d, being regarded by you as
inferiors, will do battle for you against the enemy; this is the kind
of superiority which you must establish over them, if you mean to
accomplish any noble action really worthy of yourself and of the state.

ALCIBIADES: That would certainly be my aim.

SOCRATES: Verily, then, you have good reason to be satisfied, if you are
better than the soldiers; and you need not, when you are their superior
and have your thoughts and actions fixed upon them, look away to the
generals of the enemy.

ALCIBIADES: Of whom are you speaking, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Why, you surely know that our city goes to war now and then
with the Lacedaemonians and with the great king?

ALCIBIADES: True enough.

SOCRATES: And if you meant to be the ruler of this city, would you not
be right in considering that the Lacedaemonian and Persian king were
your true rivals?

ALCIBIADES: I believe that you are right.

SOCRATES: Oh no, my friend, I am quite wrong, and I think that you ought
rather to turn your attention to Midias the quail-breeder and others
like him, who manage our politics; in whom, as the women would remark,
you may still see the slaves' cut of hair, cropping out in their minds
as well as on their pates; and they come with their barbarous lingo to
flatter us and not to rule us. To these, I say, you should look, and
then you need not trouble yourself about your own fitness to contend in
such a noble arena: there is no reason why you should either learn what
has to be learned, or practise what has to be practised, and only when
thoroughly prepared enter on a political career.

ALCIBIADES: There, I think, Socrates, that you are right; I do not
suppose, however, that the Spartan generals or the great king are really
different from anybody else.

SOCRATES: But, my dear friend, do consider what you are saying.

ALCIBIADES: What am I to consider?

SOCRATES: In the first place, will you be more likely to take care of
yourself, if you are in a wholesome fear and dread of them, or if you
are not?

ALCIBIADES: Clearly, if I have such a fear of them.

SOCRATES: And do you think that you will sustain any injury if you take
care of yourself?

ALCIBIADES: No, I shall be greatly benefited.

SOCRATES: And this is one very important respect in which that notion of
yours is bad.

ALCIBIADES: True.

SOCRATES: In the next place, consider that what you say is probably
false.

ALCIBIADES: How so?

SOCRATES: Let