seeks 
 to arouse in his hearers. Thus, in a conversation with Aristip- 
 pus in which he sets forth the duty of assuming offices of 
 responsibility, Socrates, in speaking of those "who labour that 
 they may gain strength both of body and of mind, and that 
 they may govern their own household well, and perform kind- 
 nesses for their friends and services, for their country," asks 
 how it can be imagined, that, " with such objects in view, these 
 men will not labour with all gladness and lead a life of true 
 delight, well content with themselves, and receiving -the praise 
 and admiration of other men ? " — Xen. Mem. II. i. 19. 
 
 Note 62, p. 107. 
 "There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and 
 there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wicked- 
 ness." — Eccles. vii. 15. 
 
 Note 63, p. 108. 
 The allusion is to the character of Amphiaraus as described 
 by Aeschylus in the Seven against Thebes, from which these 
 lines are quoted : — 
 
 *' On his rounded shield no blazon could men find, 
 Best to be, not seem, he makes his life's pursuit, 
 Garnering from the deep-spread plough-lands of his mind, 
 Harvests rich in wholesome wisdom's ripened fruit. 
 Send, I charge, against him, rowers bold and skilled, 
 Feared of men is he whom fear of God hath filled." 
 
 — v.v. 587-592 
 
 "In some of the IVISS., the word 'just' stands in place 
 
 of 'best' [in line 588], and the story runs that when the 
 
NOTES ON THE REPUBLIC, 145 
 
 play was first represented, the actor who was speaking the part 
 and the whole audience looked towards Aristides ' the just,' to 
 whom alone they felt that the description was applicable." — 
 Plutarch, Aristides^ ch.j. 
 
 Note 64, p. 112. 
 " The labour of the righteous tendeth to life : the fruit of the 
 wicked to sin." — Prov. x. 16. 
 
 Note d^, p. 114. 
 This name was first given to a mournful song with flute 
 accompaniment, which seems originally to have been brought 
 from Asia Minor, but it was finally applied to a particular 
 kind of metre whenever used, quite irrespective of the subject. 
 Always, however, it is the expression of the poet's own per- 
 sonal feelings in contradistinction to the impersonal character 
 which belongs to epic poetry. 
 
 Note (d6^ p. 1 14. 
 As we do not know what date to assign to this dialogue, it 
 is uncertain which of the many battles fought at Megara is 
 here meant. 
 
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 a debt of gratitude for such a work, both to translator and publisher." 
 
 From the New York Times. 
 
 "We have carefully compared the present translations with Jowett's, Whewell's 
 Victor Cousin's and others, and they seem to us to convey more of the original tone of 
 the Greek, and at the same time to be more in harmony with modern style than any of 
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 ♦#* For Sale by all booksellers., or sent., j>ost-J>aid., upon receipt of price, by 
 
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A New Edition, Library Style, 
 
 S|p %%\w^ of (Jrppm 
 
 By Prof. Br. EENST OUETroS. 
 
 Translated by Adolphus William Ward, M. A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, Cam- 
 bridge, Prof, of History in Owen's College, Manchester. 
 
 UNIFORM WITH MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME. 
 Five volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. Price per set, $10.00. 
 
 Curtius's History of Greece is similar in plan and purpose to Mommsen's 
 History of Rome y with which it deserves to rank in every respect as one of 
 the great masterpieces of historical literature. Avoiding the minute de- 
 tails which overburden other similar works, it groups together in a very 
 picturesque manner all the important events in the history of this king- 
 dom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the world's 
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 mated, and the generalizations, although bold, are philosophical and 
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 on the side of justice, humanity, and progress" — London AthencEum. 
 
 *' We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius's book better than by saying that it may 
 be fitly ranked witli Theodor Mommsen's great work." — London Spectator . 
 
 "As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to 
 the present for vivacity and picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of 
 statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which enrich the literature of the 
 age." — N. Y. Daily Tribune. 
 
 " The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit o£ 
 the nineteenth century, that it becomes in his hands one of the worthiest and most instruct- 
 ive branches of study for all who desire something more than a knowledge of isolated facts 
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A New Edition, Library Style, 
 
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 knowledge of these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a 
 Vigorous, spirited, and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical pow- 
 ers, which give this history a degree of interest and a permanent value 
 possessed by no other record of the decline and fall of the Roman Com- 
 monwealth. "Dr. Mommsen's work," as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the 
 introduction, " though the production of a man of most profound and ex- 
 tensive learning and knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for 
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 an interest in the history of by-gone ages, and are inclined there to seek 
 information that may guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of 
 modern history." 
 
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 of genius and skill ; its descriptions of men are admirably vivid. We wish to place on 
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The Religions of fke Ancient World 
 
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 THE ORIGIN OF NATIONS 
 
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THEBEGINNINGSOFHISTORY 
 
 According to the Bible and the Traditions of the Oriental Peoples. From 
 the Creation of Man to the Deluge, By Francois Lenormant, 
 Professor of Archoeology at the National Library of France, etc. 
 (Translated from the Second French Edition). With an introduction 
 by Francis Brown, Associate Professor in Biblical Philology, 
 Union Theological Seminary. 
 
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 •* What should we see in the first chapters of Genesis ? " writes M. Lenor- 
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 rative of the Bible with those which were current among th^ civilized pea- 
 pies of most ancient origin by which Israel was surrounded; and from th« 
 midst of which it came." 
 
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 had an immense influence upon contemporary thought ; and has approached 
 its task with an unusual mingling of the reverent and the scientific spirit. 
 
 " That the ' Oriental Peoples ' had legends on the Creation, the Fall of Man, the 
 Deluge, and other primitive events, there is no denying. Nor is there any need of 
 denying it, as this admirable volume shows. Mr. Lenormant is not only a believer 
 in revelation, but a devout confessor of what came by Moses ; as well as of what came 
 by Christ. In this explanation of Chaldean, Babylonian, Assyrian and Phenician 
 tradition, he discloses a prodigality of thought -and skill allied to great variety of pur- 
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 turned against the credibility of the Mosaic records. 
 
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 soundest conclusions, we can assure our readers of a diminishing fear of learned un- 
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 " With reference to the book as a whole it may be said : (i). That nowhere else can 
 one obtain the mass of information upon this subject in so convenient a form; (2). That 
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 acceptance, contain much that is interesting and to say the least, plausible ; (4). That 
 the author while he seems in a number of cases to be injudicious in his state* 
 ments and conclusions, has done work in investigation and in working out details that 
 will be of service to all, whether general readers or specialists." — The Hebreiu 
 Student. 
 
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 in particular by ministers of the Gospel, whose office requires them to interpret the 
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A MONUMENT OF MODERN SCHOLARSHIP. 
 
 THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO. 
 
 Translated into English, with Analysis and Introductions, 
 
 By B. JOWETT, M.A., 
 
 MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK. 
 
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 is known as one of the most hard-working students of the English universities, 
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 ment, and his rare and absolute fidelity to the interests of truth." 
 
 PLATO'S BEST THOUGHTS. 
 
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