9–10
PLATO
There we have it! “Cavalry into the open,” so that you may give the slip to the jury and get away.As cavalry seeks open country to maneuvre in, so the lawyer seeks the courtroom. Compare Plato, Theaetetus, 183d: ἱππέας εἰς πεδίον προκαλεῖ, Σωκράτη εἰς λόγους προκαλούμενος. At any rate, they say that you are an orator and a lawyer and a wizard at making speeches. And whom do you wish to be judge, what is more? It must be someone whom you cannot influence by a bribe, as your sort often do, to cast an unjust ballot in your favour.
FRANKNESS
Do not be alarmed on that score. I should not care to have any such referee of suspicious or doubtful character, who would sell me his vote. See, for my part I nominate Philosophy herself to the bench, and you yourselves also!
PLATO
And who can conduct the prosecution if we are to be jurors?
FRANKNESS
Be prosecutors and jurors at the same time. Even that arrangement has no terrors for me, since I have so much the better of you in the justice of my case and expect to be so over-stocked with pleas.
PLATO
What shall we do, Pythagoras and Socrates? Really, the man seems to be making a reasonable request in demanding a trial.
