Note 49 — Chapter XXXVII · REPUBLIC — REMARKS ON THE PLATONIC COMMONWEALTH.
Reading edition
It was to gain this facility that Kritias and Alkibiades, as Xenophon tells us, frequented the society of Sokrates, who (as Xenophon also tells us) “handled persons conversing with him just as he pleased” (Memor. i. 2, 14-18.)
A speaker in one of the Orations of Lysias (Orat. viii. Κακολογιῶν, s. 12) considers this power of arguing a disputed case as one of the manifestations τοῦ φιλοσοφεῖν — Καὶ ἐγὼ μὲν ᾤμην φιλοσοφοῦντας αὐτοὺς περὶ τοῦ πράγματος ἀντιλέγειν τὸν ἐναντίον λόγον· οἱ δ’ ἄρα οὐκ ἀντέλεγον ἀλλ’ ἀντέπραττον.
Compare the curious oration of Demosthenes against Lakritus, where the speaker imputes to Lakritus this abuse of argumentative power, as having been purchased by him at a large price from the teaching of Isokrates the Sophist, pp. 928-937-938.