es, and what is honourable to some men is dishonourable to others.
And if we wish to enquire why a house is valuable to us but not to the
Scythians, or why the Carthaginians value leather which is worthless to
us, or the Lacedaemonians find wealth in iron and we do not, can we not
get an answer in some such way as this: Would an Athenian, who had a
thousand talents weight of the stones which lie about in the Agora and
which we do not employ for any purpose, be thought to be any the richer?

ERASISTRATUS: He certainly would not appear so to me.

SOCRATES: But if he possessed a thousand talents weight of some precious
stone, we should say that he was very rich?

ERASISTRATUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: The reason is that the one is useless and the other useful?

ERASISTRATUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And in the same way among the Scythians a house has no value
because they have no use for a house, nor would a Scythian set so much
store on the finest house in the world as on a leather coat, because he
could use the one and not the other. Or again, the Carthaginian coinage
is not wealth in our eyes, for we could not employ it, as we can silver,
to procure what we need, and therefore it is of no use to us.

ERASISTRATUS: True.

SOCRATES: What is useful to us, then, is wealth, and what is useless to
us is not wealth?

But how do you mean, Socrates? said Eryxias, interrupting. Do we not
employ in our intercourse with one another speech and violence (?) and
various other things? These are useful and yet they are not wealth.

SOCRATES: Clearly we have not yet answered the question, What is
wealth? That wealth must be useful, to be wealth at all,--thus much is
acknowledged by every one. But what particular thing is wealth, if not
all things? Let us pursue the argument in another way; and then we may
perhaps find what we are seeking. What is the use of wealth, and for
what purpose has the possession of riches been invented,--in the sense,
I mean, in which drugs have been discovered for the cure of disease?
Perhaps in this way we may throw some light on the question. It appears
to be clear that whatever constitutes wealth must be useful, and that
wealth is one class of useful things; and now we have to enquire, What
is the use of those useful things which constitute wealth? For all
things probably may be said to be useful which we use in production,
just as all things which have life are animals, but there is a special
kind of animal