Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  [d] CALLICLES: So be it.

  SOCRATES: So on this reasoning Pericles wasn’t good at politics.

  CALLICLES: You at least deny that he was.

  SOCRATES: By Zeus, you do, too, given what you were agreeing to. Let’s go back to Cimon. Tell me: didn’t the people he was serving ostracize him so that they wouldn’t hear his voice for ten years? And didn’t they do the very same thing to Themistocles, punishing him with exile besides? And didn’t they vote to throw Miltiades, of Marathon fame, into the pit, and [e] if it hadn’t been for the prytanis he would have been thrown in?26 And yet these things would not have happened to these men if they were good men, as you say they were. At least it’s not the case that good drivers are the ones who at the start don’t fall out of their chariots but who do fall out after they’ve cared for their horses and become better drivers themselves. This doesn’t happen either in driving or in any other work. Or do you think it does?

  CALLICLES: No, I don’t.

  [517] SOCRATES: So it looks as though our earlier statements were true, that we don’t know any man who has proved to be good at politics in this city. You were agreeing that none of our present-day ones has, though you said that some of those of times past had, and you gave preference to these men. But these have been shown to be on equal footing with the men of today. The result is that if these men were orators, they practiced neither the true oratory—for in that case they wouldn’t have been thrown out—nor the flattering kind.

  CALLICLES: But surely, Socrates, any accomplishment that any of our present-day men produces is a far cry from the sorts of accomplishments [b] produced by any one of the others you choose.

  SOCRATES: No, my strange friend, I’m not criticizing these men either, insofar as they were servants of the city. I think rather that they proved to be better servants than the men of today, and more capable than they of satisfying the city’s appetites. But the truth is that in redirecting its appetites and not giving in to them, using persuasion or constraint to get [c] the citizens to become better, they were really not much different from our contemporaries. That alone is the task of a good citizen. Yes, I too agree with you that they were more clever than our present leaders at supplying ships and walls and dockyards and many other things of the sort.

  Now you and I are doing an odd thing in our conversation. The whole time we’ve been discussing, we constantly keep drifting back to the same point, neither of us recognizing what the other is saying. For my part, I believe you’ve agreed many times and recognized that after all this subject of ours has two parts, both in the case of the body and the soul. The one [d] part of it is the servient one, enabling us to provide our bodies with food whenever they’re hungry or with drink whenever they’re thirsty, and whenever they’re cold, with clothes, wraps, shoes, and other things our bodies come to have an appetite for. I’m purposely using the same examples in speaking to you, so that you’ll understand more easily. For these, I think you agree, are the very things a shopkeeper, importer, or producer can provide, a breadbaker or pastrychef, a weaver or cobbler or tanner, [e] so it isn’t at all surprising that such a person should think himself and be thought by others to be a caretaker of the body—by everyone who doesn’t know that over and above all these practices there’s a craft, that of gymnastics and medicine, that really does care for the body and is entitled to rule all these crafts and use their products because of its knowledge of what food or drink is good or bad for bodily excellence, a knowledge which all [518] of the others lack. That’s why the other crafts are slavish and servient and ill-bred, and why gymnastics and medicine are by rights mistresses over them. Now, when I say that these same things hold true of the soul, too, I think you sometimes understand me, and you agree as one who knows what I’m saying. But then a little later you come along saying that there have been persons who’ve proved to be admirable and good citizens in [b] the city, and when I ask who they are, you seem to me to produce people who in the area of politics are very much the same sort you would produce if I asked you, “Who have proved to be or are good caretakers of bodies?” and you replied in all seriousness, “Thearion the breadbaker, and Mithaecus the author of the book on Sicilian pastry baking, and Sarambus the shopkeeper, because these men have proved to be wonderful caretakers of bodies, the first by providing wonderful loaves of bread, the second pastry, and the third wine.” [c]

