Gorgias - Platonic Foundation

Gorgias

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persons in the dialogue: CALLICLES an Athenian politician

SOCRATES of Alopece, son of Sophroniscus

CHAEREPHON a close friend of Socrates

GORGIAS a renowned rhetorician

POLUS a rhetorician, student of Gorgias

also present: OTHERS

scene: outside a public building where Gorgias has given a display

and taken questions

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CALLICLES: Well, Socrates, you know the saying, ‘When going to war or a battle, it may be too

late to join in!’

SOCRATES: Oh! Does this mean that a banquet has ended and we are late?

CALLICLES: Yes, a very elegant banquet indeed, for Gorgias

gave us an exhibition

of great variety

and beauty a short time ago.

SOCRATES: Actually, it was all the fault of Chaerephon

here for forcing me to spend so long in the

Agora.

CHAEREPHON: It does not matter, Socrates. I shall also solve the problem. Yes, Gorgias is a friend

of mine, so he will give the exhibition for you now if you like, or some other time if you

prefer.

CALLICLES: What’s this, Chaerephon? Does Socrates want to hear Gorgias?

CHAEREPHON: That is the very reason we are here.

CALLICLES: In that case, come and visit me at my house whenever you wish. Yes, Gorgias is staying

with me, and he will give the exhibition for you.

SOCRATES: It is kind of you to offer, Callicles, but would he agree to converse with us? In fact, I want

to find out from him what power this skill of his possesses, and what it is that he proclaims and

teaches. He may present the other exhibition on some other occasion, as you suggest.

CALLICLES: There’s nothing like asking the man himself, Socrates. Actually, this was one part of

his exhibition, for a moment ago he called upon anyone who was inside to ask any question

they wished, and he said that he would answer them all.

SOCRATES: That is wonderful news! You ask him, Chaerephon.

CHAEREPHON: What should I ask?

SOCRATES: Ask him who he is.

CHAEREPHON: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: For example, if he happened to be a maker of shoes, I presume he would answer that

he is a cobbler. Do you understand what I mean?

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CHAEREPHON: I understand and I shall ask. Tell me, Gorgias, is Callicles

here speaking the truth,

that you proclaim that you will answer whatever question anyone may ask you?

GORGIAS: It is true, Chaerephon. Yes, indeed, I made that very announcement, and I can tell you

that no one has yet asked me a new question, not for many years.

CHAEREPHON: Then I expect you will find this easy to answer.

GORGIAS: Now is your chance, Chaerephon, to put that to the test.

POLUS: Come on, Chaerephon, why don’t you put me to the test instead? For I think that Gorgias

is quite tired since he has just been doing a lot of talking.

CHAEREPHON: What is this, Polus?

Do you think that you can give better answers than Gorgias?

POLUS: What difference does that make, as long as they are good enough for you?

CHAEREPHON: None. Anyway, since you want to, you should answer.

POLUS: Ask.

CHAEREPHON: My question is this. If Gorgias happened to be knowledgeable in the skill that his

brother Herodicus possesses, what would we be right to call him? The same thing we call

his brother?

POLUS: Certainly.

CHAEREPHON: So, if we called him a physician we would have described him accurately.

POLUS: Yes.

CHAEREPHON: Yes, and if he practised the skill of Aristophon, the son of Aglauphon, or his brother,

what would we be right to call him?

POLUS: Obviously a painter.

CHAEREPHON: And now, what would be the correct title to give Gorgias, in view of the skill in

which he is knowledgeable?

POLUS: Chaerephon, humanity possesses numerous skills that have been discovered in a practical

way through experience. For practicality makes our time on earth proceed on the basis of

skill, impracticality on the basis of chance. Various people partake of these particular skills

in various ways, and the best partake of the best. And Gorgias here is one of the best, and

he practises the most sublime skill of all.

SOCRATES: Gorgias, when it comes to speeches, Polus appears to have been equipped well and

truly. And yet he is not keeping the promise he made to Chaerephon.

GORGIAS: What exactly do you mean, Socrates?

SOCRATES: He appears to me not to have answered the question at all.

GORGIAS: Then you should question him, if you’d like to.

SOCRATES: If you yourself were willing to answer, I would much prefer to ask you. In fact, it is evident

to me from what Polus has said that he has studied so-called rhetoric more than dialectic.

POLUS: Why is that, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Because, Polus, when Chaerephon asked you what skill Gorgias knows about, you

praised this skill of his as if someone were criticising it, but you did not give an answer as

to what it is.

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Gorgias was a noted and influential rhetorician and sophist from Leontini in Sicily.

An exhibition was a sample lecture or set speech used to show off the skill of a sophist or professional teacher.

Chaerephon was Socrates’ close friend who famously asked the oracle at Delphi whether there was anyone wiser than

Socrates (Apology 21a). He appears in a number of Plato’s dialogues.

The commercial and civic centre of Athens, and a gathering place.

Callicles is thought to have been an Athenian political thinker, but there is no further evidence for his existence outside

of this dialogue.

Polus was from Acragas in Sicily. He was an orator and a student of Gorgias. He also appears in Plato’s Phaedrus and

Theages.

Aristophon’s brother was Polygnotus, the famous 5th-century mural and vase painter.

POLUS: Did I not answer that it is the most sublime skill?

SOCRATES: You did, indeed. But nobody asked you what Gorgias’ skill is like, but what it is and

what we should call Gorgias. Just as Chaerephon set out questions for you earlier and you

answered him clearly and concisely, so should you speak now and say what this skill is and

what we should call Gorgias. Or better yet, Gorgias, tell us yourself what you should be

called on account of your knowledge, of what skill.

GORGIAS: The skill of rhetoric, Socrates.

SOCRATES: So, you should be called a rhetorician?

GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, but I am a good one, if you are prepared to call me what, in Homer’s

phrase, ‘I boast myself to be’!

SOCRATES: I am quite prepared to do so.

GORGIAS: Then call me that.

SOCRATES: And should we say that you are able to turn other people into rhetoricians?

GORGIAS: Yes, I profess to do just that, not only here but in other places too.

SOCRATES: Now, Gorgias, would you agree to continue our conversation as we are now doing –

one person asking questions, the other answering – and defer to another occasion any

lengthy speeches such as the one with which Polus began? And be true to your promise,

but please answer each question briefly.

GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, some answers demand that long speeches be made. However, I shall try

anyway to be as brief as possible. And, indeed, what is more, one of my claims is that no

one can express himself as concisely as I on the same issues.

SOCRATES: That is what is needed, Gorgias. Just give me an exhibition of this concise form of

speech and defer the lengthy form to another occasion.

GORGIAS: That’s what I shall do, and you will say that you have heard no one speak more con-

cisely.

SOCRATES: Come on, then. You say that you are knowledgeable in the skill of rhetoric and can

make a rhetorician of someone else. With which of the things that are, is rhetoric concerned?

For instance, weaving is concerned with the manufacture of garments, isn’t it?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And isn’t music concerned with composing melodies?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: By Hera, Gorgias, I am delighted with these answers. You are answering as briefly as

you possibly could.

GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, I really think that I am doing quite well.

SOCRATES: Well said. Come now, answer me in the same way about rhetoric. About which of the

things that are, is rhetoric the knowledge?

GORGIAS: About speeches.

SOCRATES: What sort of speeches, Gorgias? Speeches that show sick people the regimen by which

they may become healthy?

GORGIAS: No.

SOCRATES: So, rhetoric is not concerned with all speeches anyway.

GORGIAS: Of course not.

SOCRATES: And yet it does make people capable of speaking.

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And to understand what they are speaking about?

GORGIAS: Inevitably.

SOCRATES: Now, does medicine, which we just mentioned, make someone capable of understanding

and speaking about those who are ill?

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GORGIAS: It must.

SOCRATES: So, medicine, it seems, is also concerned with speeches.

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Speeches concerning illnesses?

GORGIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And isn’t gymnastic also concerned with speeches about the good or bad condition of

the body?

GORGIAS: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: And, indeed, Gorgias, the same applies to the other skills. Each of them is concerned

with speeches relating to the subject matter of that particular skill.

GORGIAS: So it appears.

SOCRATES: Then why don’t you ever refer to the other skills as rhetorical, since they are concerned

with speeches, if, in fact, you call the skill that is concerned with speeches rhetoric?

GORGIAS: Because, Socrates, the other skills are almost entirely concerned with knowledge of prac-

tical dexterity and activities of that sort, whereas no aspect of rhetoric involves practical

dexterity. Rather, its action and efficacy work entirely through words. For these reasons, I

regard the skill of rhetoric as being concerned with speeches, and that, I say, is a correct

account.

SOCRATES: Now, do I really understand the sort of skill that you wish to call it? But perhaps I shall

come to know this more clearly. So, answer me this. We do possess skills, is this not so?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Well, I think that the vast majority of skills involve practical dexterity and very little

speaking, and some involve none at all because the objective of the skill may be attained

through silence, as in the case of painting and sculpting, and numerous other skills. I think

you are saying that rhetoric is not concerned with skills such as these. Is this so?

GORGIAS: You have understood my meaning very well, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And yet there is a different set of skills that operates entirely through speech, and

requires almost no action or very little. Take arithmetic for instance, or calculation, geom-

etry, or even draughts-playing, and numerous other skills. Some of these involve almost as

much speech as activity, but in many such cases, most, if not all, of their entire activity and

their efficacy is based upon words. And I think it is a skill belonging to such activities as

these that you say is rhetoric.

GORGIAS: True.

SOCRATES: But I do not think you wish to refer to any particular one of these skills as the skill of

rhetoric, even though the formulation you used implies that a skill that is effected through

words is rhetoric. Indeed, someone who wanted to contrive difficulties in these arguments

might respond, “So, Gorgias, are you saying that arithmetic is rhetoric?” But I do not think

you are saying that either arithmetic or geometry is rhetoric.

GORGIAS: Indeed, Socrates, your thinking is correct, and you rightly understand my meaning.

