nd, if I am not
mistaken, is also of a fair and gentle nature. I thought that I heard
him called Agathon, and my suspicion is that he is the beloved
of Pausanias. There was this youth, and also there were the two
Adeimantuses, one the son of Cepis, and the other of Leucolophides, and
some others. I was very anxious to hear what Prodicus was saying, for
he seems to me to be an all-wise and inspired man; but I was not able to
get into the inner circle, and his fine deep voice made an echo in the
room which rendered his words inaudible.

No sooner had we entered than there followed us Alcibiades the
beautiful, as you say, and I believe you; and also Critias the son of
Callaeschrus.

On entering we stopped a little, in order to look about us, and then
walked up to Protagoras, and I said: Protagoras, my friend Hippocrates
and I have come to see you.

Do you wish, he said, to speak with me alone, or in the presence of the
company?

Whichever you please, I said; you shall determine when you have heard
the purpose of our visit.

And what is your purpose? he said.

I must explain, I said, that my friend Hippocrates is a native Athenian;
he is the son of Apollodorus, and of a great and prosperous house, and
he is himself in natural ability quite a match for anybody of his own
age. I believe that he aspires to political eminence; and this he thinks
that conversation with you is most likely to procure for him. And
now you can determine whether you would wish to speak to him of your
teaching alone or in the presence of the company.

Thank you, Socrates, for your consideration of me. For certainly a
stranger finding his way into great cities, and persuading the flower
of the youth in them to leave company of their kinsmen or any other
acquaintances, old or young, and live with him, under the idea that they
will be improved by his conversation, ought to be very cautious; great
jealousies are aroused by his proceedings, and he is the subject of many
enmities and conspiracies. Now the art of the Sophist is, as I believe,
of great antiquity; but in ancient times those who practised it, fearing
this odium, veiled and disguised themselves under various names,
some under that of poets, as Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides, some,
of hierophants and prophets, as Orpheus and Musaeus, and some, as
I observe, even under the name of gymnastic-masters, like Iccus of
Tarentum, or the more recently celebrated Herodicus, now of Selymbria
and for