  Perhaps you’d be upset if I said to you, “My man, you don’t have the slightest understanding of gymnastics. The men you’re mentioning to me are servants, satisfiers of appetites! They have no understanding whatever of anything that’s admirable and good in these cases. They’ll fill and fatten people’s bodies, if they get the chance, and besides that, destroy their original flesh as well, all the while receiving their praise! The latter, in their turn, thanks to their inexperience, will lay the blame for their illnesses [d] and the destruction of their original flesh not on those who threw the parties, but on any people who happen to be with them at the time giving them advice. Yes, when that earlier stuffing has come bringing sickness in its train much later, then, because it’s proved to be unhealthy, they’ll blame these people and scold them and do something bad to them if they can, and they’ll sing the praises of those earlier people, the ones responsible [e] for their ills. Right now you’re operating very much like that, too, Callicles. You sing the praises of those who threw parties for these people, and who feasted them lavishly with what they had an appetite for. And they say that they have made the city great! But that the city is swollen and festering, [519] thanks to those early leaders, that they don’t notice. For they filled the city with harbors and dockyards, walls, and tribute payments and such trash as that, but did so without justice and self-control. So, when that fit of sickness comes on, they’ll blame their advisers of the moment and sing the praises of Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, the ones who are to blame for their ills. Perhaps, if you’re not careful, they’ll lay their hands [b] on you, and on my friend Alcibiades, when they lose not only what they gained but what they had originally as well, even though you aren’t responsible for their ills but perhaps accessories to them.

  And yet there’s a foolish business that I, for one, both see happening now and hear about in connection with our early leaders. For I notice that whenever the city lays its hands on one of its politicians because he does what’s unjust, they resent it and complain indignantly that they’re suffering terrible things. They’ve done many good things for the city, and so they’re [c] being unjustly brought to ruin by it, so their argument goes. But that’s completely false. Not a single city leader could ever be brought to ruin by the very city he’s the leader of. It looks as though those who profess to be politicians are just like those who profess to be sophists. For sophists, too, even though they’re wise in other matters, do this absurd thing: while they claim to be teachers of excellence, they frequently accuse their students of doing them wrong, depriving them of their fees and withholding other forms of thanks from them, even though the students have been well served by them. Yet what could be a more illogical business than this [d] statement, that people who’ve become good and just, whose injustice has been removed by their teacher and who have come to possess justice, should wrong him—something they can’t do? Don’t you think that’s absurd, my friend? You’ve made me deliver a real popular harangue, Callicles, because you aren’t willing to answer.

  CALLICES: And you couldn’t speak unless somebody answered you?

  [e] SOCRATES: Evidently I could. Anyhow I am stretching my speeches out at length now, since you’re unwilling to answer me. But, my good man, tell me, by the god of friendship: don’t you think it’s illogical that someone who says he’s made someone else good should find fault with that person, charging that he, whom he himself made to become and to be good, is after all wicked?

  CALLICLES: Yes, I do think so.

  SOCRATES: Don’t you hear people who say they’re educating people for excellence saying things like that?r />
  [520] CALLICLES: Yes, I do. But why would you mention completely worthless people?

  SOCRATES: Why would you talk about those people who, although they say they’re the city’s leaders and devoted to making it as good as possible, turn around and accuse it, when the time comes, of being the most wicked? Do you think they’re any different from those others? Yes, my blessed man, they are one and the same, the sophist and the orator, or nearly so and pretty similar, as I was telling Polus. But because you don’t see this, you suppose that one of them, oratory, is something wonderful, while you [b] sneer at the other. In actuality, however, sophistry is more to be admired than oratory, insofar as legislation is more admirable than the administration of justice, and gymnastics more than medicine. And I, for one, should have supposed that public speakers and sophists are the only people not in a position to charge the creature they themselves educate with being wicked to them, or else they simultaneously accuse themselves as well, by this same argument, of having entirely failed to benefit those whom they say they benefit. Isn’t this so?

  CALLICLES: Yes, it is. [c]

  SOCRATES: And if what I was saying is true, then they alone, no doubt, are in a position to offer on terms of honor the benefit they provide—without charge, as is reasonable. For somebody who had another benefit conferred on him, one who, for example, had been turned into a fast runner by a physical trainer, could perhaps deprive the man of his compensation if the trainer offered him that benefit on his honor, instead of agreeing on a fixed fee and taking his money as closely as possible to the time he [d] imparts the speed. For I don’t suppose that it’s by slowness that people act unjustly, but by injustice. Right?