SOCRATES: Come on, now. You should also work through the answer to the question in the way

that I asked it. Since rhetoric happens to be one of those skills that relies for the most part

upon speech, and since there are also other skills of this sort, try to state what words the

efficacy of rhetoric is concerned with. Words about what? For instance, if someone were to

ask me about any of the skills I mentioned just now, “Socrates, what is the skill of arith-

metic?”, I would tell him, as you did just now, that it is one of the skills that is effected by

means of speech. And if he were to ask again, “Speech about what?”, I would reply that it

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Iliad vi.211 and xiv.113.

is speech about odd and even numbers, and the extent of each. And if he were to go on and

ask, “What skill do you refer to as ‘calculation’?”, I would say that it is one of the skills

that is effective entirely through speech. And if he were also to ask, “About what?”, I would

say, as the recorders in the Assembly might say, that for the most part calculation is just

like arithmetic for it is concerned with the same thing, the odd and the even. Yet they differ

insofar as calculation considers the quantity associated with the odd and the even, both in

relation to themselves and in relation to one another. And if someone asked about astronomy

because I said that it is effective entirely through speech, and said, “What are the pronounce-

ments of astronomy concerned with?”, I would reply that they deal with the motion of the

stars and sun and moon, and their speed relative to one another.

GORGIAS: Well, you are right to say all that anyway, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Then you should try this too, Gorgias. Rhetoric is one of those skills that operates and

is effective through speech. Is this so?

GORGIAS: That’s what it is.

SOCRATES: Can you explain what it is concerned with? Among things that are, what is it that the

particular words employed by rhetoric are concerned with?

GORGIAS: With the most important and sublime of human affairs, Socrates.

SOCRATES: But, Gorgias, this too is ambiguous, and you are still not saying anything that is clear.

In fact, I am sure you have heard the round that men sing at parties in which they make a

list in song, according to which it is best to be healthy, second best to be beautiful, and third

best, according to the composer of the song, is to be wealthy by honest means.

GORGIAS: Yes, I have heard this, but why are you referring to it?

SOCRATES: What if artificers of whatever is praised by the composer of the song were to stand

before you right now? I mean a physician, a trainer, a businessman. First the physician

would say, “Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you. This skill of his is not concerned with the

most important good of humankind. Mine is.” Now, if I were to ask him, “Who are you to

say so?” he would probably say that he is a physician. “What do you mean?” I would say.

“Is the product of your skill the most important good?” “Of course it is,” he would probably

reply. “Socrates, the product of my skill is health, and what good is more important to

humanity than health?”

And if the trainer spoke next and said, “I too would be surprised, Socrates, if Gorgias

was able to show you that there is a greater good in this skill of his than I could show in

mine,” I would in turn ask him, “Who are you, my man, and what is your job?” And he

would reply, “I am a trainer and my job is to make men’s bodies strong and fair.” After the

trainer, the businessman would say, I imagine, with total contempt for everyone else, “Think

about this, Socrates. Does any good seem more important to you than wealth, whether it

belongs to Gorgias or anyone else at all?” We might then say, “Oh! Are you the artificer of

this?” and he would say, “Yes.” “Who are you?” we would ask. “A businessman.” And we

shall say, “Well then, do you regard wealth as the greatest good for us humans?” “Of course

it is,” he will say. And we would reply, “And yet Gorgias here is arguing that the skill he

possesses is the cause of greater good than yours.” Of course, he would then ask, “And

what is this good? Put that question to Gorgias.” So come on, Gorgias, you should regard

yourself as being questioned by these people and by me. Tell me what it is that you describe

as the greatest good to humanity, a good of which you are the artificer.

GORGIAS: What it is in truth, Socrates, is a great good, and the cause on the one hand of freedom

for humanity itself, and at the same time of dominion over others, for each person in his

own city.

SOCRATES: And what do you call this good?

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GORGIAS: I call it the ability to persuade by means of speeches, to persuade jurors in a law court,

councillors in the Council, assembly men in the Assembly, or anyone else at a gathering

convened for political purposes. In fact, in virtue of this power, the physician will be your

slave and the trainer will be your slave, and this businessman will turn out to be making

money for someone else and not for himself – for you, actually, the man with the power to

speak and persuade crowds of people.

SOCRATES: I think you have now come as close as possible to showing what you consider rhetoric

to be. And if I understand at all, you are asserting that rhetoric is an artificer of persuasion,

and its entire function and summation consists in this. Or can you say that rhetoric is able

to do anything more than produce persuasion in the soul of those who hear it?

GORGIAS: Not at all, Socrates. I think you are defining it quite adequately. Yes, that is the summation

of rhetoric.

SOCRATES: Listen, Gorgias. You need to appreciate something. I am convinced that if anyone ever

converses with anyone else with the intention of understanding precisely what it is that the

discussion is concerned with, I am one of those people, and I count you among them too.

GORGIAS: What point are you making, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I shall tell you now. You need to be fully aware that when you speak of this persuasion

produced by rhetoric, I do not know what exactly it is, or what sort of issues it relates to.

And yet I do have my suspicions somehow, based upon what I think you are saying it is,

and what it relates to. Nevertheless, I shall ask you what precisely you mean by the persua-

sion produced by rhetoric, and what subjects it relates to. Now, since I have my suspicions,

why do I proceed to ask you rather than telling you myself? Well, it is not for your sake,

but for the sake of the argument, so that it may proceed in this way to render the issue we

are discussing as evident to us as possible. You should consider whether you regard my

questioning as justified. For instance, suppose I were to ask you what sort of painter Zeuxis

is,

and you were to reply that he painted animals, wouldn’t I be justified in asking what

sort of animals he paints, and where?

GORGIAS: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: And is the reason that there are other painters who paint numerous other animals?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But if no one else besides Zeuxis did any painting, would your response have been ade-

quate?

GORGIAS: Of course.

SOCRATES: Come on then, and speak about rhetoric. Do you think that rhetoric alone produces per-

suasion, or do other skills do this too? I mean, does anyone who teaches any subject what-

soever engage in persuasion or not?

GORGIAS: He does, of course. He is more persuasive than anyone else.

SOCRATES: Let us talk again about the same skills we referred to a moment ago. Doesn’t arithmetic,

and the person who is arithmetical, teach us whatever relates to number?

GORGIAS: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: And doesn’t he also persuade?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, arithmetic is also an artificer of persuasion?

GORGIAS: So it appears.

SOCRATES: Therefore, if someone asks us what kind of persuasion it is, and what it relates to, I

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Zeuxis was an accomplished painter from Heraclea in the south of modern-day Italy. He was especially known for his

facility in reproducing nature.

presume we would answer him that it is instructive persuasion concerning the extent of the

even and the odd. And for all of the other skills we mentioned just now, we shall be able to

show that they are artificers of persuasion, what sort it is, and what it relates to. Is this so?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, rhetoric is not the sole artificer of persuasion.

GORGIAS: That’s true.

SOCRATES: Then since it is not the only skill that performs this function, but others do so too, we

would be justified in questioning once more anyone who asserts this, just as we put a further

question in relation to painting. Of what kind of persuasion is rhetoric a skill, and concerning

what? Or don’t you think it is right to ask this question once more?

GORGIAS: I do.

SOCRATES: Well, Gorgias, since that is what you think, you should answer the question.

GORGIAS: Socrates, I am referring to the sort of persuasion that occurs in courts of law and in other

gatherings, as I said earlier, and it concerns matters that are just and unjust.

SOCRATES: Yes, Gorgias, and I suspected that this was the sort of persuasion you meant, and that

this was its concern. But I do not want you to be surprised if I ask you another question like

this quite soon, the sort of question that seems obvious but which I repeat in any case. For,

as I say, I am not asking for your sake but for the sake of the completion of the argument,

so that we do not get into the habit of snatching at one another’s pronouncements through

guesswork. Instead, you should come to your own conclusions in whatever manner you

wish on the basis of the hypothesis.

GORGIAS: Yes, I think that’s the right way to do it, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Come on then, and let us consider this. Do you use the expression ‘to have learned’?

GORGIAS: I use it.

SOCRATES: And ‘to have believed’?

GORGIAS: I do.

SOCRATES: Now, do you think ‘to have learned’ and ‘to have believed’, and ‘learning’ and ‘belief’

are the same or different?

GORGIAS: In my view anyway, Socrates, they are different.

SOCRATES: Yes, you are right to think so and you may confirm it as follows. For if someone were

to ask you, “Gorgias, is there true belief and false belief?” you would agree, I presume.

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: What about this? Is there true and false knowledge?

GORGIAS: Not at all.

SOCRATES: So it is obvious that they are not the same.

GORGIAS: What you say is true.

SOCRATES: And yet those who have learned have been persuaded, and so have those who believe.

GORGIAS: This is so.

SOCRATES: So, do you want us to posit two forms of persuasion, one furnishing belief without

knowing, and the other furnishing knowledge?

GORGIAS: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: In that case, which persuasion does rhetoric produce in law courts and other gatherings

in relation to matters of justice and injustice? Is it the sort from which believing arises with-

out the knowing, or the sort from which the knowing arises?

GORGIAS: It is obvious, surely, that it is the sort from which believing arises.

SOCRATES: So, rhetoric is, it seems, the articifer of belief-based rather than instructive persuasion

about the just and the unjust.

GORGIAS: Yes.

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SOCRATES: So, the rhetorician is not instructive towards law courts and the other gatherings with

regard to matters of justice and injustice, he is merely persuasive. For, of course, he would

not be able to instruct a gathering of that sort in a limited time on such important matters.

GORGIAS: Of course not.

SOCRATES: Come on then, let us look at what precisely we are saying about rhetoric. For I myself

am unable to understand, as yet, what I am saying. Whenever there is a meeting in the city

about the selection of physicians or shipbuilders, or some other category of artificers, that

is not the occasion when the rhetorician will give advice, is it? For it is evident that in each

of these selections, the most skilled person should be selected. Nor do they advise us when

the subject is the construction of walls or the fitting out of harbours and dockyards. No, the

architects advise us then. Again, when there is deliberation about the selection of generals

or our formation against our enemies or the capture of territories, it is military men who

give advice then, and not the rhetoricians. Or how would you describe deliberations of this

kind, Gorgias? Indeed, since you say that you are yourself a rhetorician and can make

rhetoricians of others, it would be worthwhile to find out about the details of this skill from

you. And you should regard me too as someone who is concerned for your interests, for

there may be someone inside who wishes to become a pupil of yours. I notice some, quite

a number actually, and they would probably be embarrassed to question you. So, when you

are being questioned by me, regard yourself as being questioned by them too: “What will

be ours, Gorgias, if we consort with you? On what affairs of the city shall we be enabled to

advise? Is it only about what is just and unjust, or also about the topics Socrates mentioned

a moment ago?” Now, try to respond to them.

GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I shall try to reveal the entire power of rhetoric to you in a clear manner.

You led the way very nicely yourself. For you know, of course, that those dockyards and

the walls of Athens and the fitting out of the harbours owe their origin to the advice of

Themistocles, and the others to the advice of Pericles, but not to the advice of artificers.

SOCRATES: Yes, Gorgias, that is what they say about Themistocles, and I heard Pericles myself

when he advised us about the Middle Wall.

GORGIAS: And whenever there is a decision of the kind you mentioned just now, you see that the

rhetoricians are those who give advice and whose opinions prevail on these matters.

SOCRATES: Yes, these are the issues I wonder about, and for some time I have been asking what

precisely the power of rhetoric is. For when I consider it in this way, its greatness appears

to me as something supernatural.

GORGIAS: If only you knew all of it, Socrates, that it somehow incorporates all of the powers within

itself! I’ll give you strong evidence for this. On many occasions, I have gone along with

my brother and with the other physicians to someone who was ill but was unwilling to swallow

the medicine or submit to cutting or burning at the physician’s hands. Now, the physicians

were unable to persuade him, but I persuaded him by means of no other skill than rhetoric.

And I also assert that if the physician and the rhetorician went to any city you care to name,

and it was necessary to have a verbal contest in the Assembly, or some other meeting, as to

which of them should be chosen as physician, the physician would not feature at all, but

the one with the power to speak would be chosen, if he so wished. And if he were to compete

against any other artificer whatsoever, the rhetorician would persuade people to choose

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Themistocles and Pericles were important Athenian statesmen. The Themistoclean walls included both city walls and

walls around the port of Piraeus. The later Periclean ‘Long Walls’ linked Athens with her port.

The Middle Wall was built in 444-442 to enclose the military road from Athens to the Piraeus, and ran parallel to the

north Long Wall.

himself rather than anyone else at all. For there is no issue on which the rhetorician could

not speak more persuasively at a gathering than any other artificer. Now then, such is the

power of this skill, and such is its extent.

However, Socrates, one should make use of rhetoric just as one uses any other com-

petitive skill. And, indeed, no other competitive skill is learned in order to be used against

the entire human race. Because one learns boxing and fighting, and fighting in full armour

so as to be superior to friends and to enemies, one does not, on that account, strike one’s

friends or stab them or kill them. Nor, by Zeus, if someone has frequented a gymnasium,

gets his body into good shape, becomes a skilled boxer, and then punches his father or

mother or some family members or friends, should we, on that account, hate the trainers or

the teachers of armour-fighting, and expel them from our cities? No, those men imparted

the skill to others to be used in a just manner against enemies and miscreants, defensively,

not on their own initiative. But the pupils pervert it and use their strength and skill in an

improper manner.

Therefore, those who teach it are not corrupt, nor, on this account, is the skill either

blameworthy or corrupt. No, I think the fault lies with those who do not use it properly.

Now, the same argument also applies to rhetoric. The rhetorician has the power to oppose

everyone and to speak on every topic, and so he is more persuasive before large gatherings

on any issue he chooses, almost anything at all. However, he need not, on that account, be

any more inclined to take away the reputation of physicians or other artificers just because

he has the power to do so. Instead, as with any other competitive skill, he needs to use rhet-

oric justly. But in my view, if someone who has become a rhetorician acts unjustly by means

of this power and this skill, we should not hate the person who taught him, and expel him

from our cities. For that man imparted the knowledge to be used justly, but the pupil used

it in the opposite way. So, it is right to hate the one who used it improperly, and exile him

or kill him, but not the one who taught him.

SOCRATES: I imagine, Gorgias, that you, like me, have experience of a whole range of speeches,

and that you have observed something about them – that the speakers are not easily capable

of mutually defining the issues they are trying to discuss, and of learning and teaching them-

selves, and concluding their meeting upon that basis. Instead, when they dispute over some-

thing, and one says that the other is not speaking correctly or clearly, they become angry

and they believe that the other is speaking from resentment towards them, from a thirst for

victory, rather than pursuing the issue in front of them for discussion. And some of them

end up behaving most disgracefully, engaging in slander, and saying and hearing such things

as make even their audience angry on their own account, because they deemed such fellows

worth listening to.

Well, why am I saying this? It is because I think that what you are now saying is

neither entirely consistent nor consonant with what you first said about rhetoric. Yet I am

afraid to refute you in case you assume that I am out for victory and my words are aimed

at you rather than the issue and its elucidation. Now, if you are the sort of person that I am,

I would gladly continue to question you, but otherwise I shall have done with it.

What sort of person am I? I am one of those who would gladly be refuted if I say

anything untrue, and would gladly engage in refutation if someone else were to say some-

thing untrue, and yet I am no less averse to being refuted than to engaging in refutation.

Indeed, I think that being refuted is a greater good insofar as it is a greater good to be

released oneself from the greatest evil, rather than releasing someone else. For I believe

that nothing is so evil for a person as a false opinion on the issues with which our present

discussion is concerned. So, if you claim to be someone of this sort, let us have a discussion,

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but if you think we should have done with it, let us bid the issue farewell now, and bring

our discussion to an end.

GORGIAS: No, Socrates, I say that I myself am the sort of person you have described. However, we

should probably take our audience into consideration too. Yes, I should tell you that a while

ago, before you arrived, I gave numerous exhibitions to these people, and we are now likely

to prolong this unduly if we engage in discussion. So, we should also consider their cir-

cumstances in case we are detaining some of them who wish to do something else.

CHAEREPHON: Socrates and Gorgias, listen for yourselves to the commotion from these men, who

wish to hear anything you have to say. As for myself, I pray that I never become so busy

that I would set aside such discussions as these, conducted in this manner, because it became

more important to do something else.

CALLICLES: Yes, by the gods, Chaerephon, I myself have been present at many discussions over

the years, but I don’t know if I have ever before been so delighted as I am now. Accordingly,

if you wish to converse for the whole day, you will be doing me a favour anyway.

SOCRATES: And, indeed, Callicles, there is no impediment on my part as long as Gorgias is will-

ing.

GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, after all that it would be a disgrace for me to prove unwilling, since I

was the one who announced that anyone could ask whatever they wanted. So, if this is how

these people see it, proceed with the discussion and ask any question you want.

SOCRATES: Then listen, Gorgias, to what surprised me in the statements that you made. Indeed, it

is possible that what you say is correct, and I am not understanding you correctly. Do you

say that you can make someone a rhetorician, if he wishes to learn from you?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: So that he may be persuasive before a crowd, not teaching them but persuading them?

GORGIAS: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: And you also said just now that even on health matters, the rhetorician will be more

persuasive than the physician.

GORGIAS: Yes I did, before a crowd anyway.

SOCRATES: Does not ‘before a crowd’ mean ‘before those who do not know’? For surely before

those who know he would not be more persuasive than the physician.

GORGIAS: What you say is true.

SOCRATES: And since he will be more persuasive than the physician, he turns out to be more per-

suasive than the one who knows.

GORGIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Although he is not a physician. Is this so?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But the non-physician is, of course, not knowledgeable on matters of which the physi-

cian is knowledgeable.

GORGIAS: Obviously.

SOCRATES: So, whenever the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, the person who

does not know will be more persuasive than the person who knows, before those who do

not know. Does this follow or does it not?

GORGIAS: It follows from what went before, anyway.

SOCRATES: Therefore, in relation to all the other skills, the position of the rhetorician or rhetoric is

the same. It does not need to know anything about the actual details since it has discovered

some means of persuasion by which, before those who do not know, it appears to know

more than those who know.

GORGIAS: Well, doesn’t it make things much easier, Socrates, when, without having learned the

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other skills but just this one skill, you are no worse off than the other artificers?

SOCRATES: We shall investigate presently whether or not the rhetorician is worse off than the others

under such circumstances, if that is relevant to our discussion. But there is something we

should consider first. When it comes to just and unjust, base and noble, good and bad, is

the situation of the rhetorician the same as it was in the case of health, and the various con-

cerns of the other skills? Without knowing what is good and bad, base and noble, just and

unjust, could he bring about persuasion in relation to these so that, before those who do not

know, he seems to know more than those who actually know, even though he doesn’t know?

Or is it necessary to know these, and should the person who intends to learn rhetoric know

these things before he arrives in front of you? And if not, will you, the teacher of rhetoric,

decline to teach these subjects to the new arrival since it is not your job? And instead,

although he does not know such matters, will you make him seem to know before the mul-

titude, and seem to be good when he is not? Or will you be unable to teach him rhetoric at

all if he does not know the truth about these matters in advance? What is the situation here,

Gorgias? And by Zeus, as you said you would do earlier, please reveal rhetoric and state

what precisely its power is.

GORGIAS: Well, I believe, Socrates, that if he happens not to know, then he will learn these matters

from me too.

SOCRATES: Hold there! Yes, that is well expressed. If you are to make a rhetorician of someone, it

is necessary for him either to know the just and the unjust beforehand, or learn these sub-

sequently from you.

GORGIAS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: What about this? Someone who has learned carpentry is a carpenter, is he not?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And is not someone who has learned music a musician?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And is someone who has learned medicine a physician? And does the same argument

apply to the other subjects? Whoever learns any of them is, in each case, the sort of person

that the knowledge makes him.

GORGIAS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: Therefore, according to this argument, the person who has learned justice is just?

GORGIAS: Entirely, of course.

SOCRATES: And presumably the just man performs just actions?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Therefore, it is necessary that the rhetorician be just, and that the just man wishes to

perform just actions.

GORGIAS: So it appears anyway.

SOCRATES: So, the just man will never wish to act unjustly.

GORGIAS: Necessarily.

SOCRATES: And according to the argument it is necessary that the rhetorician be just.

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, the rhetorician will never wish to act unjustly.

GORGIAS: It appears not anyway.

SOCRATES: Now, do you remember saying a little earlier that we should not blame the trainers or

expel them from our cities if a trained boxer makes use of his boxing skill to act unjustly?

