occasion for one president to be appointed, but you will all be presidents in common.” 72. It appeared to all that this was what ought to be done. And though Protagoras was not very willing to comply, yet he was compelled to consent to ask questions, and when he had asked enough in his turn to reply to my questions with brevity. He began therefore pretty nearly as follows: “I think,” said he, “Socrates, that the most important part of a man’s education consists in being skilled in poetical composition; that is, to be able to understand what has been said by the poets, both what has been correctly composed and what incorrectly, and to know how to distinguish and to give a reason when asked about them. And now the question shall be on the very subject about which you and I have been conversing, virtue, but it shall be transferred to poetry. For Simonides somewhere says to Scopas, son of Creon the Thessalian, ‘That to become a good man is truly difficult, square as to his hands and feet and mind, fashioned without fault.’ Do you know the ode, or shall I repeat the whole to you?” 73. I said, “There is no necessity, for I know it, and have studied the ode with great attention.” “You say well,” he then observed, “Whether, does it appear to you to have been composed beautifully and correctly or not?” “Certainly,” said I, “both beautifully and correctly.” “But does it appear to you to have been composed beautifully if the poet contradicts himself?” “Not beautifully,” I replied. “Consider it, then, more attentively,” said he. “But my good friend, I have examined it sufficiently.” “You know, then,” said he, “that in the course of the ode he says somewhere, ‘That saying of Pittacus does not please me, though uttered by a wise man, wherein he says, it is difficult to continue to be good.’ Do you observe, that the same person makes both this and the former remark?” “I know it,” I replied. “Does it appear to you then,” said he, “that the one agrees with the other?” “It appears so to me.” And at the same time I was afraid lest there should be something in what he said. “But,” said I, “does not it appear so to you?” “How can he who made both these assertions agree with himself, who first of all laid it down in his own person, that it is truly difficult to become a good man, and a little further on this person forgets himself and blames Pittacus for saying the same thing that he had said himself, ‘that it is difficult to be good,’ and asserts that he cannot approve of his saying the very same thing as himself. Surely in blaming a man who says the same things as himself, it is clear that he blames himself, so that in the former or the latter place he does not speak correctly.”