ias is a sculptor, and that Homer is a poet; but what appellation
is given to Protagoras? how is he designated?

They call him a Sophist, Socrates, he replied.

Then we are going to pay our money to him in the character of a Sophist?

Certainly.

But suppose a person were to ask this further question: And how about
yourself? What will Protagoras make of you, if you go to see him?

He answered, with a blush upon his face (for the day was just beginning
to dawn, so that I could see him): Unless this differs in some way from
the former instances, I suppose that he will make a Sophist of me.

By the gods, I said, and are you not ashamed at having to appear before
the Hellenes in the character of a Sophist?

Indeed, Socrates, to confess the truth, I am.

But you should not assume, Hippocrates, that the instruction of
Protagoras is of this nature: may you not learn of him in the same way
that you learned the arts of the grammarian, or musician, or trainer,
not with the view of making any of them a profession, but only as a part
of education, and because a private gentleman and freeman ought to know
them?

Just so, he said; and that, in my opinion, is a far truer account of the
teaching of Protagoras.

I said: I wonder whether you know what you are doing?

And what am I doing?

You are going to commit your soul to the care of a man whom you call a
Sophist. And yet I hardly think that you know what a Sophist is; and if
not, then you do not even know to whom you are committing your soul and
whether the thing to which you commit yourself be good or evil.

I certainly think that I do know, he replied.

Then tell me, what do you imagine that he is?

I take him to be one who knows wise things, he replied, as his name
implies.

And might you not, I said, affirm this of the painter and of the
carpenter also: Do not they, too, know wise things? But suppose a person
were to ask us: In what are the painters wise? We should answer: In what
relates to the making of likenesses, and similarly of other things. And
if he were further to ask: What is the wisdom of the Sophist, and what
is the manufacture over which he presides?--how should we answer him?

How should we answer him, Socrates? What other answer could there be but
that he presides over the art which makes men eloquent?

Yes, I replied, that is very likely true, but not enough; for in the
answer a further question is involved: Of what does the Sophist make a
ma