And on the same basis, that if the rhetorician uses rhetoric unjustly, we should not blame

the instructor or drive him out of our cities, but we should blame the one who acted unjustly

and did not use rhetoric correctly? Is that what was said or is it not?

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GORGIAS: That’s what was said.

SOCRATES: But now it turns out that the same person, the rhetorician, would not ever act unjustly.

Is this not so?

GORGIAS: Apparently.

SOCRATES: And in our initial discussion it was said that rhetoric was concerned with speeches, not

about number, odd and even, but about the just and the unjust. Is this so?

GORGIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: What is more, at the time you were saying all this, I understood that rhetoric would

never be an unjust activity, since the speeches it makes are always about justice. But later

on, when you said that the rhetorician could also use rhetoric unjustly, I was amazed at this,

and being of the view that your statements were not concordant, I made those pronounce-

ments, that if you were of the view, as I am, that there is an advantage in being refuted, it

would be worthwhile to carry on a discussion, but if not, we should bid farewell to the mat-

ter. But of late, as we continue our investigation, you see for yourself that we are in agree-

ment once more, that the rhetorician is unable to use rhetoric unjustly or to desire to act

unjustly. So, Gorgias, by the dog,

we shall need considerable time together to investigate

precisely how matters stand here.

POLUS: What’s this, Socrates? Do you really believe what you are now saying about rhetoric? Or

do you imagine that because Gorgias was ashamed not to agree with you about the man

who studies rhetoric knowing the just and noble and good, and even if he were to frequent

Gorgias without knowing these, he would teach him. Perhaps it was from this concession

that a contradiction then showed up in his propositions, something that delights you as you

draw people into questions of this sort. Yes, do you believe that anyone would totally deny

that he himself knew about justice and would teach this to others? No, it is very crude of

you to lead the discussions in such directions.

SOCRATES: Please, most noble Polus, this surely is why we acquire companions and sons, so that

when we ourselves get older and stumble, you younger men are there to put our lives right

once more, both in word and in deed. And now, if Gorgias and I have made some stumble

in our discussions, here you are to put us right. It is your duty, and if it seems to you that

anything that has been agreed has not been agreed fairly, then I am willing to retract what-

ever you wish, if you would just watch out for one thing for my sake.

POLUS: What are you referring to?

SOCRATES: That you restrain the lengthy manner of speaking that you tried to use earlier, Polus.

POLUS: What’s this? Shall I not be allowed to say just as much as I want to?

SOCRATES: Best of men, you would surely be in an outrageous predicament if, having arrived in

Athens, where there is more freedom of speech than anywhere else in Greece, you were

the only person there who did not attain it. But look at it the other way. If you speak at

length and are not willing to answer what you are asked, would not my predicament be

even more outrageous if I was not allowed to leave and stop listening to you? Rather, if

anything in the discussion that has just taken place bothers you and you wish to put it right,

then, as I said just now, retract whatever you wish, take your turn in questioning and being

questioned, just like myself and Gorgias, and practise refuting and being refuted. Now, I

presume you also claim to know the same things as Gorgias. Is this so?

POLUS: I do indeed.

SOCRATES: In that case, do you also frequently call upon people to ask you any question they want,

on the basis that you are knowledgeable in answering?

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–––––

A light-hearted oath alluding to the Egyptian dog-headed god, Anubis.

POLUS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: So, you should now do whichever of these you prefer, ask or answer.

POLUS: That’s what I’ll do then, and you should answer me, Socrates. Since Gorgias seems to you

to be in perplexity in relation to rhetoric, what do you say that it is?

SOCRATES: Are you asking me what kind of skill I say that it is?

POLUS: I am.

SOCRATES: Since I should speak the truth to you, Polus, it seems to me anyway that it is not a skill

at all.

POLUS: Then what do you think rhetoric is?

SOCRATES: An activity which you claim to have made into a skill in your treatise, which I have

recently read.

POLUS: What activity do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean a practice.

POLUS: So, does rhetoric seem to you to be a practice?

SOCRATES: To me it does, unless you can suggest an alternative.

POLUS: Practice of what?

SOCRATES: A practice of bringing about some gratification and pleasure.

POLUS: Don’t you think rhetoric is noble since it is able to gratify people?

SOCRATES: What is this, Polus? Have you already found out from me what I assert that rhetoric is?

Is that why you are asking the subsequent question about whether I think it is noble?

POLUS: Well, didn’t I find out that you say it is a practice?

SOCRATES: Well, since you have such respect for gratification, are you prepared to gratify me, just

a little?

POLUS: I am indeed.

SOCRATES: Ask me now what skill I think cookery is.

POLUS: I am asking you then. What skill is cookery?

SOCRATES: It is not a skill, Polus.

POLUS: I am saying so.

SOCRATES: It is a practice.

POLUS: I am saying so.

SOCRATES: Of bringing about gratification and pleasure, Polus.

POLUS: So, is cookery the same thing as rhetoric?

SOCRATES: Not at all, but it is a part of the same pursuit.

POLUS: What pursuit do you mean?

SOCRATES: It may sound somewhat crude if I speak the truth. Indeed, I am reluctant to speak on

Gorgias’ account in case he thinks I am mocking his own pursuit. Now, what I call rhetoric

is part of an activity that is not the fairest of activities, but I do not know if this is the rhetoric

that Gorgias engages in, for earlier on nothing clear emerged from our discussion as to what

precisely this man believes.

GORGIAS: Say what it is, Socrates. Don’t be ashamed on my account.

SOCRATES: Well then, it seems to me, Gorgias, to be a pursuit devoid of skill, and yet it belongs to

an intuitive soul that is also courageous and naturally clever in dealing with humanity. And,

in summary, I call this flattery. Now, I do think that there are many other parts of this pursuit,

but one of them is indeed cookery, which actually seems to be a skill but, according to my

account, it is not a skill, but practice and habit. I also refer to rhetoric as part of this, as are

beautification and sophistry – four parts associated with four activities. Now, if Polus wishes

to enquire, he should enquire, although he has not yet enquired as to what sort of part of

flattery I assert that rhetoric is. No, he has not noticed that I have not yet answered that

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636 | GORGIAS – 462b–463c

question, so he proceeds to ask if I regard it as noble. But I shall not answer him as to

whether I regard rhetoric as noble or base until I have first answered what it is. No, that

would not be right, Polus. But if you really do wish to engage in enquiry ask me what sort

of part of flattery I say that rhetoric is.

POLUS: That’s my question, then. So tell me what sort of part it is.

SOCRATES: Now, will you understand my answer? Rhetoric, according to my account, is an image

of part of politics.

POLUS: What else? Are you saying that it is noble or base?

SOCRATES: Base, in my view anyway, for I refer to what is bad as base, since I must respond to

you as if you have already understood what I mean.

GORGIAS: By Zeus, Socrates, I don’t understand what you mean either.

SOCRATES: Gorgias, it is quite likely that I am not making my meaning clear, but Polus here is

young and impetuous.

GORGIAS: Just leave him be and tell me what you mean by saying that rhetoric is an image of part

of politics.

SOCRATES: Then I shall try to state what rhetoric appears – to me anyway – to be. And if it happens

not to be what I say it is, Polus here will refute me. I presume there is something you call

body and something you call soul?

GORGIAS: How could there not be?

SOCRATES: In that case, do you also think that there is some good condition of each of these?

GORGIAS: I do indeed.

SOCRATES: What about this? Can they seem to be in good condition when they are not? I am refer-

ring to a situation such as the following. Many people seem to have their bodies in good

condition, and it is not easy for anyone to discern that they are not in good condition, but

the physician and any physical trainer can do so.

GORGIAS: What you say is true.

SOCRATES: I am referring to the sort of thing, present in body and in soul, which makes body and

soul seem to be in good condition, when, in fact, they possess no more than that seeming.

GORGIAS: There are such things.

SOCRATES: Come on now, and if I can I will give you a clearer demonstration of what I mean.

Since there are two activities, I am saying there are two skills. One is directed to the soul

and I call it politics, but the single skill directed to the body I cannot name for you off-

hand. Yet, I am saying that care of the body is one, though it has two parts – gymnastic

and medicine. And in the field of politics, the legislative part corresponds to gymnastic,

while justice is the counterpart of medicine. Now, each of these does indeed have some-

thing in common, one with the other – medicine with gymnastic, and justice with law-

making – inasmuch as they are associated with the same thing, and yet they are somewhat

different from one another. So, there are these four, and they always aim for the best in

caring for what belongs to the body, on the one hand, and what belongs to the soul, on the

other. Now, flattery notices this. I do not mean that she knows, but she guesses. She divides

herself into four, adopts the guise of each of the four, and pretends to be the one whose

guise she adopts. Then, devoid of any understanding of what is best, she uses the pleasure

of the moment to hunt instead for folly, and she practises deception so as to seem to be of

the utmost value. So cookery, having adopted the guise of medicine, also pretends to know

what foods are best for the body so that if the cook and the physician had to contest the

matter before children, or before men who were just as silly as children, as to whether the

physician or the cook had more expertise about wholesome or harmful foods, the physi-

cian would die of starvation. Now, this is what I call flattery, and I say that something of

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this sort is base because it guesses at pleasure regardless of what is best, Polus, and that is

my reply to you. But I say that it is not a skill, but a practice, because it does not possess

any rational account of the nature of what it applies to, or of what those things are applied

to, so that it is unable to express the cause of each. And I do not call an activity devoid of

an account a skill. Yet, if you wish to contest these assertions, I am prepared to defend the

argument.

Now, cookery is the flattery that hides behind medicine, while in the very same way

beautification hides behind gymnastic, and in this sense it is a bad influence, deceptive,

ignoble and slavish. It practises deception through shaping, colouring, smoothing and

dressing-up in such a way as to make an alien beauty intrude, to the neglect of the native

beauty brought about by means of gymnastic. Now, to avoid being long-winded, I wish to

talk to you as the geometers do, for at this stage you are probably following me. What

beautification is to gymnastic, so is cookery to medicine; and, more to the point, what

beautification is to gymnastic so is sophistry to law-making; and what cookery is to med-

icine so is rhetoric to justice. Well, as I say, on this basis they are distinct by nature, yet

insofar as they are closely related, sophists and rhetoricians become confounded into same-

ness,

concerned also with the same issues, and they themselves do not know how to make

use of themselves, nor does the rest of humanity know how to use them. And, indeed, if

the soul did not rule over the body but the body ruled over itself, and cookery and medicine

were not contemplated by means of soul and distinguished from one another, but the body

itself were to decide using its own delectation as the measure, the sameness of Anaxagoras

would take over, my dear Polus. Indeed, you are familiar with his sayings. Everything

would be confounded into sameness, and medicine, health and cookery would be indis-

tinguishable.

