[Side-note: These characteristics may have belonged to other persons, but they belonged in an especial manner to Sokrates himself.] I dare say that there were some acute and subtle disputants in Athens to whom these characteristics belonged, though we do not know them by name. But we know one to whom they certainly belonged: and that was, Sokrates himself. They stand manifest and prominent both in the Platonic and in the Xenophontic dialogues. The attribute which Xenophon directly predicates about him, that "in conversation he dealt with his interlocutors just as he pleased,"[88] is amply exemplified by Plato in the Protagoras, Gorgias, Euthyphron, Lachês, Charmides, Lysias, Alkibiadês I. and II., Hippias I. and II., &c. That he cross-examined and puzzled every one else without knowing the subjects on which he talked, better than they did--is his own declaration in the Apology. That the Athenians regarded him as a clever man mystifying them--talking without sincere persuasion, or in a manner so strange that you could not tell whether he was in jest or in earnest--overthrowing men's established convictions by subtleties which led to no positive truth--is also attested both by what he himself says in the Apology, and by other passages of Plato and Xenophon.[89] [Footnote 88: Xen. Memor. i. 2, 14, [Greek: toi=s de\ dialegome/nois au)tô=| pa=si chrô/menon e)n toi=s lo/gois o(/pôs bou/loito.] Compare, to the same purpose, i. 4, 1, where we are told that Sokrates employed his colloquial Elenchus as a means of chastising ([Greek: kolastêri/ou e(/neka]) those who thought that they knew every thing: and the conversation of Sokrates with the youthful Euthydêmus, especially what is said by Xenophon at the close of it (iv. 4, 39-40). The power of Sokrates to vanquish in dialogue the persons called Sophists, and to make them contradict themselves in answering--is clearly brought out, and doubtless intentionally brought out, in some of Plato's most consummate dialogues. Alkibiades says, in the Platonic Protagoras (p. 336), "Sokrates confesses himself no match for Protagoras in long speaking. If Protagoras on his side confesses himself inferior to Sokrates in dialogue, Sokrates is satisfied."] [Footnote 89: Plato, Apolog. p. 37 E. [Greek: e)a/n te ga\r le/gô, o(/ti tô=| theô=| a)peithei=n tou=t' e)/stin, kai\ dia\ tou=t' a)du/naton ê(suchi/an a)/gein, ou) pei/sesthe/ moi ô(s ei)rôneuome/nô|.] Xen. Memor. iv. 4, 9. [Greek: a)rkei= ga\r] (says Hippias to Sokrates), [Greek: o(/ti tô=n a)/llôn katagela=|s, e)rôtô=n kai\ e)le/gchôn pa/ntas, au)to\s de\ ou)deni\ the/lôn u(pe/chein lo/gon, ou)de\ gnô/mên a)pophai/nesthai peri\ ou)deno/s.] See also Memorab. iii. 5, 24. Compare a striking passage in Plato's Menon, p. 80 A; also Theætêt. p. 149; and Plutarch, Quæst. Platonic. p. 1000.