The Erotic Essay (46-50)

But not to spend our time rehearsing ancient examples while others are available closer to our own times,[*] you will discover that Timotheus was deemed worthy of the highest repute and numerous honors, not because of his activities as a younger man, but because of his performances after he had studied with Isocrates.[*] You will discover also that Archytas of Tarentum became ruler of his city and managed its affairs so admirably and so considerately as to spread the record of that achievement to all mankind; yet at first he was despised and he owed his remarkable progress to studying with Plato.[*]

Of these examples not one worked out contrary to reason[*]; for it would be much stranger if we were obliged to achieve paltry ends through acquiring knowledge and putting it into practice, but were capable of accomplishing the big things without this effort.

Now I do not know what call there is to say more on these topics, for not even at the outset did I introduce them because I assumed you were absolutely ignorant, but because I thought that such exhortations both arouse those who lack knowledge and spur on those who possess it;.[*]

And do not make any such assumption as this, that in speaking these words I am presumably offering to teach you any of these branches myself, for I should feel no shame in saying that there is still much I need myself to learn, and that I have chosen rather to be a contender in political life than a teacher of the other arts.[*] Not that in disavowing these subjects of instruction I am impugning the reputation of those who have chosen the profession of sophist, but my reason is that the truth of the matter happens to be as follows:

for I am aware, of course, that many men have risen to eminence from humble and obscure estate through the practice of this art, and that Solon, both living and dead, was deemed worthy of the highest renown. He was not disqualified for the other honors[*] but left behind him a memorial of his courage in the trophy of victory over the Megarians, of his astuteness in the recovery of Salamis,

and of general sagacity in the laws which the majority of the Greeks continue using to this day. Yet in spite of these great claims to distinction he set his heart upon nothing as much as becoming one of the Seven Sages,[*] believing that philosophy was no reproach but that it brought honor to those who pursued it, having been no less wise in this very judgement than in the others in which he showed himself superior.