So, now you have heard what I say that rhetoric is: the counterpart in the soul of

cookery, doing in the soul what cookery does in the body. And yet, I have surely done some-

thing unusual, because, whilst not allowing you to deliver lengthy speeches, I myself have

delivered an extremely protracted one. However, I do deserve forgiveness, for when I spoke

briefly you did not understand, nor were you able to make use of the answer I gave you;

rather, you required further elaboration. And, indeed, if I am unable to make use of your

answers when you respond to me, you should protract your speech too, but if I can use

them, allow me to use them. That is only fair. And now, if you are able to make any use of

this answer, use it.

POLUS: What’s your point then? Do you think that rhetoric is flattery?

SOCRATES: I said, in fact, that it is part of flattery. Can you not remember at your age, Polus? What

will happen to you in later life?

POLUS: And do the good rhetoricians seem to you to be held in low regard in the cities because

they are flatterers?

SOCRATES: Is this a question, or are you starting to deliver a speech?

POLUS: I am just asking.

SOCRATES: In my view, anyway, they are not regarded at all.

POLUS: How could they not be regarded? Don’t they exercise enormous power in our cities?

SOCRATES: Not if you mean that the exercise of power is something good for the powerful person.

POLUS: But of course I mean that.

SOCRATES: Then it seems to me that the rhetoricians exercise less power than anyone else in the city.

POLUS: But why? Aren’t they just like tyrants? Don’t they kill anyone they wish, confiscate prop-

erty, and expel from the cities whoever seems to them to deserve it?

SOCRATES: By the dog, Polus, I am in two minds on each of the points you are making. Do you

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yourself mean this, and are you expressing your own opinion or are you asking me a

question?

POLUS: Yes, I am asking you a question.

SOCRATES: So be it, my friend. In that case, are you asking me two questions at once?

POLUS: In what way are there two?

SOCRATES: Did you not just say something of this sort: “Can’t the rhetoricians kill anyone they

wish, just like tyrants, confiscate property, and expel from the cities whoever seems to them

to deserve it?”

POLUS: I did, indeed.

SOCRATES: Then, I am saying that there are two questions here, and I shall give you an answer in

relation to both. Indeed, I assert, Polus, that both the rhetoricians and the tyrants exercise

the least power in the cities, as I said a moment ago. For, in a sense, they do nothing they

wish. Instead, they do whatever seems to them to be best.

POLUS: Isn’t that the exercise of enormous power?

SOCRATES: Not according to Polus anyway.

POLUS: Am I denying this? No, I am asserting this.

SOCRATES: By the... No, you are not, since you assert that the exercise of enormous power is a

good to the powerful person.

POLUS: Yes, that’s what I assert.

SOCRATES: Well, do you think it is good if someone who does not possess intelligence does what-

ever seems to him to be the best? And do you refer to this as the exercise of enormous

power?

POLUS: I do not.

SOCRATES: In that case, once you have refuted me, will you demonstrate that the rhetoricians pos-

sess intelligence, and rhetoric is a skill and not flattery? And if you leave me unrefuted, the

rhetoricians, who do whatever seems best to them in the cities, and the tyrants will have

acquired nothing good thereby. But, according to you, the power is good. Yet you also agree

that doing what seems best without intelligence is bad, do you not?

POLUS: I do.

SOCRATES: So, how could rhetoricians exercise enormous power in the cities, or tyrants either,

unless they really are doing what they wish, and Socrates is thus refuted by Polus?

POLUS: This man!

SOCRATES: I deny that they are doing what they wish. Now refute me!

POLUS: Didn’t you just agree that they do what seems best to them?

SOCRATES: And I still agree now.

POLUS: In that case, don’t they do what they wish?

SOCRATES: That I deny.

POLUS: Are they doing what seems best to them?

SOCRATES: That’s what I am saying.

POLUS: What you are saying is shocking, Socrates, extremely so.

SOCRATES: Do not make accusations, precious Polus, if I may address you in your own manner.

Rather, question me if you are able to and prove that I am speaking falsely. Otherwise you

should respond to me.

POLUS: Then I’m willing to respond so that I actually understand what you are saying.

SOCRATES: Well, what do you think people wish for, the action they are performing at the time or

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–––––

Anaxagoras was a natural philosopher from Clazomenae Ionia who lived a generation before Socrates. The opening

line of his book, describing the initial state of the universe, was “All things are from the same.”

that for the sake of which they perform the action they are performing? Take, for instance,

those who drink medicine at the behest of the physicians. Do you think they wish for the

action they are performing – drinking the medicine and suffering its effects – or is it for

something else, for the healthy condition, that for the sake of which they drink it?

POLUS: Obviously it is the healthy condition.

SOCRATES: And in the case of those who undertake sea voyages or engage in other money-making

activities, it is not the activity that they wish for, the one they are performing at the time,

for who wishes to be at sea, running risks and enduring hardship? No, I think they travel by

sea for the sake of something else, to be wealthy, for they take to the sea for the sake of

wealth.

POLUS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: So, does not the same go for all other actions? If anyone does anything for the sake of

something, he does not wish for the action he is performing, but for that for the sake of

which he performs the action.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Now. among things that are, is not everything either good or bad, or in between these

two, neither good nor bad?

POLUS: This simply must be so, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Would you not say that wisdom, health and wealth and the like are good, while the

opposites of these are bad?

POLUS: I would indeed.

SOCRATES: And do you say that the things that are neither good nor bad are those which sometimes

partake of the good and sometimes of the bad and sometimes of neither, like sitting, walking,

running and sailing, or indeed stones and wood and anything else of that sort? Are you not

referring to these? Or do you refer to some other things as neither good nor bad?

POLUS: No, just these.

SOCRATES: Now, which is it? Whenever people perform actions, do they perform those in-between

actions for the sake of whatever is good, or the good actions for the sake of the in-between?

POLUS: The in-between for the sake of the good, of course.

SOCRATES: So, whenever we walk, we walk in pursuit of the good, thinking it better to do so. And

in the opposite case we stand, when we do stand, for the same reason, for the sake of the

good. Is this not so?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Therefore, too, if we kill someone, do we not kill them, or banish them or confiscate

their property, thinking that it is better for us to do so rather than not do so?

POLUS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: So, those who do all of these things do them for the sake of the good.

POLUS: I agree.

SOCRATES: Have we agreed, then, that whenever we perform actions for the sake of something

else, we do not wish for those activities, but for that for the sake of which we do them?

POLUS: Very much so.

SOCRATES: So, we do not wish to butcher people or expel them from our cities or confiscate their

property just like that. But when these actions are beneficial we wish to perform them, and

when they are harmful we do not wish to do so. For we wish for whatever is good, as you

say, but we do not wish for what is neither good nor bad, or what is bad, do we? Do you

think what I am saying is true or not, Polus? Why do you not answer?

POLUS: True.

SOCRATES: Therefore, since we are agreed on all this, if anyone, either a tyrant or a rhetorician,

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kills someone or banishes them from the city or confiscates their possessions, thinking that

it is better for himself and it happens to be worse, this man is obviously doing whatever

seems best to him. Is this so?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Now, is he also doing what he wishes, if these actions happen to be bad for him? Why

do you not answer?

POLUS: Well, I don’t think that he is doing what he wishes.

SOCRATES: So, is there any sense in which such a person is exercising enormous power in that city,

since, as you agreed, the exercise of enormous power is something good?

POLUS: There is not.

SOCRATES: Then, I spoke the truth when I said that it is possible for a man who is doing what seems

best to him in a city not to be exercising enormous power or doing what he wishes.

POLUS: Yes, Socrates, as if you would not welcome the opportunity of doing whatever seems best

to you in the city, given the choice, nor would you envy someone whom you saw killing

whoever seemed to him to deserve it, or confiscating his property or putting people in chains.

SOCRATES: Do you mean justly or unjustly?

POLUS: Whatever he does, isn’t it enviable in either case?

SOCRATES: Mind what you say, Polus.

POLUS: Why so?

SOCRATES: Because the unenviable must not be envied, nor should the wretched. In fact, they should

be pitied.

POLUS: What’s this? Do you think that the men I am referring to are in that situation?

SOCRATES: How could they not be?

POLUS: Well, do you think someone is wretched and pitiable when he has killed someone who

seems to him to deserve it and the killing is just?

SOCRATES: I do not think so, but he is not enviable either.

POLUS: Didn’t you say just now that he is wretched?

SOCRATES: That was the person who did the killing unjustly, and he is pitiable as well. But the one

who does it justly is unenviable.

POLUS: Surely it is the person who has been unjustly killed who is pitiable and wretched.

SOCRATES: Less than the person who killed him, Polus, and less than someone who is justly killed.

POLUS: How can that be, Socrates?

SOCRATES: On the basis that doing injustice happens to be the greatest of evils.

POLUS: Is it the greatest? Isn’t it a greater evil to suffer injustice?

SOCRATES: Not in the least.

POLUS: So, would you prefer to suffer injustice rather than do injustice?

SOCRATES: I myself would prefer neither. But if it were necessary either to do injustice or to suffer

injustice, I would choose to suffer injustice rather than do injustice.

POLUS: So, you would not welcome being a tyrant?

SOCRATES: Not if you mean what I mean by being a tyrant anyway.

POLUS: Well, I mean what I said already, being able to do whatever seems best to you in the city –

killing, banishing, and doing everything based upon your own opinion.

SOCRATES: Bless you. Then think about what I am going to say. Suppose I were in a crowded mar-

ket-place carrying a dagger under my arm, and I said to you, “Polus, I have just been granted

a wonderful and tyrannical power. Yes, if it should seem to me that one of these men whom

you see deserves to die right now, the man I think should die shall die. And if it should seem

to me that one of them should have his head smashed, smashed it will be there and then.

