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Socrates
Soc. Well then, do you now find that the many agree with themselves or each other about just and unjust men or things?
Alcibiades
Alc. Far from it, on my word, Socrates.
Socrates
Soc. In fact, they differ most especially on these points?
Alcibiades
Alc. Very much so.
Socrates
Soc. And I suppose you never yet saw or heard of people differing so sharply on questions of health or the opposite as to fight and kill one another in battle because of them.
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Alcibiades
Alc. No, indeed.
Socrates
Soc. But on questions of justice or injustice I am sure you have; and if you have not seen them, at any rate you have heard of them from many people, especially Homer. For you have heard i.e., at the recitations of rhapsodes; cf. the Ion of Plato. the Odyssey and the Iliad?
Alcibiades
Alc. I certainly have, I suppose, Socrates.
Socrates
Soc. And these poems are about a difference of just and unjust
Socrates
Soc. And from this difference arose the fights and deaths of the Achaeans, and of the Trojans as well, and of the suitors of Penelope in their strife with Odysseus.
Alcibiades
Alc. That is true.
Socrates
Soc. And I imagine that when the Athenians and Spartans and Boeotians lost their men at Tanagra, 457 B.C. and later at Coronea, 447 B.C. among whom your own father perished, the difference that caused their deaths and fights was solely on a question of just and unjust, was it not?
Alcibiades
Alc. That is true.
Socrates
Soc. Then are we to say that these people understand those questions, on which they differ so sharply that they are led by their mutual disputes to take these extreme measures against each other?
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