9
Just at first, on my arrival, the Greeks neither welcomed me very warmly nor shut the door in m face outright. But gradually, as I associated wit them, I attached to myself seven companions and pupils from among them all; then another from Samos, another from Ephesus, and one more from Abdera—only a few in all.The seven were the Seven Sages, who as listed by Plato in the Protagoras (343 a) were Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytilene, Bias of Priene, Solon of Athens, Cleobulus of Lindos, Myson of Chenae, and Chilon of Sparta; but Periander of Corinth was often included instead of Myson. The three whom Philosophy acquired later were Pythagoras of Samos,. Heraclitus of Ephesus, and Democritus of Abdera.
10
After them, the Sophist tribe somehow or other fastened themselves to my skirts. They were neither profoundly interested in my teaching nor altogether at variance, but like the Hippocentaur breed, something composite and mixed, astray in the interspace between quackery and philosophy, neither completely addicted to ignorance nor yet able to keep me envisioned with an intent gaze; being purblind, as it were, through their dim-sightedness they merely glimpsed at times an indistinct, dim presentment or shadow of me, yet thought they had discerned everything with accuracy. So there flared up among them that useless and superfluous “wisdom” of theirs, in their own opinion invincible—those clever, baffling, absurd replies and perplexing, mazy queries.
