ed not be
alarmed; for we are not Sophists, and we are not come to see Callias,
but we want to see Protagoras; and I must request you to announce us. At
last, after a good deal of difficulty, the man was persuaded to open the
door.

When we entered, we found Protagoras taking a walk in the cloister; and
next to him, on one side, were walking Callias, the son of Hipponicus,
and Paralus, the son of Pericles, who, by the mother's side, is his
half-brother, and Charmides, the son of Glaucon. On the other side of
him were Xanthippus, the other son of Pericles, Philippides, the son
of Philomelus; also Antimoerus of Mende, who of all the disciples
of Protagoras is the most famous, and intends to make sophistry his
profession. A train of listeners followed him; the greater part of them
appeared to be foreigners, whom Protagoras had brought with him out of
the various cities visited by him in his journeys, he, like Orpheus,
attracting them his voice, and they following (Compare Rep.). I should
mention also that there were some Athenians in the company. Nothing
delighted me more than the precision of their movements: they never
got into his way at all; but when he and those who were with him turned
back, then the band of listeners parted regularly on either side; he was
always in front, and they wheeled round and took their places behind him
in perfect order.

After him, as Homer says (Od.), 'I lifted up my eyes and saw' Hippias
the Elean sitting in the opposite cloister on a chair of state, and
around him were seated on benches Eryximachus, the son of Acumenus, and
Phaedrus the Myrrhinusian, and Andron the son of Androtion, and there
were strangers whom he had brought with him from his native city of
Elis, and some others: they were putting to Hippias certain physical
and astronomical questions, and he, ex cathedra, was determining their
several questions to them, and discoursing of them.

Also, 'my eyes beheld Tantalus (Od.);' for Prodicus the Cean was at
Athens: he had been lodged in a room which, in the days of Hipponicus,
was a storehouse; but, as the house was full, Callias had cleared this
out and made the room into a guest-chamber. Now Prodicus was still in
bed, wrapped up in sheepskins and bedclothes, of which there seemed
to be a great heap; and there was sitting by him on the couches near,
Pausanias of the deme of Cerameis, and with Pausanias was a youth quite
young, who is certainly remarkable for his good looks, a