rm. And wherein have you detected in me this power, that you pass so
severe a sentence upon me?

Soc. I have detected it plainly enough in those gatherings (5) in which
you meet the politicians of the day, when, as I observe, each time they
consult you on any point you have always good advice to offer, and when
they make a blunder you lay your finger on the weak point immediately.

(5) See above, I. v. 4; here possibly of political club conversation.

Charm. To discuss and reason in private is one thing, Socrates, to
battle in the throng of the assembly is another.

Soc. And yet a man who can count, counts every bit as well in a crowd as
when seated alone by himself; and it is the best performer on the harp
in private who carries off the palm of victory in public.

Charm. But do you not see that modesty and timidity are feelings
implanted in man's nature? and these are much more powerfully present to
us in a crowd than within the circle of our intimates.

Soc. Yes, but what I am bent on teaching you is that while you feel no
such bashfulness and timidity before the wisest and strongest of men,
you are ashamed of opening your lips in the midst of weaklings and
dullards. (6) Is it the fullers among them of whom you stand in awe, or
the cobblers, or the carpenters, or the coppersmiths, or the merchants,
or the farmers, or the hucksters of the market-place exchanging their
wares, and bethinking them how they are to buy this thing cheap, and to
sell the other dear--is it before these you are ashamed, for these are
the individual atoms out of which the Public Assembly is composed? (7)
And what is the difference, pray, between your behaviour and that of a
man who, being the superior of trained athletes, quails before a set of
amateurs? Is it not the case that you who can argue so readily with the
foremost statesmen in the city, some of whom affect to look down
upon you--you, with your vast superiority over practised popular
debaters--are no sooner confronted with a set of folk who never in their
lives gave politics a thought, and into whose heads certainly it never
entered to look down upon you--than you are afraid to open your lips in
mortal terror of being laughed at?

(6) Cf. Cic. "Tusc." v. 36, 104; Plat. "Gorg." 452 E, 454 B.

(7) Cf. Plat. "Protag." 319 C. See W. L. Newman, op. cit. i. 103.

Well, but you would admit (he answered) that sound argument does
frequently bring down the ridicule of the Popular Assem