[Footnote 170: Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 15-18-24. Respecting the different tone and arguments employed by Sokrates, in his conversations with different persons, see a good passage in the Rhetor Aristeides, Orat. xlvi. [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n tetta/rôn], p. 161, Dindorf.] [Footnote 171: We see from the first two chapters of the Memorabilia of Xenophon (as well as from the subsequent intimation of Æschines, in the oration against Timarchus, p. 173) how much stress was laid by the accusers of Sokrates on the fact that he had educated Kritias and Alkibiades; and how the accusers alleged that his teaching tended to encourage the like exorbitant aspirations in others, dangerous to established authority, traditional, legal, parental, divine. I do not doubt (what Xenophon affirms) that Sokrates, when he conversed with Kritias and Alkibiades, held a very opposite language. But it was otherwise when he talked with men of ease and indulgence without ambition, such as Aristippus. If Melêtus and Anytus could have put in evidence the conversation of Sokrates with Aristippus, many points of it would have strengthened their case against Sokrates before the Dikasts. We read in Xenophon (Mem. i. 2, 58) how the point was made to tell, that Sokrates often cited and commented on the passage of the Iliad (ii. 188) in which the Grecian chiefs, retiring from the agora to their ships, are described as being respectfully addressed by Odysseus--while the common soldiers are scolded and beaten by him, for the very same conduct: the relation which Sokrates here dwells on as subsisting between [Greek: oi( a)rchikoi\] and [Greek: oi( a)rcho/menoi], would favour the like colouring.] [Side-note: Conversations between Sokrates and Aristippus about the Good and Beautiful.] Xenophon notices briefly two other colloquies between Sokrates and Aristippus. The latter asked Sokrates, "Do you know anything good?" in order (says Xenophon) that if Sokrates answered in the affirmative and gave as examples, health, wealth, strength, courage, bread, &c., he (Aristippus) might show circumstances in which this same particular was evil; and might thus catch Sokrates in a contradiction, as Sokrates had caught him before.[172] But Sokrates (says Xenophon) far from seeking to fence with the question, retorted it in such a way as to baffle the questioner, and at the same time to improve and instruct the by-standers.[173] "Do you ask me if I know anything good for a fever?--No. Or for ophthalmic distemper?-No. Or for hunger?--No. Oh! then, if you mean to ask me, whether I know anything good, which is good for nothing--I reply that I neither know any such thing, nor care to know it."