all Hellas, go about as a rhapsode when you might be a general? Do you
think that the Hellenes want a rhapsode with his golden crown, and do not
want a general?

ION: Why, Socrates, the reason is, that my countrymen, the Ephesians, are
the servants and soldiers of Athens, and do not need a general; and you and
Sparta are not likely to have me, for you think that you have enough
generals of your own.

SOCRATES: My good Ion, did you never hear of Apollodorus of Cyzicus?

ION: Who may he be?

SOCRATES: One who, though a foreigner, has often been chosen their general
by the Athenians: and there is Phanosthenes of Andros, and Heraclides of
Clazomenae, whom they have also appointed to the command of their armies
and to other offices, although aliens, after they had shown their merit.
And will they not choose Ion the Ephesian to be their general, and honour
him, if he prove himself worthy? Were not the Ephesians originally
Athenians, and Ephesus is no mean city? But, indeed, Ion, if you are
correct in saying that by art and knowledge you are able to praise Homer,
you do not deal fairly with me, and after all your professions of knowing
many glorious things about Homer, and promises that you would exhibit them,
you are only a deceiver, and so far from exhibiting the art of which you
are a master, will not, even after my repeated entreaties, explain to me
the nature of it. You have literally as many forms as Proteus; and now you
go all manner of ways, twisting and turning, and, like Proteus, become all
manner of people at once, and at last slip away from me in the disguise of
a general, in order that you may escape exhibiting your Homeric lore. And
if you have art, then, as I was saying, in falsifying your promise that you