Part 10

At this point, Socrates took up the conversation: It now devolves on us to prove in turn that what we each have undertaken to defend is really valuable.

Then Callias: Be pleased to listen to me first: My case is this, that while the rest of you go on debating what justice and uprightness are, (1) I spend my time in making men more just and upright.

(1) {to to dikaion}; cf. "Mem." IV. iv.

Soc. And how do you do that, good sir?

Call. By giving money, to be sure.

Antisthenes sprang to his feet at once, and with the manner of a cross-examiner demanded: Do human beings seem to you to harbour justice in their souls, or in their purses, (2) Callias?

(2) Or, "pockets."

Call. In their souls.

Ant. And do you pretend to make their souls more righteous by putting money in their pockets?

Call. Undoubtedly.

Ant. Pray how?

Call. In this way. When they know that they are furnished with the means, that is to say, my money, to buy necessaries, they would rather not incur the risk of evil-doing, and why should they?

Ant. And pray, do they repay you these same moneys?

Call. I cannot say they do.

Ant. Well then, do they requite your gifts of gold with gratitude?

Call. No, not so much as a bare "Thank you." In fact, some of them are even worse disposed towards me when they have got my money than before.

Now, here's a marvel! (exclaimed Antisthenes, and as he spoke he eyed the witness with an air of triumph). You can render people just to all the world, but towards yourself you cannot?

Pray, where's the wonder? (asked the other). Do you not see what scores of carpenters and house-builders there are who spend their time in building houses for half the world; but for themselves they simply cannot do it, and are forced to live in lodgings. And so admit that home-thrust, Master Sophist; (3) and confess yourself confuted.

(3) "Professor of wisdom."

Upon my soul, he had best accept his fate (4) (said Socrates). Why, after all, you are only like those prophets who proverbially foretell the future for mankind, but cannot foresee what is coming upon themselves.

(4) Or, "the coup de grace."

And so the first discussion ended. (5)

(5) Or, "so ended fytte the first of the word-controversy."

Thereupon Niceratus: Lend me your ears, and I will tell you in what respects you shall be better for consorting with myself. I presume, without my telling you, you know that Homer, being the wisest of mankind, has touched upon nearly every human topic in his poems. (6) Whosoever among you, therefore, would fain be skilled in economy, or oratory, or strategy; whose ambition it is to be like Achilles, or Ajax, Nestor, or Odysseus--one and all pay court to me, for I have all this knowledge at my fingers' ends.

(6) Or, "his creations are all but coextensive with every mortal thing."

Pray (interposed Antisthenes), (7) do you also know the way to be a king? (8) since Homer praises Agamemnon, you are well aware, as being

A goodly king and eke a spearman bold. (9)

(7) Some modern critics (e.g. F. Dummler, "Antisthenica," p. 29 foll.) maintain plausibly that the author is here glancing (as also Plato in the "Ion") at Antisthenes' own treatises against the Rhapsodists and on a more correct interpretation of Homer, {peri exegeton} and {peri 'Omerou}.