“Euripides does not like girls,” interrupted Protagoras.
“That is not true,” answered Euripides; “I like girls, but not women.”
Pericles rose: “Let us go to supper, and have walls round our conversation—walls without ears! Support me, Phidias, I am tired.”
Plato approached Socrates: “Master, let me carry your mantle?” he asked.
“That is my function, boy,” said Alcibiades, intercepting him.
“It was once,” objected Socrates; “now it belongs to Plato of the broad head. Notice his name! He descends from Codrus, the last king, who gave his life to save his people. Plato is of royal birth.”
“And Alcibiades is of the race of heroes, the Alcmaeonidae, like his uncle Pericles; a noble company.”
“But Phidias is of the race of the gods; that is more.”
“I am probably descended from the Titans,” broke in Protagoras. “I say ‘probably,’ for one knows nothing at all, and hardly that. Don’t you think so, Socrates?”
“You know nothing at all, and least of all what you talk about.” The company passed through the Sacred Street, and went together to the theatre of Dionysus, near which Alcibiades lived.