Afterwards on his way to his own house, so long deserted, he was accosted by a well-known voice that sounded older and much sadder than when he heard it last. ‘Oh son of Kleinias, you have longed for glory, and you have it. Does it seem as sweet as you imagined?’ ‘Indeed, Sokrates, I think it is sweet to gain glory in fighting for one’s country.’ ‘And dost thou think thy country will render glory to thee long?’ ‘Indeed, I hope so, if I continue to deserve it.’ ‘Hast thou lived, then, all the years since I first met thee on the banks of the Ilissos, and yet hast not learnt the evil nature of this beast called Demos?’ ‘I think I ought by this time to know something of its nature, Sokrates.’ ‘Then is it better, think you, to save a people from its enemies, or to save it from itself and teach it wisdom?’ ‘Why, I should say it is better to free it from its enemies first, and teach it wisdom afterwards, as I now hope to do.’ ‘Tell me, then, oh much-wandering, much-enduring man, where in thy travels thou hast learnt this wisdom, that I, too, may go to seek it.’ ‘Alas! Sokrates, in all my wanderings I have found mankind alike in need of it, alike in want of it; and I would come to you, the wisest of the Greeks, to learn it.’ ‘Then tell me, great strategos Autokrator, when all thy possessions were taken from thee by this demos, and thou hadst scarce wherewithal to pay for thy black broth in Lakedaimon, couldst thou bestow much money on thy hosts?’ ‘No, by the gods! And I still sometimes laugh to think how poor I was. How could I give what I had not myself?’ ‘Which, then, is easier to obtain, money or wisdom?’ ‘I should say it is easier to get money, for we often see men who have acquired heaps of money who do not seem able to get much wisdom.’ ‘And yet you hope to teach these people wisdom, which you say you have not got, and which is harder to obtain than riches.’ ‘Ah, Sokrates, it is still just as of old. Somehow when I talk with you I seem to be ignorant of everything; though when I am with others I fancy I am cleverer than most of them.’ ‘And do you not know why?’ ‘Not I, unless it be that the oracle said truly that Sokrates, the son of Sophroniskos, was the wisest of the Greeks.’ ‘And you know not why it said so?’ ‘I have heard you say in the old days, but now I quite forget.’ ‘Well, I will tell thee. Perhaps it meant that I, in truth, was the most foolish of mankind.’ ‘How mean you, Sokrates?’ ‘Because that all my life I have tried to show the people their own ignorance, and they will turn and rend me soon, for all my pains, as they will rend you, ere many months are passed, for fighting for them, oh beauteous son of Kleinias.’