Gorgias
reply, seemingly quite in earnest, as if I had asked, Who are or have
been good trainers?—and you had replied, Thearion, the baker,
Mithoecus, who wrote the Sicilian cookery-book, Sarambus, the vintner:
these are ministers of the body, first-rate in their art; for the first
makes admirable loaves, the second excellent dishes, and the third
capital wine;—to me these appear to be the exact parallel of the
statesmen whom you mention. Now you would not be altogether pleased if
I said to you, My friend, you know nothing of gymnastics; those of whom
you are speaking to me are only the ministers and purveyors of luxury,
who have no good or noble notions of their art, and may very likely be
filling and fattening men’s bodies and gaining their approval, although
the result is that they lose their original flesh in the long run, and
become thinner than they were before; and yet they, in their
simplicity, will not attribute their diseases and loss of flesh to
their entertainers; but when in after years the unhealthy surfeit
brings the attendant penalty of disease, he who happens to be near them
at the time, and offers them advice, is accused and blamed by them, and
if they could they would do him some harm; while they proceed to
eulogize the men who have been the real authors of the mischief. And
that, Callicles, is just what you are now doing. You praise the men who
feasted the citizens and satisfied their desires, and people say that
they have made the city great, not seeing that the swollen and
ulcerated condition of the State is to be attributed to these elder
statesmen; for they have filled the city full of harbours and docks and
walls and revenues and all that, and have left no room for justice and
temperance. And when the crisis of the disorder comes, the people will
blame the advisers of the hour, and applaud Themistocles and Cimon and
Pericles, who are the real authors of their calamities; and if you are
not careful they may assail you and my friend Alcibiades, when they are
losing not only their new acquisitions, but also their original
possessions; not that you are the authors of these misfortunes of
theirs, although you may perhaps be accessories to them. A great piece
of work is always being made, as I see and am told, now as of old;
about our statesmen. When the State treats any of them as malefactors,
I observe that there is a great uproar and indignation at the supposed
wrong which is done to them; “after all their many services to the
State, that they should unjustly perish,”—so the tale runs. But the cry
is all a lie; for no statesman ever could be unjustly put to death by
the city of which he is the head. The case of the professed statesman
is, I believe, very much like that of the professed sophist; for the
sophists, although they are wise men, are nevertheless guilty of a
strange piece of folly; professing to be teachers of virtue, they will
often accuse their disciples of wronging them, and defrauding them of
their pay, and showing no gratitude for their services. Yet what can be
more absurd than that men who have become just and good, and whose
injustice has been taken away from them, and who have had justice
implanted in them by their teachers, should act unjustly by reason of
the injustice which is not in them? Can anything be more irrational, my
friends, than this? You, Callicles, compel me to be a mob-orator,
because you will not answer.
CALLICLES: And you are the man who cannot speak unless there is some
one to answer?
SOCRATES: I suppose that I can; just now, at any rate, the speeches
which I am making are long enough because you refuse to answer me. But
I adjure you by the god of friendship, my good sir, do tell me whether
there does not appear to you to be a great inconsistency in saying that
you have made a man good, and then blaming him for being bad?
CALLICLES: Yes, it appears so to me.
SOCRATES: Do you never hear our professors of education speaking in
this inconsistent manner?
CALLICLES: Yes, but why talk of men who are good for nothing?
SOCRATES: I would rather say, why talk of men who profess to be rulers,
and declare that they are devoted to the improvement of the city, and
nevertheless upon occasion declaim against the utter vileness of the
city:—do you think that there is any difference between one and the
other? My good friend, the sophist and the rhetorician, as I was saying
to Polus, are the same, or nearly the same; but you ignorantly fancy
that rhetoric is a perfect thing, and sophistry a thing to be despised;
whereas the truth is, that sophistry is as much superior to rhetoric as
legislation is to the practice of law, or gymnastic to medicine. The
orators and sophists, as I am inclined to think, are the only class who
cannot complain of the mischief ensuing to themselves from that which
they teach others, without in the same breath accusing themselves of
having done no good to those whom they profess to benefit. Is not this
a fact?
CALLICLES: Certainly it is.
SOCRATES: If they were right in saying that they make men better, then
they are the only class who can afford to leave their remuneration to
those who have been benefited by them. Whereas if a man has been
benefited in any other way, if, for example, he has been taught to run
by a trainer, he might possibly defraud him of his pay, if the trainer
left the matter to him, and made no agreement with him that he should
receive money as soon as he had given him the utmost speed; for not
because of any deficiency of speed do men act unjustly, but by reason
of injustice.
CALLICLES: Very true.
SOCRATES: And he who removes injustice can be in no danger of being
treated unjustly: he alone can safely leave the honorarium to his
pupils, if he be really able to make them good—am I not right? (Compare
Protag.)
CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then we have found the reason why there is no dishonour in a
man receiving pay who is called in to advise about building or any
other art?
CALLICLES: Yes, we have found the reason.
SOCRATES: But when the point is, how a man may become best himself, and
best govern his family and state, then to say that you will give no
advice gratis is held to be dishonourable?
CALLICLES: True.
SOCRATES: And why? Because only such benefits call forth a desire to
requite them, and there is evidence that a benefit has been conferred
when the benefactor receives a return; otherwise not. Is this true?
CALLICLES: It is.
SOCRATES: Then to which service of the State do you invite me?
determine for me. Am I to be the physician of the State who will strive
and struggle to make the Athenians as good as possible; or am I to be
the servant and flatterer of the State? Speak out, my good friend,
freely and fairly as you did at first and ought to do again, and tell
me your entire mind.
CALLICLES: I say then that you should be the servant of the State.
SOCRATES: The flatterer? well, sir, that is a noble invitation.
CALLICLES: The Mysian, Socrates, or what you please. For if you refuse,
the consequences will be—
SOCRATES: Do not repeat the old story—that he who likes will kill me
and get my money; for then I shall have to repeat the old answer, that
he will be a bad man and will kill the good, and that the money will be
of no use to him, but that he will wrongly use that which he wrongly
took, and if wrongly, basely, and if basely, hurtfully.
CALLICLES: How confident you are, Socrates, that you will never come to
harm! you seem to think that you are living in another country, and can
never be brought into a court of justice, as you very likely may be
brought by some miserable and mean person.
SOCRATES: Then I must indeed be a fool, Callicles, if I do not know
that in the Athenian State any man may suffer anything. And if I am
brought to trial and incur the dangers of which you speak, he will be a
villain who brings me to trial—of that I am very sure, for no good man
would accuse the innocent. Nor shall I be surprised if I am put to
death. Shall I tell you why I anticipate this?
CALLICLES: By all means.
SOCRATES: I think that I am the only or almost the only Athenian living
who practises the true art of politics; I am the only politician of my
time. Now, seeing that when I speak my words are not uttered with any
view of gaining favour, and that I look to what is best and not to what
is most pleasant, having no mind to use those arts and graces which you
recommend, I shall have nothing to say in the justice court. And you
might argue with me, as I was arguing with Polus:—I shall be tried just
as a physician would be tried in a court of little boys at the
indictment of the cook. What would he reply under such circumstances,
if some one were to accuse him, saying, “O my boys, many evil things
has this man done to you: he is the death of you, especially of the
younger ones among you, cutting and burning and starving and
suffocating you, until you know not what to do; he gives you the
bitterest potions, and compels you to hunger and thirst. How unlike the
variety of meats and sweets on which I feasted you!” What do you
suppose that the physician would be able to reply when he found himself
in such a predicament? If he told the truth he could only say, “All
these evil things, my boys, I did for your health,” and then would
there not just be a clamour among a jury like that? How they would cry
out!
CALLICLES: I dare say.
SOCRATES: Would he not be utterly at a loss for a reply?
CALLICLES: He certainly would.
SOCRATES: And I too shall be treated in the same way, as I well know,
if I am brought before the court. For I shall not be able to rehearse
to the people the pleasures which I have procured for them, and which,
although I am not disposed to envy either the procurers or enjoyers of
them, are deemed by them to be benefits and advantages. And if any one
says that I corrupt young men, and perplex their minds, or that I speak
evil of old men, and use bitter words towards them, whether in private
or public, it is useless for me to reply, as I truly might:—“All this I
do for the sake of justice, and with a view to your interest, my
judges, and to nothing else.” And therefore there is no saying what may
happen to me.
CALLICLES: And do you think, Socrates, that a man who is thus
defenceless is in a good position?
SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, if he have that defence, which as you have
often acknowledged he should have—if he be his own defence, and have
never said or done anything wrong, either in respect of gods or men;
and this has been repeatedly acknowledged by us to be the best sort of
defence. And if any one could convict me of inability to defend myself
or others after this sort, I should blush for shame, whether I was
convicted before many, or before a few, or by myself alone; and if I
died from want of ability to do so, that would indeed grieve me. But if
I died because I have no powers of flattery or rhetoric, I am very sure
that you would not find me repining at death. For no man who is not an
utter fool and coward is afraid of death itself, but he is afraid of
doing wrong. For to go to the world below having one’s soul full of
injustice is the last and worst of all evils. And in proof of what I
say, if you have no objection, I should like to tell you a story.
CALLICLES: Very well, proceed; and then we shall have done.
SOCRATES: Listen, then, as story-tellers say, to a very pretty tale,
which I dare say that you may be disposed to regard as a fable only,
but which, as I believe, is a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth.
Homer tells us (Il.), how Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided the
empire which they inherited from their father. Now in the days of
Cronos there existed a law respecting the destiny of man, which has