  CALLICLES: Yes.

  SOCRATES: So if somebody removes that very thing, injustice, he shouldn’t have any fear of being treated unjustly. For him alone is it safe to offer this benefit on terms of honor, if it’s really true that one can make people good. Isn’t that so?

  CALLICLES: I agree.

  SOCRATES: This, then, is evidently why there’s nothing shameful in taking money for giving advice concerning other matters such as housebuilding or the other crafts.

  CALLICLES: Yes, evidently. [e]

  SOCRATES: But as for this activity, which is concerned with how a person might be as good as possible and manage his own house or his city in the best possible way, it’s considered shameful to refuse to give advice concerning it unless somebody pays you money. Right?

  CALLICLES: Yes.

  SOCRATES: For it’s clear that what accounts for this is the fact that of all the benefits this one alone makes the one who has had good done to him have the desire to do good in return, so that we think it’s a good sign of someone’s having done good by conferring this benefit that he’ll have good done to him in return, and not a good sign if he won’t. Is this how it is?

  CALLICLES: It is. [521]

  SOCRATES: Now, please describe for me precisely the type of care for the city to which you are calling me. Is it that of striving valiantly with the Athenians to make them as good as possible, like a doctor, or is it like one ready to serve them and to associate with them for their gratification? Tell me the truth, Callicles. For just as you began by speaking candidly to me, it’s only fair that you should continue speaking your mind. Tell me now, too, well and nobly.

  CALLICLES: In that case I say it’s like one ready to serve.

  [b] SOCRATES: So, noblest of men, you’re calling on me to be ready to flatter.

  CALLICLES: Yes, if you find it more pleasant not to mince words, Socrates. Because if you don’t do this—

  SOCRATES: I hope you won’t say what you’ve said many times, that anyone who wants to will put me to death. That way I, too, won’t repeat my claim that it would be a wicked man doing this to a good man. And don’t say that he’ll confiscate any of my possessions, either, so I won’t reply that when he’s done so he won’t know how to use them. Rather, just as he unjustly confiscated them from me, so, having gotten them, he’ll [c] use them unjustly too, and if unjustly, shamefully, and if shamefully, badly.

  CALLICLES: How sure you seem to me to be, Socrates, that not even one of these things will happen to you! You think that you live out of their way and that you wouldn’t be brought to court perhaps by some very corrupt and mean man.

  SOCRATES: In that case I really am a fool, Callicles, if I don’t suppose that anything might happen to anybody in this city. But I know this well: that [d] if I do come into court involved in one of those perils which you mention, the man who brings me in will be a wicked man—for no good man would bring in a man who is not a wrongdoer—and it wouldn’t be at all strange if I were to be put to death. Would you like me to tell you my reason for expecting this?

  CALLICLES: Yes, I would.

  SOCRATES: I believe that I’m one of a few Athenians—so as not to say I’m the only one, but the only one among our contemporaries—to take up the true political craft and practice the true politics. This is because the speeches I make on each occasion do not aim at gratification but at what’s [e] best. They don’t aim at what’s most pleasant. And because I’m not willing to do those clever things you recommend, I won’t know what to say in court. And the same account I applied to Polus comes back to me. For I’ll be judged the way a doctor would be judged by a jury of children if a pastry chef were to bring accusations against him. Think about what a man like that, taken captive among these people, could say in his defense, if somebody were to accuse him and say, “Children, this man has worked many great evils on you, yes, on you. He destroys the youngest among [522] you by cutting and burning them, and by slimming them down and choking them he confuses them. He gives them the most bitter potions to drink and forces hunger and thirst on them. He doesn’t feast you on a great variety of sweets the way I do!” What do you think a doctor, caught in such an evil predicament, could say? Or if he should tell them the truth and say, “Yes, children, I was doing all those things in the interest of health,” how big an uproar do you think such “judges” would make? Wouldn’t it be a loud one?

  CALLICLES: Perhaps so.

