Protagoras was a sophist with knowledge on an extraordinary number of subjects, and one of the most eloquent among the first inventors of the art of rhetoric. He was a fellow citizen and contemporary of the physicist Democritus, and it was from Democritus he derived his learning. The story runs that Protagoras made a rash bargain with his pupil Euathlus, contracting for an exceptionally high fee on the following conditions. The money was to be paid if Euathlus was successful in the first suit he pleaded in court. The young man therefore first learned all the methods employed to win the votes of the jurors, all the tricks of opposing counsel, and all the artifices of oratory. This he did with ease, for he was a very clever fellow with a natural aptitude for strategy. When he had satisfied himself that he had learned all he desired to know, he began to show reluctance to perform his part of the contract. At first he baffled his teacher's requests for payment by interposing various ingenious delays, and for a considerable time refused either to plead in court or to pay the stipulated fee. At last Protagoras called him into court, set forth the conditions under which he had accepted him as a pupil, and propounded the following dilemma. 'If I win,' he said, 'you must pay the fee, for you will be condemned to do so. If you win, you will still have to pay under the terms of your contract. For you will have won the first suit you have ever pleaded. So if you win, you lose under the terms of the contract: if you are defeated, you lose by the sentence of the court.' What more would you have? The jury thought the argument a marvel of shrewdness and quite irrefutable. But Euathlus showed himself a very perfect pupil of so cunning a master, and turned back the dilemma on its inventor. 'In that case,' he replied, 'I owe your fee under neither count. For either I win and am acquitted by the court, or lose and am released from the bargain, which states that I do not owe you the fee if I am defeated in my first case in court. And this is my first case! So in any case I come off scot free; if I lose, I am saved by the contract; if I win, by the verdict of the jury.' What think you? Does not the opposition of these sophistic arguments remind you of brambles, that the wind has entangled one with another? They cling together; thorns of like length on either side, each penetrating to an equal depth, each dealing wound for wound. So we will leave Protagoras' reward to shrewd and greedy folk. It involves too many thorny difficulties. Far better is that other reward, which they say was suggested by[61] Thales. [Footnote 61: _Thalem ... suasisse_ (MSS.).]