Key Arguments

• Having displayed Alcibiades’ inferiority in birth, wealth, and education, Socrates imagines how Amestris and Lampido would react with astonishment and scorn on hearing that an untrained, uneducated youth of twenty with modest estates in Attica proposes to go to war with their sons.
• He points out the disgrace that Athenians, including Alcibiades, have a lower conception of what is required in a contender than even their enemies’ wives and mothers: “how disgraceful, that we should not have as high a notion of what is required in us as our enemies' wives and mothers have of the qualities which are required in their assailants!”
• He brings in the Delphic inscription as normative guidance: “O my friend, be persuaded by me, and hear the Delphian inscription, 'Know thyself'—not the men whom you think, but these kings are our rivals,” redirecting self‑knowledge to an accurate estimation of his own and his rivals’ capacities.
• He ties success against such rivals explicitly to effort and expertise: “we can only overcome them by pains and skill,” making self‑cultivation a necessary condition for Alcibiades’ desired supremacy.
• He warns that failure to acquire the “required qualities” will result in failure in the very aim Alcibiades values most: “you will fail also in becoming renowned among Hellenes and Barbarians, which you seem to desire more than any other man ever desired anything.”
• Alcibiades’ response, “I entirely believe you; but what are the sort of pains which are required, Socrates,—can you tell me?” shows that Socrates’ shame‑inducing argument has successfully moved him to seek guidance about the necessary training.

Source Quotes

And I believe that even Lampido, the daughter of Leotychides, the wife of Archidamus and mother of Agis, all of whom were kings, would have the same feeling; if, in your present uneducated state, you were to turn your thoughts against her son, she too would be equally astonished. But how disgraceful, that we should not have as high a notion of what is required in us as our enemies' wives and mothers have of the qualities which are required in their assailants! O my friend, be persuaded by me, and hear the Delphian inscription, 'Know thyself'—not the men whom you think, but these kings are our rivals, and we can only overcome them by pains and skill.

But how disgraceful, that we should not have as high a notion of what is required in us as our enemies' wives and mothers have of the qualities which are required in their assailants! O my friend, be persuaded by me, and hear the Delphian inscription, 'Know thyself'—not the men whom you think, but these kings are our rivals, and we can only overcome them by pains and skill. And if you fail in the required qualities, you will fail also in becoming renowned among Hellenes and Barbarians, which you seem to desire more than any other man ever desired anything.

O my friend, be persuaded by me, and hear the Delphian inscription, 'Know thyself'—not the men whom you think, but these kings are our rivals, and we can only overcome them by pains and skill. And if you fail in the required qualities, you will fail also in becoming renowned among Hellenes and Barbarians, which you seem to desire more than any other man ever desired anything. ALCIBIADES: I entirely believe you; but what are the sort of pains which are required, Socrates,—can you tell me?

And if you fail in the required qualities, you will fail also in becoming renowned among Hellenes and Barbarians, which you seem to desire more than any other man ever desired anything. ALCIBIADES: I entirely believe you; but what are the sort of pains which are required, Socrates,—can you tell me? SOCRATES: Yes, I can; but we must take counsel together concerning the manner in which both of us may be most improved.

Key Concepts

• But how disgraceful, that we should not have as high a notion of what is required in us as our enemies' wives and mothers have of the qualities which are required in their assailants!
• O my friend, be persuaded by me, and hear the Delphian inscription, 'Know thyself'—not the men whom you think, but these kings are our rivals, and we can only overcome them by pains and skill.
• And if you fail in the required qualities, you will fail also in becoming renowned among Hellenes and Barbarians, which you seem to desire more than any other man ever desired anything.
• I entirely believe you; but what are the sort of pains which are required, Socrates,—can you tell me?

Context

After the extended contrast between Alcibiades and foreign royalty, Socrates crystallizes the lesson into a call to self‑knowledge and rigorous training as prerequisites for the world‑dominating fame Alcibiades craves, eliciting Alcibiades’ first explicit request for instruction about what pains are needed.