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TYCHIADES No, by Zeus, Simon; I am very much at a loss as to whom you can find to mention.
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SIMON My dear fellow, you seem to be unfamiliar with their biographers, as otherwise you would certainly be able to recognize whom I mean.
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TYCHIADES Well, anyhow, by Heracles, I long to find out now who they are.
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SIMON I shall give you a list of them, and they are not the riff-raff, but in my opinion the best, and those whom you would least expect.
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Aeschines the Socratic, the man who wrote the long and witty dialogues, once went to Sicily, taking them with him, in the hope that through them he might be able to get acquainted with Dionysius the tyrant; and after he had read his “Miltiades”’ and was considered to have made a hit, he made himself at home in Sicily from then on, playing parasite to the tyrant and bidding adieu to the haunts of Socrates.
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And what about Aristippus of Cyrene? Is he not in your opinion one of the philosophers of distinction?
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TYCHIADES Very much so.
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SIMON But he too lived in Syracuse at about the same time, playing parasite to Dionysius. In fact, of all the parasites he was in highest favour with him, — being, to be sure, somewhat more gifted for the art than the rest of them, so that Dionysius sent his cooks to him every day, to learn something from him.
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Aristippus, indeed, appears to have been a worthy ornament to the art;
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but your most noble Plato also came to Sicily for this purpose, and after being parasite to the tyrant only a few days, was turned out of his place as parasite on account of ineptitude. Then, after going back to Athens and working hard and preparing himself, he cruised once more to Sicily on a second venture, and again, after only a — few days of dining, was turned out on account of stupidity; and this “Sicilian disaster” of Plato’s is considered equal to that of Nicias.
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TYCHIADES Why, who tells about this, Simon?
