360 BC

                                   THEAETETUS

                                    by Plato

                         translated by Benjamin Jowett
THEAETETUS

  PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: SOCRATES; THEODORUS; THEAETETUS
Euclid and Terpsion meet in front of Euclid's house in Megara; they
enter the house, and the dialogue is read to them by a servant.

  Euclid. Have you only just arrived from the country, Terpsion?

  Terpsion. No, I came some time ago: and I have been in the Agora
looking for you, and wondering that I could not find you.

  Euc. But I was not in the city.

  Terp. Where then?

  Euc. As I was going down to the harbour, I met Theaetetus-he was
being carried up to Athens from the army at Corinth.

  Terp. Was he alive or dead?

  Euc. He was scarcely alive, for he has been badly wounded; but he
was suffering even more from the sickness which has broken out in
the army.

  Terp. The dysentery, you mean?

  Euc. Yes.

  Terp. Alas! what a loss he will be!

  Euc. Yes, Terpsion, he is a noble fellow; only to-day I heard some
people highly praising his behaviour in this very battle.

  Terp. No wonder; I should rather be surprised at hearing anything
else of him. But why did he go on, instead of stopping at Megara?

  Euc. He wanted to get home: although I entreated and advised him
to remain he would not listen to me; so I set him on his way, and
turned back, and then I remembered what Socrates had said of him,
and thought how remarkably this, like all his predictions, had been
fulfilled. I believe that he had seen him a little before his own
death, when Theaetetus was a youth, and he had a memorable
conversation with him, which he repeated to me when I came to