Stranger: You seem never to have observed the manner in which lovers hunt.
Theaetetus: To what do you refer?
Stranger: I mean that they lavish gifts on those whom they hunt in addition to other inducements.
Theaetetus: Most true.
Stranger: Let us admit this, then, to be the amatory art.
Theaetetus: Certainly.
Stranger: But that sort of hireling whose conversation is pleasing and who baits his hook only with pleasure and exacts nothing but his maintenance in return, we should all, if I am not mistaken, describe as possessing flattery or an art of making things pleasant.
Theaetetus: Certainly.
Stranger: And that sort, which professes to form acquaintances only for the sake of virtue, and demands a reward in the shape of money, may be fairly called by another name?
Theaetetus: To be sure.
Stranger: And what is the name? Will you tell me?
Theaetetus: It is obvious enough; for I believe that we have discovered the Sophist: which is, as I conceive, the proper name for the class described.
Stranger: Then now, Theaetetus, his art may be traced as a branch of the appropriative, acquisitive family—which hunts animals—living—land—tame animals; which hunts man—privately—for hire—taking money in exchange—having the semblance of education; and this is termed Sophistry, and is a hunt after young men of wealth and rank—such is the conclusion.
Theaetetus: Just so.
Stranger: Let us take another branch of his genealogy; for he is a professor of a great and many-sided art; and if we look back at what has preceded we see that he presents another aspect, besides that of which we are speaking.
Theaetetus: In what respect?
Stranger: There were two sorts of acquisitive art; the one concerned with hunting, the other with exchange.
Theaetetus: There were.
Stranger: And of the art of exchange there are two divisions, the one of giving, and the other of selling.
Theaetetus: Let us assume that.
Stranger: Next, we will suppose the art of selling to be divided into two parts.
Theaetetus: How?
Stranger: There is one part which is distinguished as the sale of a man’s own productions; another, which is the exchange of the works of others.
Theaetetus: Certainly.
Stranger: And is not that part of exchange which takes place in the city, being about half of the whole, termed retailing?