The Euthydemus

Crito: With whom, Socrates, did you yesterday converse in the Lyceum? For you were surrounded with so great a crowd, that though I approached, desirous to hear, yet I could not hear any thing clearly. I raised myself indeed on my feet that I might see more distinctly, and it appeared to me that it was a certain stranger with whom you were conversing. Who was this stranger?

Socrates: You must ask, Crito, which of them it was; for not one only, but two were present.

Crito: He, of whom I speak, sat the third from your right hand; but in the middle of you was a lad, the son of Axiochus, who appeared to me, Socrates, to have made a great proficiency in learning, and who does not much differ in age from our Critobulus; though he indeed is very slender, but this lad looks older than he is, and is of a fair and engaging aspect.

Socrates: It is Euthydemus, Socrates, of whom you inquire; but he who sat with me, on my left hand, was his brother Dionysodorus, who also partook of the discourse.

Crito: I know neither of them, Socrates.

Socrates: They are recent sophists, as it appears.

Crito: Whence do they come; and what is the wisdom which they profess?

Socrates: They are, I think, natives of Chius, but they migrated to the Thurians, and flying from thence, dwelt for many years about these places. But in answer to your inquiry respecting their wisdom, they are indeed very wise, Crito; but I have been hitherto ignorant that they were pancratiasts: for they are skilled in every kind of contest, not after the manner of those brother panacratiasts of Acarnania; since they are only able to contend with the body; but these, in the first place, are most powerful in body, and excel in that contest which consists in vanquishing all men. For they are very skilful in contending with arms, and they know how to impart this skill to another who gives them a reward for it. In the next place, they are most powerful in judicial contests, and are able both to contend themselves, and instruct others, to deliver and compose forensic orations. At first, therefore, they were only skilled in these things, but now they have carried the pancratiastic art to its utmost perfection: for they are now so skilled in that kind of contest, which it remained for them to acquire, that no one is able to resist them; so skilful are they become in verbal contention, and in always confuting whatever is said, whether it be true or false. I therefore, Crito, intend to deliver myself to these men: for they say that, in a short time, they can render another person skilled in the same things.