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Well now, do you mean, I asked, in the same way as in carpentry? For there, you know, you can buy a carpenter for five or six minae, A mina(=100 drachmae)would be about 6-8 pounds in our money today. but a first-rate architect cannot be got for even ten thousand drachmae; few such, indeed, could be found throughout the whole of Greece. Is it something of this sort that you mean? When he heard me say this, he admitted that something like this was what he himself meant.
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I next asked him if it was not impossible for the same person to learn in this way merely two of the arts, not to speak of many or the principal ones; to which he replied: Do not conceive me, Socrates, to be stating that the philosopher must have accurate knowledge of each of the arts, like the actual adept in any of them; I mean only so far as may be expected of a free and educated man: that is, he should be able to follow the explanations of the craftsman more readily than the rest of the company, and to contribute an opinion of his own which will make him appear the cleverest and most accomplished of the company who may at any time be present at some verbal or practical exposition of the arts.
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Then, as I was still unsettled in my mind as to the drift of his words, I asked him: Do I quite grasp the sort of man whom you mean by the philosopher? For you seem to me to mean someone like the all-round athletes Literally, athletes trained for the contest of the five exercises of leaping, running, disc-flinging, javelin-throwing, and wrestling. in contest with the runners or the wrestlers: the former yield, you know, to the latter in their particular exercises, and are their inferiors in these, but are superior to the usual sort of athletes and beat them.
