him the purpose for which they have sought him; and the great man makes a gracious answer. "Yes—Hippocrates has done right to come to him, for he is not as other Sophists. He will not treat him like a schoolboy, and weary him with astronomy and music. No; he will teach him nobler and more useful lessons than these: prudence, that he may order his own house well; and political wisdom, that he may prove himself a good citizen and a wise statesman."
"But," asks Socrates, half incredulously, "can such wisdom and virtue as this be really taught at all? If it were so, would not our statesmen have taught their own children the art by which they became great themselves, and the mantle of Pericles have descended in a measure upon his sons?"
To this Protagoras replies by a parable. Man was overlooked in the original distribution of gifts by Epimetheus among mortal creatures, and was left the only bare and defenceless animal in creation; and though Prometheus strove to remedy his brother's oversight as far as he could, by giving him fire and other means of life, still there was no principle of government, and man kept slaying and plundering his brother man; till at last Jove took pity on him, and sent Hermes to distribute justice and friendship, not to a favoured few, but to all alike. "For," said Jove, "cities cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues, as in the arts; and further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death as a plague to the state." The very fact that evil-doers are punished, not in retaliation for
