father’s friends who follow the same art are able to teach it, _if, I say, you were to enquire_ for one who could instruct them, I think, Socrates, that a teacher would not easily be found for them, but for those who are utterly unskilled, a teacher would easily be found, and so with respect to virtue and every thing else. 48. But if there is any one who excels us even but a little in advancing others in the road to virtue, we ought to be content. Of these, then, I think I am one, and that far above other men I know certain things by which a man will be made upright and good, and that worth the remuneration which I demand, and even more, as also my pupils think. Therefore I adopt the following method in my demand for remuneration; when any one has learnt from me, if he is willing, he pays the sum that I demand; but if not, having gone to a temple and sworn how much my instructions are worth, he pays that sum. ----- Footnote 96: Two men whose profligacy made their names proverbial. ----- “Thus much, Socrates,” he continued, “I have said by way of fable and argument, to prove that virtue may be taught, and that the Athenians are of that opinion, and that it is not at all wonderful that the sons of good fathers should turn out bad, or of bad fathers, good, since even the sons of Polycletus, who are of the same age with Paralus and Xanthippus here, are nothing compared with their father, and so with respect to the sons of other artists; these youths, however, do not yet deserve to be blamed in this respect; for we have still hopes in them, as they are young.”