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CALLICLES: I agree.
just the same to Themistocles, adding the penalty of exile; and they voted that Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, should SOCRATES: And yet he really did make them more sav-be thrown into the pit of death, and he was only saved by age than he received them, and their savageness was shown the Prytanis. And yet, if they had been really good men, as towards himself; which he must have been very far from you say, these things would never have happened to them.
desiring.
For the good charioteers are not those who at first keep their place, and then, when they have broken-in their horses, CALLICLES: Do you want me to agree with you?
and themselves become better charioteers, are thrown out
that is not the way either in charioteering or in any profes-SOCRATES: Yes, if I seem to you to speak the truth.
sion.What do you think?
CALLICLES: Granted then.
CALLICLES: I should think not.
SOCRATES: And if they were more savage, must they not SOCRATES: Well, but if so, the truth is as I have said have been more unjust and inferior?
already, that in the Athenian State no one has ever shown himself to be a good statesmanyou admitted that this was CALLICLES: Granted again.
true of our present statesmen, but not true of former ones, and you preferred them to the others; yet they have turned SOCRATES: Then upon this view, Pericles was not a good out to be no better than our present ones; and therefore, if statesman?
they were rhetoricians, they did not use the true art of rhetoric or of flattery, or they would not have fallen out of favour.
CALLICLES: That is, upon your view.
CALLICLES: But surely, Socrates, no living man ever came SOCRATES: Nay, the view is yours, after what you have near any one of them in his performances.
admitted. Take the case of Cimon again. Did not the very persons whom he was serving ostracize him, in order that SOCRATES: O, my dear friend, I say nothing against them they might not hear his voice for ten years? and they did regarded as the serving-men of the State; and I do think 141
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that they were certainly more serviceable than those who other artan art of gymnastic and medicine which is the are living now, and better able to gratify the wishes of the true minister of the body, and ought to be the mistress of State; but as to transforming those desires and not allowing all the rest, and to use their results according to the knowl-them to have their way, and using the powers which they edge which she has and they have not, of the real good or had, whether of persuasion or of force, in the improve-bad effects of meats and drinks on the body. All other arts ment of their fellow citizens, which is the prime object of which have to do with the body are servile and menial and the truly good citizen, I do not see that in these respects illiberal; and gymnastic and medicine are, as they ought to they were a whit superior to our present statesmen, although be, their mistresses. Now, when I say that all this is equally I do admit that they were more clever at providing ships true of the soul, you seem at first to know and understand and walls and docks, and all that. You and I have a ridicu-and assent to my words, and then a little while afterwards lous way, for during the whole time that we are arguing, we you come repeating, Has not the State had good and noble are always going round and round to the same point, and citizens? and when I ask you who they are, you reply, seem-constantly misunderstanding one another. If I am not mis-ingly quite in earnest, as if I had asked, Who are or have taken, you have admitted and acknowledged more than been good trainers?and you had replied, Thearion, the once, that there are two kinds of operations which have to baker, Mithoecus, who wrote the Sicilian cookery-book, do with the body, and two which have to do with the soul: Sarambus, the vintner: these are ministers of the body, first-one of the two is ministerial, and if our bodies are hungry rate in their art; for the first makes admirable loaves, the provides food for them, and if they are thirsty gives them second excellent dishes, and the third capital wine;to me drink, or if they are cold supplies them with garments, blan-these appear to be the exact parallel of the statesmen whom kets, shoes, and all that they crave. I use the same images as you mention. Now you would not be altogether pleased if I before intentionally, in order that you may understand me said to you, My friend, you know nothing of gymnastics; the better. The purveyor of the articles may provide them those of whom you are speaking to me are only the minis-either wholesale or retail, or he may be the maker of any of ters and purveyors of luxury, who have no good or noble them,the baker, or the cook, or the weaver, or the shoe-notions of their art, and may very likely be filling and fat-maker, or the currier; and in so doing, being such as he is, tening mens bodies and gaining their approval, although he is naturally supposed by himself and every one to minis-the result is that they lose their original flesh in the long ter to the body. For none of them know that there is an-run, and become thinner than they were before; and yet 142
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they, in their simplicity, will not attribute their diseases and services to the State, that they should unjustly perish,so the loss of flesh to their entertainers; but when in after years tale runs. But the cry is all a lie; for no statesman ever could the unhealthy surfeit brings the attendant penalty of dis-be unjustly put to death by the city of which he is the head.
ease, he who happens to be near them at the time, and The case of the professed statesman is, I believe, very much offers them advice, is accused and blamed by them, and if like that of the professed sophist; for the sophists, although they could they would do him some harm; while they pro-they are wise men, are nevertheless guilty of a strange piece ceed to eulogize the men who have been the real authors of of folly; professing to be teachers of virtue, they will often the mischief. And that, Callicles, is just what you are now accuse their disciples of wronging them, and defrauding them doing. You praise the men who feasted the citizens and of their pay, and showing no gratitude for their services. Yet satisfied their desires, and people say that they have made what can be more absurd than that men who have become the city great, not seeing that the swollen and ulcerated con-just and good, and whose injustice has been taken away from dition of the State is to be attributed to these elder states-them, and who have had justice implanted in them by their men; for they have filled the city full of harbours and docks teachers, should act unjustly by reason of the injustice which and walls and revenues and all that, and have left no room is not in them? Can anything be more irrational, my friends, for justice and temperance. And when the crisis of the dis-than this? You, Callicles, compel me to be a mob-orator, order comes, the people will blame the advisers of the hour, because you will not answer.
and applaud Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, who are the real authors of their calamities; and if you are not CALLICLES: And you are the man who cannot speak careful they may assail you and my friend Alcibiades, when unless there is some one to answer?
they are losing not only their new acquisitions, but also their original possessions; not that you are the authors of these SOCRATES: I suppose that I can; just now, at any rate, misfortunes of theirs, although you may perhaps be acces-the speeches which I am making are long enough because sories to them. A great piece of work is always being made, you refuse to answer me. But I adjure you by the god of as I see and am told, now as of old; about our statesmen.
friendship, my good sir, do tell me whether there does not When the State treats any of them as malefactors, I ob-appear to you to be a great inconsistency in saying that you serve that there is a great uproar and indignation at the sup-have made a man good, and then blaming him for being posed wrong which is done to them; after all their many bad?