18.1 Luck and Skill
<p>Throughout the ups and downs of Athenian empire and throughout the ups and downs of Alcibiades’ career, <strong>Socrates</strong> kept on doing what he had been doing before the expedition to Sicily. From about 410 on, <strong>Plato</strong> and <strong>Xenophon</strong> were among the company of young men who followed Socrates about, and who best memorialized his work. Plato’s dialogue <em>Euthydemus</em> is set around 407, and shows us Socrates’ interest in the education of the young.</p>
<p>Socrates recounts to his rich friend Crito an encounter the previous day in the Lyceum, the gymnasium on the east side of Athens. While he was visiting with <strong>Clinias</strong>, a young cousin of Alcibiades, two sophists from Chios, <strong>Euthydemus</strong> and his brother <strong>Dionysodorus</strong>, with a retinue of followers, approached. They have a reputation for teaching fighting in armor — the martial art discussed in the <em>Laches</em> — and also for teaching oratory. But the skill they offered to display to Socrates and Clinias was “<strong>eristic</strong>,” the art of refuting an opponent by questioning. This “art” looks at first glance similar to Socrates’ art of <strong>elenchus</strong> or cross-examination.</p>
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