And if his cloak should be torn, torn it will be, so great is the power I shall exercise in this

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city.” Now, if you did not believe me and I were to show you the dagger, you would prob-

ably look at it and say, “Socrates, anyone at all could exercise great power in this manner

since, based on this approach, you could also burn down any house you thought you should,

and the dockyards of Athens, triremes included, and all the ships, public as well as private.”

But this is not really the exercise of great power, doing what seems best to you. Or do you

think it is?

POLUS: Of course not, not when it’s done in this way anyway.

SOCRATES: Now, can you say why you deprecate power of this sort?

POLUS: I can.

SOCRATES: Why so? Tell me.

POLUS: Because it is necessary for the person who behaves in this way to undergo punishment.

SOCRATES: And is it not bad to undergo punishment?

POLUS: Very much so.

SOCRATES: In that case, my wonderful friend, once again you are of the view that, provided acting

as seems best to you corresponds to acting beneficially, it is good, and this seemingly is the

possession of great power. But, if not, it is bad and is insignificant power. But let us also

consider this. Do we not agree that it is sometimes good to do the deeds we mentioned, to

kill and to banish people and confiscate their property, and sometimes it is not?

POLUS: Very much so.

SOCRATES: Then this point, it seems, is agreed by you and by me.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, when do you say it is better to do these deeds? Tell me what distinction you make.

POLUS: You should answer that question, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Well, Polus, if it is more pleasant for you to hear this from me, I say that whenever any-

one does these deeds justly, it is better. Whenever anyone does them unjustly, it is worse.

POLUS: Oh! You are so hard to refute, Socrates! Couldn’t a mere child refute you and show you

are not speaking the truth?

SOCRATES: Then I shall be very grateful to the child, and equally so to you if you happen to refute

me and rid me of folly. So do not tire of doing good deeds for a man who is your friend.

Refute me.

POLUS: Well then, Socrates, there is no need to refer to ancient deeds in order to refute you. Indeed,

recent and not so recent events are enough to refute you and show that many people who

act unjustly are happy.

SOCRATES: What sort of events?

POLUS: You see, don’t you, that this Archelaus fellow, the son of Perdiccas, is ruling Macedonia?

SOCRATES: Not really, but I have heard this.

POLUS: Well, do you think he is happy or is he wretched?

SOCRATES: I do not know, Polus, for I have not yet been in the man’s company.

POLUS: What’s this? You would know if you were in his company, but otherwise you do not simply

recognise that he is happy?

SOCRATES: By Zeus, of course I do not.

POLUS: Then, Socrates, it is obvious that you will say that you do not recognise that even the Great

King is happy.

SOCRATES: And I shall be speaking the truth, for I do not know how he stands with regard to justice

and education.

POLUS: Come now, is all happiness contained in this?

SOCRATES: That is what I say anyway, Polus. For I assert that the noble and good men and women

are happy, while the unjust and degenerate are wretched.

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POLUS: So by your account, this Archelaus fellow is wretched?

SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he is unjust.

POLUS: But how could he not be unjust? None of the authority he now exercises belonged to him,

as he was born of a woman who was a slave of Alcetas, the brother of Perdiccas, so, by

right, he was a slave of Alcetas. And if he had wished to enact what is just, he would have

acted as a slave to Alcetas and would have been happy, according to your account. But now,

wonder of wonders, he has become wretched, since he has perpetrated enormous injustices.

Anyway, he first sent for this man, his own master and uncle, on the pretext of restoring

the authority that Perdiccas had taken from him. Once he had entertained Alcetas, he got

him drunk along with his son Alexander – Archelaus’ own cousin of almost the same age –

threw them into a wagon, led them away by night, slit their throats, and they were never

seen again. Having perpetrated these injustices, he failed to notice that he had become utterly

wretched, and he did not mend his ways. No, a little later he showed no wish to become

happy by rearing his own seven-year-old brother, the legitimate son of Perdiccas, in a just

manner and bestowing the throne upon him, to whom it devolved by right. Instead, he threw

him into a well and drowned him, and told the boy’s mother, Cleopatra, that he had fallen

in and died whilst running after a goose. And of course, since he has behaved more unjustly

than anyone in Macedonia, he is the most wretched of all the Macedonians, and not the

happiest. And perhaps there is some Athenian, who, following your example, would prefer

to be any other Macedonian rather than Archelaus.

SOCRATES: Indeed, Polus, at the beginning of these discussions I praised you because I thought

you had been well educated in rhetoric but had neglected dialectic. And now, is this the

argument by which a child could refute me? And do you think I have been refuted by you,

by means of this argument, I who assert that those who act unjustly are not happy? Where

is the refutation, good man? On the contrary, I do not agree with anything you are saying.

POLUS: You actually don’t want to, yet you are thinking what I am saying.

SOCRATES: Bless you! You are trying to refute me in a rhetorical manner, just like those who believe

they are engaging in refutation in courts of law. Yes, indeed, in those places, one party seems

to refute another once they bring forward many well-regarded witnesses in support of the

speeches they deliver, while the opposing speaker furnishes only one or none. But this refu-

tation is of no value with regard to truth. For on occasion, anyone may be subject to false

testimony from numerous witnesses who are held in some regard. And now, with few excep-

tions, all Athenians and strangers alike will say the same things you say, should you wish

to bring witnesses against me to say I am not speaking the truth. They will testify for you

if you wish: Nicias, the son of Niceratus, and his brothers too, whose tripods stand in a row

in the Sanctuary of Dionysus; Aristocrates, the son of Skellias, whose beautiful statue stands

in the Pythian precinct, if you wish; the entire household of Pericles too, or any other family

you wish to select from among this company.

But I, being one, do not agree with you for

you do not compel me. Instead, you furnish many false witnesses against me in your efforts

to divorce me from my property, the truth. But if I do not produce you yourself as one wit-

ness who agrees with what I am saying, then I think I have achieved nothing worth men-

tioning in relation to the subjects of our discussion. And neither have you, unless I, one

solitary person, bear witness for you, and you bid all those others farewell.

Now, this is the particular manner of refutation which you and many others accept.

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–––––

The Great King traditionally referred to the King of the Persian Empire.

Socrates mentions three Athenian political leaders – Nicias, an old-fashioned conservative, Aristocrates, an oligarch,

and Pericles, a democrat.

Yet there is another, which I, for my part, believe in.

So, let us place them side by side and find out if there is any difference between

them. What is more, the issues over which we are disputing are not completely trivial.

No, to have knowledge of these matters is almost the fairest acquisition of all, and to lack

this knowledge is utterly base, for at the heart of all this is knowing or being ignorant, of

who is happy and who is not. First, there is the immediate issue under discussion at the

moment. You think it is possible for a man to be blessed although he is unjust and acting

unjustly, since you think that Archelaus is unjust and yet happy. May we regard this as

your viewpoint?

POLUS: Very much so.

SOCRATES: But I say this is impossible. That is one issue we are disputing. So be it. He will be

happy although he is acting unjustly, but what if he meets with justice and punishment?

POLUS: He’s least happy, since he would be utterly wretched under those circumstances.

SOCRATES: But if the person acting unjustly does not meet with justice, then, according to your

account, he will be happy.

POLUS: I agree.

SOCRATES: But in my view, Polus, the one who is unjust and acting unjustly is utterly wretched

anyway. However, he is more wretched if he does not pay a penalty and does not receive

punishment as a wrongdoer. But he is less wretched if he does pay a penalty and meets with

justice at the hands of gods and men.

POLUS: Yo u are trying to express some strange notions, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And I shall also try anyway to make you, my colleague, say the same things to me, for I

regard you as a friend. Well then, these are the issues on which we now differ, and you should

consider these. Did I not say a while ago that doing injustice is worse than suffering it?

POLUS: You certainly did.

SOCRATES: But you said suffering injustice is worse.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And I said that those who act unjustly are wretched, and I was refuted by you.

POLUS: Yes, by Zeus.

SOCRATES: So you think, Polus.

POLUS: What I think is true.

SOCRATES: Perhaps, and you say anyway that those who act unjustly are happy, provided they do

not pay a penalty.

POLUS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: And I say these people are utterly wretched, but those who pay a penalty are less so.

Would you also like to refute this?

POLUS: Oh, Socrates, this is even more difficult to refute than the other.

SOCRATES: Not at all, Polus, it is impossible! For the truth is never refuted.

POLUS: What are you saying? If a man is caught engaging in unjust action, striving to become a

tyrant, and is put on the rack, castrated, has his eyes burned out, and is subjected to a host

of other outrageous abuses, sees his own children and wife abused too, and is finally impaled

and tarred, will this fellow be happier than if he had evaded this, set himself up as a tyrant,

and spent his life ruling the city, doing as he wished, envied and accounted happy by citizens

and strangers alike? Are you saying that all this is impossible to refute?

SOCRATES: Now, you are telling horror stories, noble Polus, and a moment ago you were calling

witnesses, but you are not engaging in refutation. But in any case, remind me of one detail.

Did you say he was striving unjustly to become a tyrant?

POLUS: I did.

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SOCRATES: Then neither of them will ever be happier, neither the one who manages to become a

tyrant by unjust means nor the one who pays a penalty, for of two wretches, neither would

be happier. However, the one who evades justice and becomes a tyrant is more wretched.

What is this Polus? Are you laughing? Is this yet another form of refutation – to laugh at

someone when they say something, but not refute them?

POLUS: Do you think you haven’t been refuted, Socrates, when you are saying things the like of

which no man at all would assert? Ask anyone here!

SOCRATES: Oh, Polus, I am not one of your politicians. And last year I was allotted membership of

the Council,

but when my tribe

had the Presidency

and I had to cast my vote, I became

a figure of fun as I was unable to cast it. So, do not call upon me now to take the votes of

the people here. Rather, if you do not have a better refutation than these, then, as I said a

moment ago, let me have my turn and try out the kind of refutation that I deem necessary.

For I know how to furnish just one witness of what I am saying, the person with whom

my conversation takes place, but I bid the multitudes farewell. And I know how to take the

vote from one, and I do not even engage in discussions with multitudes. Now, let us see if

you are prepared, in turn, to provide an opportunity for refutation by answering whatever

you are asked. Indeed, I am of the view that both you and I, and all these other men, hold

that doing injustice is worse than suffering injustice, and not paying a penalty is worse than

paying it.

