Euthydemus

Cri.

Who was it, Socrates, that you were talking with yesterday at the Lyceum? Why, there was such a crowd standing about you that when I came up in the hope of listening I could hear nothing distinctly: still, by craning over I got a glimpse, and it appeared to me that it was a stranger with whom you were talking. Who was he?

Soc.

About which are you asking, Crito? There were two of them, not one.

Cri.

The man whom I mean was sitting next but one to you, on your right: between you was Axiochus’ boy; and he, Socrates, seemed to me to have grown a great deal, so as to look almost the same age as my Critobulus, who is rather puny whereas this boy has come on finely, and has a noble air about him.

Soc.

Euthydemus is the person to whom you refer, Crito, and the one sitting on my left was his brother, Dionysodorus. He too takes part in our discussions.

Cri.

Neither of them is known to me, Socrates. A pair of fresh additions, I suppose, to our sophists. Where do they hail from, and what science do they profess?

Soc.

By birth I believe they belong to these parts, that is to say, Chios; they went out as colonists to Thurii, but have been exiled thence and have spent a good many years now in various parts of this country. As to what you ask of their profession, it is a wonderful one, Crito. These two men are absolutely omniscient: I never knew before what all-round sportsmen[*](The phrase refers especially to a very vigorous sport which combined wrestling and boxing.) were. They are a pair of regular all-round fighters—not in the style of the famous all-round athletes, the two brothers of Acamania; they could fight with their bodies only. But these two, in the first place, are most formidable in body and in fight against all comers