Note 88 — Chapter XXIX · SOPHISTES — POLITIKUS.

Xen. Memor. i. 2, 14, τοῖς δὲ διαλεγομένοις αὐτῷ πᾶσι χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ὅπως βούλοιτο.

Compare, to the same purpose, i. 4, 1, where we are told that Sokrates employed his colloquial Elenchus as a means of chastising (κολαστηρίου ἕνεκα) those who thought that they knew every thing: and the conversation of Sokrates with the youthful Euthydêmus, especially what is said by Xenophon at the close of it (iv. 4, 39-40).

The power of Sokrates to vanquish in dialogue the persons called Sophists, and to make them contradict themselves in answering — is clearly brought out, and doubtless intentionally brought out, in some of Plato’s most consummate dialogues. Alkibiades says, in the Platonic Protagoras (p. 336), “Sokrates confesses himself no match for Protagoras in long speaking. If Protagoras on his side confesses himself inferior to Sokrates in dialogue, Sokrates is satisfied.”