Throughout the ups and downs of Athenian empire and throughout the ups and downs of Alcibiades’ career, Socrates kept on doing what he had been doing before the expedition to Sicily. From about 410 on, Plato and Xenophon were among the company of young men who followed Socrates about, and who best memorialized his work. Plato’s dialogue Euthydemus is set around 407, and shows us Socrates’ interest in the education of the young.
Socrates recounts to his rich friend Crito an encounter the previous day in the Lyceum, the gymnasium on the east side of Athens. While he was visiting with Clinias, a young cousin of Alcibiades, two sophists from Chios, Euthydemus and his brother Dionysodorus, with a retinue of followers, approached. They have a reputation for teaching fighting in armor — the martial art discussed in the Laches — and also for teaching oratory. But the skill they offered to display to Socrates and Clinias was “eristic,” the art of refuting an opponent by questioning. This “art” looks at first glance similar to Socrates’ art of elenchus or cross-examination.