The master drew his fingers through his long beard, and answered.

"There are direct and indirect assertions; a question can be an
indirect and mischievous assertion. Protagoras has made such a one
by his question."

"Good! Socrates!" exclaimed Alcibiades, who wished to kindle a
flame.

Pericles spoke: "Protagoras, then, has asserted that you would be
happier under the Persian King. What should be done with such a
man?"

"Throw him backwards in the fountain," cried Alcibiades.

"I appeal!" protested the Sophist.

"To the mob! They will always justify you," Alcibiades interrupted.

"One does not say 'mob' if one is a democrat, Alcibiades. And one
does not quote Aeschylus when Euripides is present. When Phidias
sits here one would rather speak of his Parthenon and his Athene,
whose robe even now glitters in the sinking sun. Courtesy is the
salt of social life."

Thus Pericles sought to direct the conversation into a new channel,
but the Sophist thwarted him.

"If Phidias' statue of Athene must borrow its gold from the sun,
that may prove that the gold granted by the State did not suffice,