Euthydemus

Soc.

So I sat down again, and after a little while these two persons entered—Euthydemus and Dionysodorus—and accompanying them, quite a number, as it seemed to me, of their pupils: the two men came in and began walking round inside the cloister.[*](The cloister ran round the central open court, and was reached by passing through the undressing-room.) Hardly had they taken two or three turns, when in stepped Cleinias, who you say has come on so much, and you are right: behind him was a whole troop of lovers, and among them Ctesippus, a young fellow from Paeania, of gentle birth and breeding, except for a certain insolence of youth. So when Cleinias as he entered caught sight of me sitting there alone, he came straight across and sat beside me on my right, just as you say. Dionysodorus and Euthydemus, when they saw him, stood at first talking with each other, and casting an occasional glance at us—for my attention was fixed on them—but then one of them, Euthydemus, took a seat by the youth, and the other next to me on my left; the rest, where each happened to find one. So I greeted the two brothers, as not having seen them for some time; after that I said to Cleinias: My dear Cleinias, these two men, you know, are skilled not in little things, but in great. For they understand all about war, that is, as much as is needful for him who is to be a good general; both the tactics and the strategy of armies, and all the teaching of troops under arms; and they can also enable one to get redress in the law courts for a wrong that one may have suffered. When I had said this, I saw they despised me for it, and they both laughed, looking at each other; then Euthydemus said: No, no, Socrates, we do not make those matters our business now; we deal with them as diversions. At this I wondered and said: Your business must be a fine one, if such great matters are indeed diversions to you; so I beseech you, tell me what this fine business is. Virtue, Socrates, he replied, is what we deem ourselves able to purvey in a pre-eminently excellent and speedy manner. Good heavens, I exclaimed, a mighty affair indeed! Where did you have the luck to pick it up? I was still considering you, as I remarked just now, to be chiefly skilled in fighting under arms, and so spoke of you in those terms: for when you visited, our city before, this, I recollect, was the profession you made.