Section 2, Lines 317-324 Summary and Analysis

Protagoras is aware that being a Sophist is controversial, since the Sophists are accused of taking the youth away from their friends and family and puts them under his instruction. Men take children and young men out of one household and into another to avoid corruption and that is one of the reasons the Sophists are feared. Protagoras claims that poets such as Homer and Hesiod were really Sophists using poetry as their cover story. He says it does not pay to conceal being a Sophist, because the city's leading people find out sooner or later, so Protagoras has always openly admitted to being a Sophist.

Socrates and Hippocrates ask Protagoras, what Hippocrates will learn if he becomes a student of Protagoras. Protagoras tells them that a person will learn how to be a better citizen. Protagoras...