In a brief digression near the end of the Euthydemus (305 b ff.), Socrates describes one of his anonymous critics, who rejects philosophy in general but imagines himself to be both an accomplished thinker and a successful politikos. Clearly, the portrait is that of Isocrates. The similarity between Isocrates' real character and Plato's stylization is so pronounced that we are tempted to describe 305 b ff. as one of Plato's intentional anachronisms (the dramatic date of the dialogue is earlier than the death of Alcibiades, 275 b). The portrait includes several noteworthy points. First, 305 b-c refers to Socrates' opponent as a writer of forensic speeches. To judge from the tone of the entire passage, which is not markedly hostile to the anonymous person (cf. 306 c 6 ff.), that would be an unfair description of Isocrates if written after the publication of the Panegyricus c. 380 BC. Second, Plato defines the unnamed person as both a speechwriter and a practical politician (306 b: ή πολιτικὴ πρᾶξις ‘the statesman's business’). The latter part of the definition does not square with Isocrates' career as schoolmaster and political adviser or, later on, as the author of political pamphlets. Unless it is assumed that 305 b ff. aims at Isocrates' dealing with Realpolitik, he would not have deserved Socrates' criticism that he ‘partakes’ of two different things. In that case, the same reproof for being ‘the border-ground between philosopher and politician’ might have been addressed to Plato himself as a dialectician and, concerning his other activities, as the head of the Academy and the author of such political dialogues as the Gorgias.