uld say. First, then, we must inquire what
is knowledge? Secondly, what is a father? Now, knowledge, as Socrates
said the other day to Theaetetus (See Plato's Theaetetus.)--

CALLIDEMUS. Socrates! what! the ragged flat-nosed old dotard, who walks
about all day barefoot, and filches cloaks, and dissects gnats, and
shoes (See Aristophanes; Nubes, 150.) fleas with wax?

SPEUSIPPUS. All fiction! All trumped up by Aristophanes!

CALLIDEMUS. By Pallas, if he is in the habit of putting shoes on his
fleas, he is kinder to them than to himself. But listen to me, boy; if
you go on in this way, you will be ruined. There is an argument for you.
Go to your Socrates and your Melesigenes, and tell them to refute that.
Ruined! Do you hear?

SPEUSIPPUS. Ruined!

CALLIDEMUS. Ay, by Jupiter! Is such a show as you make to be supported
on nothing? During all the last war, I made not an obol from my
farm; the Peloponnesian locusts came almost as regularly as the
Pleiades;--corn burnt;--olives stripped;--fruit trees cut down;--wells
stopped up;--and, just when peace came, and I hoped that all would turn
out well, you must begin to spend as if you had all the mines of Thasus
at command.

SPEUSIPPUS. Now, by Neptune, who delights in horses--

CALLIDEMUS. If Neptune delights in horses, he does not resemble me. You
must ride at the Panathenaea on a horse fit for the great king: four
acres of my best vines went for that folly. You must retrench, or you
will have nothing to eat. Does not Anaxagoras mention, among his other
discoveries, that when a man has nothing to eat he dies?

SPEUSIPPUS. You are deceived. My friends--

CALLIDEMUS. Oh, yes! your friends will notice you, doubtless, when you
are squeezing through the crowd, on a winter's day, to warm yourself
at the fire of the baths;--or when you are fighting with beggars and
beggars' dogs for the scraps of a sacrifice;--or when you are glad
to earn three wretched obols (The stipend of an Athenian juryman.) by
listening all day to lying speeches and crying children.

SPEUSIPPUS. There are other means of support.

CALLIDEMUS. What! I suppose you will wander from house to house,
like that wretched buffoon Philippus (Xenophon; Convivium.), and beg
everybody who has asked a supper-party to be so kind as to feed you
and laugh at you; or you will turn sycophant; you will get a bunch
of grapes, or a pair of shoes, now and then, by frightening some rich
coward with a mock prosecution. Well!