POLUS: I, for one, don’t think that I or any other man at all holds this view. So, would you accept

the infliction of injustice in preference to acting unjustly?

SOCRATES: Yes. You would too, and so would everyone else.

POLUS: Far from it. No. I wouldn’t, you wouldn’t, and neither would anyone else.

SOCRATES: In that case, will you respond?

POLUS: Yes, certainly. In fact, I am eager to know what precisely you are going to say.

SOCRATES: Then, Polus, so that you may know, tell me, as if I were questioning you from the begin-

ning, which seems worse to you, doing injustice or suffering injustice?

POLUS: Suffering injustice, in my view anyway.

SOCRATES: But what about this? Which is the more base, doing injustice or suffering injustice?

Answer.

POLUS: Doing injustice.

SOCRATES: In that case, it is also worse if, in fact, it is more base.

POLUS: Not in the least.

SOCRATES: I understand. It seems you do not think that noble and good, bad and base are the same.

POLUS: Of course not.

SOCRATES: What about the following? In the case of anything noble, such as bodies, colours, shapes,

sounds and activities, do you refer to each of them as noble without looking to something

else? Firstly, for instance, do you not say that noble bodies are noble either on the basis of

their use, what each is useful for, or on the basis of some pleasure, if the beholding engen-

ders delight in the beholders? Have you anything besides this to say about the nobility of

the body?

POLUS: I have not.

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–––––

The Council consisted of 500 citizens from each of the ten tribes, chosen by lot to serve for one year. Its chief function

was to prepare legislation for the Assembly.

The Athenian citizen body was divided into ten tribes which were united politically, militarily and socially, and repre-

sented the three regions of Attica – the coast, the plains and the hills.

Each tribe served in rotation on the Executive Committee of the Council. A member was chosen daily by lot to be the

president or chairman.

SOCRATES: Does not the same apply to all the others, and do you not refer to shapes and colours as

noble because of some pleasure or benefit or both?

POLUS: I do indeed.

SOCRATES: Do you not also refer similarly to sounds and all elements associated with music?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And, indeed, in the case of the laws or any activities, these presumably are not noble

because of anything apart from being beneficial or pleasant or both.

POLUS: I don’t think so anyway.

SOCRATES: Does not the same apply to the nobility of whatever we learn?

POLUS: Yes, certainly. And you are defining this nicely now, Socrates, defining the noble in terms

of pleasure and goodness.

SOCRATES: Do we not define the base in terms of the opposite, in terms of pain and by badness?

POLUS: Necessarily.

SOCRATES: So, whenever there are two fair things and one is more noble than the other, it is more

noble by exceeding in one or both of these factors, in pleasure or in benefit or in both.

POLUS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: But when the two are base, and one is more base, it will be more base by exceeding

either in pain or in badness. Must not this be so?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Come then! What was said just now about doing injustice and suffering injustice? Did

you not say that suffering injustice is more bad, and doing injustice is more base?

POLUS: I said so.

SOCRATES: Therefore, if, in fact, doing injustice is more base than suffering injustice, it is either

more painful and would be more base by exceeding it in pain or in badness, or in both. Is

this not also necessarily so?

POLUS: How could it not be so?

SOCRATES:

Then let us consider this first. Does the perpetration of injustice exceed the suffering

of injustice in pain, and are those who act unjustly more pained than those who suffer

injustice?

POLUS: Not at all, Socrates. It is not this.

SOCRATES: So, it does not exceed it in pain anyway.

POLUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Therefore, if it does not exceed it in pain, it would not exceed it in both.

POLUS: Apparently not.

SOCRATES: In that case only the other factor remains.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: The badness.

POLUS: So it seems.

SOCRATES: Therefore, doing injustice would be worse than suffering injustice because it exceeds

it in badness.

POLUS: Yes, that is obvious.

SOCRATES: Do not most men agree, and did you not agree with me a while ago, that doing injustice

is more base than suffering injustice?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: But now it turns out to be more bad.

POLUS: So it seems.

SOCRATES: Well, would you accept the more base and bad in preference to what is less so? Do

not be reluctant to answer, Polus, for no harm will come to you. Just surrender nobly to

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the argument as though it were a physician. Answer, and either affirm or deny whatever I

ask you.

POLUS: No, I would not accept that, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Would any other man?

POLUS: I do not think so, not on the basis of this argument anyway.

SOCRATES: So, I was speaking the truth. Neither I, nor you, nor any other man, would accept the

perpetration of injustice rather than suffer injustice, for it happens to be more bad.

POLUS: So it appears.

SOCRATES: Now, you see, Polus, that when one mode of refutation is set alongside the other, there

is no resemblance between them. Although everyone else agrees with you except me, you

are sufficient for me, one solitary person who agrees with me and testifies for me, and I am

taking the vote from you alone and bidding the others farewell. And let that be our conclusion

on this matter. Let us go on now and consider the second issue we were disputing about:

whether, as you believe, the greatest evil for someone acting unjustly is to pay a penalty or,

as I believe, the greater evil is not to pay a penalty. Let us look at it this way. Do you refer

to paying a penalty and being justly disciplined for acting unjustly as the same thing?

POLUS: I do.

SOCRATES: Now, can you deny that everything that is just is fair, insofar as it is just? Think carefully

before you answer.

POLUS: I don’t think I can deny this, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Then consider this too. If someone does something, must there also be something that

suffers at the hands of that doer?

POLUS: I think so.

SOCRATES: And does it experience what the doer enacts, and in the manner that the doer enacts it?

I mean, for instance, that if someone is striking, something must be struck.

POLUS: It must.

SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes forcibly or quickly, is whatever is struck, struck in like manner?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, is the experience of whatever is struck akin to what the striker does?

POLUS: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: Also, in the case in which someone burns, is it necessary that something be burned?

POLUS: How could it be otherwise?

SOCRATES: And if he burns intensely or painfully, is whatever is burned, burned in the manner in

which the burner burns?

POLUS: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: And in the case in which someone cuts, does the same argument apply?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if the cut is large or deep or painful, is whatever is cut, cut with the sort of cut that

the cutter inflicts?

POLUS: Apparently.

SOCRATES: Now, see if you agree with the concise statement I made earlier: in all circumstances,

the sort of thing the doer does is the sort of thing the sufferer suffers.

POLUS: Yes, I agree.

SOCRATES: Well, based upon what we have agreed, is paying a penalty something that is suffered

or something that is done?

POLUS: It must be something that is suffered, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Therefore, it is being done by someone.

POLUS: How could it not be? By the one who disciplines him.

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SOCRATES: And does he who disciplines rightly discipline justly?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Is he performing just actions or is he not?

POLUS: The actions are just.

SOCRATES: Therefore, is it the case that the one who is disciplined and pays a penalty suffers just

actions?

POLUS: Apparently.

SOCRATES: And it is agreed, I presume, that just actions are noble.

POLUS: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: So, one of these people performs what is noble, and the other, the one who is disciplined,

experiences this.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Therefore, since they are noble, are they good? For noble actions are either pleasant or

beneficial.

POLUS: Necessarily.

SOCRATES: So, the person who pays a penalty experiences what is good?

POLUS: So it seems.

SOCRATES: So, he is benefited?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Is the benefit what I presume it to be? That his soul becomes better, if, in fact, he is

justly disciplined.

POLUS: Quite likely.

SOCRATES: So, is a person who pays a penalty released from badness of soul?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: In that case, is he released from the very worst badness? Think about this. When it

comes to the state of a man’s property, can you envisage any badness besides poverty?

POLUS: No, only poverty.

SOCRATES: What about the condition of the body? Would you say that the badness is illness, disease,

uncomeliness and the like?

POLUS: I would.

SOCRATES: Do you not think that there is also some vice in the soul?

POLUS: How could there not be?

SOCRATES: Do you not refer to this as injustice, ignorance, cowardice, and the like?

POLUS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: Since there are wealth, body and soul, these three, you have mentioned three vices,

poverty, disease and injustice.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Which of these vices is the most base? Is it not injustice, in short, the vice of the soul?

POLUS: Very much so.

SOCRATES: If it is indeed the most base, is it also the worst?

POLUS: What do you mean, Socrates?

SOCRATES: This. On the basis of what was agreed earlier, the base is always base either because it

produces the greatest pain or harm, or both.

POLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And did we just agree that what is most base is injustice and all vice of the soul?

POLUS: Yes, we agreed.

SOCRATES: Therefore, it is either the most distressing, and is the most base of these, because it

exceeds in distress or in harm, or in both.

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POLUS: Necessarily.

SOCRATES: Now, are injustice and indiscipline, cowardice and ignorance, more painful than being

poor or being ill?

POLUS: I don’t think so, not from these arguments anyway.

SOCRATES: Now, since by your account at least, the vice of the soul does not exceed the others in

pain, it is the most base of them all because it exceeds them extraordinarily in some great

harm and astounding badness.

POLUS: Apparently.

SOCRATES: However, I presume that whatever exceeds to the greatest extent in harm would be the

greatest badness that there is.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: In that case, is injustice, indiscipline and the general vice of the soul the greatest badness

that there is?

POLUS: Apparently.

SOCRATES: Which skill frees one from poverty? Is it not the skill of money-making?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: What frees us from disease? Is it not medical skill?

POLUS: Necessarily.

SOCRATES: And what frees us from vice and injustice? In case you have no ready answer, consider

this. Where and to whom do we bring people whose bodies are ill?

POLUS: To the physicians, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Where do we bring those who act unjustly or without discipline?

POLUS: To the judges. Is that what you mean?

SOCRATES: So, that they may pay a penalty?

POLUS: I agree.

SOCRATES: Now, do not the people who discipline them aright do so by recourse to some justice?

POLUS: Obviously.

SOCRATES: So, wealth-generation frees us from poverty, medical skill from disease, and justice

from indiscipline and injustice.

POLUS: Apparently.

SOCRATES: Then which of these is the noblest?

POLUS: Of what?

SOCRATES: Of money-making, medical skill and justice.

POLUS: Justice excels by far, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Furthermore, if, in fact, it is noblest, does it not produce the greatest pleasure or benefit

or both?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Now, is medical treatment pleasant, and are those who undergo medical treatment

pleased?

POLUS: I do not think so.

