SOCRATES: Is that a question which a magnanimous soul should ask?

ALCIBIADES: Do you mean to say that the contest is not with these?

SOCRATES: And suppose that you were going to steer a ship into action,
would you only aim at being the best pilot on board? Would you not, while
acknowledging that you must possess this degree of excellence, rather look
to your antagonists, and not, as you are now doing, to your fellow
combatants? You ought to be so far above these latter, that they will not
even dare to be your rivals; and, being regarded by you as inferiors, will
do battle for you against the enemy; this is the kind of superiority which
you must establish over them, if you mean to accomplish any noble action
really worthy of yourself and of the state.

ALCIBIADES: That would certainly be my aim.

SOCRATES: Verily, then, you have good reason to be satisfied, if you are
better than the soldiers; and you need not, when you are their superior and
have your thoughts and actions fixed upon them, look away to the generals
of the enemy.

ALCIBIADES: Of whom are you speaking, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Why, you surely know that our city goes to war now and then with
the Lacedaemonians and with the great king?

ALCIBIADES: True enough.

SOCRATES: And if you meant to be the ruler of this city, would you not be
right in considering that the Lacedaemonian and Persian king were your true
rivals?

ALCIBIADES: I believe that you are right.

SOCRATES: Oh no, my friend, I am quite wrong, and I think that you ought
rather to turn your attention to Midias the quail-breeder and others like
him, who manage our politics; in whom, as the women would remark, you may
still see the slaves' cut of hair, cropping out in their minds as well as
on their pates; and they come with their barbarous lingo to flatter us and
not to rule us. To these, I say, you should look, and then you need not
trouble yourself about your own fitness to contend in such a noble arena:
there is no reason why you should either learn what has to be learned, or
practise what has to be practised, and only when thoroughly prepared enter
on a political career.

ALCIBIADES: There, I think, Socrates, that you are right; I do not
suppose, however, that the Spartan generals or the great king are really
different from anybody else.

SOCRATES: But, my dear friend, do consider what you are saying.

ALCIBIADES: What am I to consider?

SOCRATES: In the first place, will you be more likely to take care of
yourself, if you are in a wholesome fear and dread of them, or if you are
not?

ALCIBIADES: Clearly, if I have such a fear of them.

SOCRATES: And do you think that you will sustain any injury if you take
care of yourself?

ALCIBIADES: No, I shall be greatly benefited.

SOCRATES: And this is one very important respect in which that notion of
yours is bad.

ALCIBIADES: True.

SOCRATES: In the next place, consider that what you say is probably false.

ALCIBIADES: How so?

SOCRATES: Let me ask you whether better natures are likely to be found in
noble races or not in noble races?

ALCIBIADES: Clearly in noble races.

SOCRATES: Are not those who are well born and well bred most likely to be
perfect in virtue?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then let us compare our antecedents with those of the
Lacedaemonian and Persian kings; are they inferior to us in descent? Have
we not heard that the former are sprung from Heracles, and the latter from
Achaemenes, and that the race of Heracles and the race of Achaemenes go
back to Perseus, son of Zeus?

ALCIBIADES: Why, so does mine go back to Eurysaces, and he to Zeus!

SOCRATES: And mine, noble Alcibiades, to Daedalus, and he to Hephaestus,
son of Zeus. But, for all that, we are far inferior to them. For they are
descended 'from Zeus,' through a line of kings--either kings of Argos and
Lacedaemon, or kings of Persia, a country which the descendants of
Achaemenes have always possessed, besides being at various times sovereigns
of Asia, as they now are; whereas, we and our fathers were but private
persons. How ridiculous would you be thought if you were to make a display
of your ancestors and of Salamis the island of Eurysaces, or of Aegina, the
habitation of the still more ancient Aeacus, before Artaxerxes, son of


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