  SOCRATES: I should think so! Don’t you think he’d be at a total loss as to what he should say? [b]

  CALLICLES: Yes, he would be.

  SOCRATES: That’s the sort of thing I know would happen to me, too, if I came into court. For I won’t be able to point out any pleasures that I’ve provided for them, ones they believe to be services and benefits, while I envy neither those who provide them nor the ones for whom they’re provided. Nor will I be able to say what’s true if someone charges that I ruin younger people by confusing them or abuse older ones by speaking bitter words against them in public or private. I won’t be able to say, that is, “Yes, I say and do all these things in the interest of justice, my ‘honored [b] judges’ ”—to use that expression you people use—nor anything else. So presumably I’ll get whatever comes my way.

  CALLICLES: Do you think, Socrates, that a man in such a position in his city, a man who’s unable to protect himself, is to be admired?

  SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, as long as he has that one thing that you’ve often agreed he should have: as long as he has protected himself against having spoken or done anything unjust relating to either men or gods. For this is the self-protection that you and I often have agreed avails the [d] most. Now if someone were to refute me and prove that I am unable to provide this protection for myself or for anyone else, I would feel shame at being refuted, whether this happened in the presence of many or of a few, or just between the two of us; and if I were to be put to death for lack of this ability, I really would be upset. But if I came to my end because of a deficiency in flattering oratory, I know that you’d see me bear my death with ease. For no one who isn’t totally bereft of reason and courage [e] is afraid to die; doing what’s unjust is what he’s afraid of. For to arrive in Hades with one’s soul stuffed full of unjust actions is the ultimate of all bad things. If you like, I’m willing to give you an account show
ing that this is so.

  CALLICLES: All right, since you’ve gone through the other things, go through this, too.

  SOCRATES: Give ear then—as they put it—to a very fine account. You’ll [523] think that it’s a mere tale, I believe, although I think it’s an account, for what I’m about to say I will tell you as true. As Homer tells it, after Zeus, Posidon, and Pluto took over the sovereignty from their father, they divided it among themselves. Now there was a law concerning human beings during Cronus’ time, one that gods even now continue to observe, that when a man who has lived a just and pious life comes to his end, he goes to the Isles of the Blessed, to make his abode in complete happiness, beyond [b] the reach of evils, but when one who has lived in an unjust and godless way dies, he goes to the prison of payment and retribution, the one they call Tartarus. In Cronus’ time, and even more recently during Zeus’ tenure of sovereignty, these men faced living judges while they were still alive, who judged them on the day they were going to die. Now the cases were badly decided, so Pluto and the keepers from the Isles of the Blessed came to Zeus and told him that people were undeservingly making their [c] way in both directions. So Zeus said, “All right, I’ll put a stop to that. The cases are being badly decided at this time because those being judged are judged fully dressed. They’re being judged while they’re still alive. Many,” he said, “whose souls are wicked are dressed in handsome bodies, good stock and wealth, and when the judgment takes place they have many witnesses appear to testify that they have lived just lives. Now the judges [d] are awestruck by these things and pass judgment at a time when they themselves are fully dressed, too, having put their eyes and ears and their whole bodies up as screens in front of their souls. All these things, their own clothing and that of those being judged, have proved to be obstructive to them. What we must do first,” he said, “is to stop them from knowing their death ahead of time. Now they do have that knowledge. This is [e] something that Prometheus has already been told to put a stop to. Next, they must be judged when they’re stripped naked of all these things, for they should be judged when they’re dead. The judge, too, should be naked, and dead, and with only his soul he should study only the soul of each person immediately upon his death, when he’s isolated from all his kinsmen and has left behind on earth all that adornment, so that the judgment may be a just one. Now I, realizing this before you did, have already appointed my sons as judges, two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, [524] and one from Europe, Aeacus. After they’ve died, they’ll serve as judges in the meadow, at the three-way crossing from which the two roads go on, the one to the Isles of the Blessed and the other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus will judge the people from Asia and Aeacus those from Europe. I’ll give seniority to Minos to render final judgment if the other two are at all perplexed, so that the judgment concerning the passage of humankind may be as just as possible.”