SOCRATES: But it is beneficial anyway. Is this so?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: For it brings release from enormous badness, and so it is advantageous to endure the

distress and become healthy.

POLUS: How could it not be?

SOCRATES: Now, on this basis, with regard to the body, would the happiest man be the one who

has undergone medical treatment, or the one who was not even ill in the first place?

POLUS: Obviously the one who was not even ill.

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SOCRATES: Then it seems that happiness is not the release from badness, but not acquiring it in the

first place.

POLUS: This is so.

SOCRATES: What about this? If there are two people possessed of badness, either in body or in soul,

which of the two is more wretched, the one who undergoes treatment and is released from

the badness, or the one who does not undergo treatment and still has it?

POLUS: The one who is not treated. So it appears to me.

SOCRATES: Was paying a penalty not a release from the greatest badness, namely vice?

POLUS: It was.

SOCRATES: For justice, I suppose, makes one sound-minded and more just, and is a cure for evil.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, the happiest person is the one who is possessed of no badness in soul, since this has

turned out to be the worst badness of all.

POLUS: Yes, of course.

SOCRATES: Second happiest is, presumably, the person who is released from badness.

POLUS: So it seems.

SOCRATES: And this is the fellow who is chastised, rebuked, and has paid a penalty.

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, the fellow who retains his badness and is not released from it lives the worst life.

POLUS: Apparently.

SOCRATES: And is this not, in fact, the fellow who perpetrates the greatest injustices, and, despite

using unjust means, arranges neither to be chastened nor disciplined nor to pay a penalty,

just as you say Archelaus and other tyrants, rhetoricians and men of power contrive?

POLUS: So it seems.

SOCRATES: Indeed, best of men, in a sense these fellows have almost arranged to be in the same

predicament as someone afflicted with serious illnesses who contrives not to pay a penalty

to the physicians for the aberrations of the body, or to undergo treatment, fearing the burning

and the cutting, just like a child, because it is painful. Or does it not seem like that to you

too?

POLUS: It does.

SOCRATES: It seems they are somehow unaware of what health and excellence of body are like.

For based upon what we have just concluded, these men who are evading justice, Polus,

are also in danger of doing something similar: of clearly discerning the pain thereof but

having a blind spot towards its benefit, and of being unaware of how much more wretched

it is to live with a soul that is not healthy, a soul that is unsound, unjust and impious. Hence,

they do anything so as neither to pay a penalty nor be released from this great badness, pro-

viding themselves with possessions and friends and the ability to speak as persuasively as

possible. But if what we have agreed is true, Polus, can you see the consequences of the

argument? Would you like me to sum them up?

POLUS: Unless you have something else to suggest.

SOCRATES: Well, does it follow that injustice, and acting unjustly, is the greatest badness?

POLUS: So it appears anyway.

SOCRATES: And did the release from this badness turn out to be the payment of a penalty?

POLUS: It was probable.

SOCRATES: And is the non-payment a continuation of the badness?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, the second greatest badness is the perpetration of injustice, but the foremost and

greatest badness of all is, by nature, doing injustice without paying a penalty.

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POLUS: So it seems.

SOCRATES: Now, is this not, my friend, what we disagreed about: you, for your part, regarding

Archelaus as happy, though he perpetrated enormous injustices without paying a penalty;

and I, for my part, holding the opposite view, that if either Archelaus or any other person

does not pay a penalty when he acts unjustly, he is inevitably wretched, more so than any

other person, and that the perpetrator of injustice is always more wretched than the sufferer,

and the one who pays no penalty is more wretched than he who pays one? Are these not the

assertions I made?

POLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Has it not been shown that what was asserted is true?

POLUS: Apparently.

SOCRATES: So be it. Now, if this is all true, Polus, what is the great advantage of rhetoric? In fact,

on the basis of what is now agreed, a man should be particularly vigilant of himself in case

he might act unjustly and get his fill of badness. Is this so?

POLUS: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: But if either he or someone else for whom he cares acts unjustly, he will go willingly

to wherever he may pay a penalty as quickly as possible, going to a judge just as he would

to a physician, hastening lest the disease of injustice be protracted and make the soul fester

and become incurable. Or how should we express this, Polus, if what we previously agreed

still stands? Must not these assertions, expressed in this way but not otherwise, be in agree-

ment with the earlier ones?

POLUS: Well then, Socrates, what should we say?

SOCRATES: So, rhetoric is not useful to us at all, Polus, in the defence of our own injustice, or that

of our parents or companions or children or fatherland, except if it is deployed for the oppo-

site purpose – to prosecute oneself in particular, as one must, and, indeed, any other kinfolk

or loved ones when they happen to act unjustly, not in order to conceal this, but to bring the

unjust action to light in order that a penalty is paid and health is restored; to compel both

himself and the others to show no cowardice, but to submit with closed eyes, worthily and

courageously, as if he were being cut or burned by a physician; intent upon the good and

the noble, taking no account of the pain; submitting to flogging, if his unjust deeds merit

flogging; to imprisonment, if they merit imprisonment; paying the fine, if a fine is imposed;

going into exile, if exile is deserved; and submitting to death, if execution is deserved; he

himself being the chief accuser of himself, and of his other kinfolk, and making use of rhet-

oric for this purpose, so that with their unjust deeds fully exposed, they may be released

from the greatest of evils, injustice. Should we formulate it like this, or should we not,

Polus?

POLUS: It seems absurd to me, Socrates. However, to you it probably seems to be in line with what

we said before.

SOCRATES: Then we must either dispense with the former statements as well, or these latter ones

necessarily follow.

POLUS: Yes, that’s how matters stand.

SOCRATES: What is more, turning to the opposite case, if it proves necessary to act badly towards

someone, be he an enemy or anyone else, then as long as you yourself are not being treated

unjustly by that enemy – you do need to be careful about this – and the enemy treats some-

one else unjustly, one must contrive by every means, in word and in deed, that he pay no

penalty and is not brought before a judge. But if he is brought, one must arrange that the

enemy is acquitted and does not pay a penalty; and if he has stolen a lot of gold, that he

does not repay this but holds on to it and spends it unjustly and godlessly on himself and

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GORGIAS – 479e–481a | 651

his own people; and if he is deserving of death for his unjust actions, arrange that he does

not suffer death – yea, that this never happens – so that he becomes immortal as an evildoer,

and if not, that he lives for as long as possible in such a plight. It seems to me, Polus, that

rhetoric is useful for such purposes, seeing that its usefulness to those with no intention of

acting unjustly is insignificant, if indeed it has any use at all, since in the previous discussion

it appeared not to be useful at all.

CALLICLES: Tell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates serious about all this or is he playing games?

CHAEREPHON: He seems to me, Callicles, to be exceedingly serious. However, there is nothing like

asking the man himself.

CALLICLES: By the gods, I am eager to ask. Tell me, Socrates, should we presume that you are now

being serious or joking? For if you are serious, and these pronouncements you are making

happen to be true, won’t the life of every human being be turned upside-down? And won’t

we all, so it seems, be doing the complete opposite of what we should?

SOCRATES: Callicles, if people did not have some experience that was the same, some sharing one

experience, others sharing another, but instead one of us underwent a unique experience

different from everyone else, it would not be easy for him to describe his own experience

to another. And I speak from a recognition that you and I happen to have gone through the

same experience. We are two lovers, each with two loves. My two are Alcibiades, the son

of Clinias,

and philosophy. Yours are the Athenian demos and Demos, the son of

Pyrilampes.

Clever and all as you are, I notice that you constantly change your stance

back and forth because you are unable to contradict what your favourite asserts, and what

he declares to be the case. In the Assembly, when you are saying something and the Athenian

populace deny that this is the case, you change your stance and propose whatever they wish.

And also with this fair youth, the son of Pyrilampes, you are affected in a similar fashion,

for you are unable to oppose the formulations and assertions of your favourite. And so, if

anyone were ever surprised at what you say when you speak under those influences, because

the assertions are so absurd, if you wanted to speak the truth you would probably tell him

that unless someone stops your favourite from making those pronouncements, you will

never stop uttering them either. Therefore, you should realise that it is also necessary to

hear more statements of this sort from me, and you should not be surprised that I make

them. Rather, you must stop philosophy, my favourite, from saying what she says.

For she is constantly stating what you are now hearing from me, my dear friend, and

she is much less impulsive with me than my other favourite, for the words of this son of

Clinias change from one moment to the next, while the words of philosophy are always the

same. She is saying what now surprises you, although you were also present yourself as it

was spoken. So, as I just said, you should either refute her by proving that doing injustice

and acting unjustly without paying a penalty is not the most extreme badness that there is,

or else, if you leave this statement unrefuted, by the dog, the god of Egypt,

Callicles,

Callicles will not be in agreement with you. Instead he will be in discord throughout his

entire life. And yet, best of men, I, for my part, think it better that my lyre be out of tune

and discordant, so too the chorus that I provide, and that most of humanity disagree with

me and speak against me, rather than that I, being one, should be discordant with and speak

against myself.

CALLICLES: Socrates, it seems to me that you are out of control in your arguments, like a true mob

orator. Yes, you are making these appeals to the mob, now that Polus has met the very same

fate that he accused Gorgias of meeting at your hands. Indeed, he pointed out, I believe that

when you asked Gorgias whether Gorgias himself would teach justice to someone who

came to him, wishing to learn rhetoric but without any knowledge of justice, the man was

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ashamed and said he would teach him only on account of human convention, because people

would be indignant if he said otherwise. Of course, due to this concession, he himself was

forced to speak against himself, the very thing you delight in. And he ridiculed you at the

time – rightly so in my view – but now he himself, in turn, has suffered the same fate. And

I am not much pleased with Polus on this particular issue, because he conceded to you that

doing injustice is more base than suffering injustice. For out of this concession, he, for his

part, got tangled up in the discussion at your hands and was reduced to silence, ashamed to

say what he was thinking. Yes, Socrates, whilst claiming to be pursuing the truth, you are

really diverting us into banalities and populisms, propositions that are not sound by nature,

but only by convention. Yet, in general, these two, nature and convention, are opposed to

one another. Therefore, if anyone is ashamed and does not dare to say what he thinks, he is

compelled to utter contradictions. And of course, having recognised this piece of wisdom,

you wreak havoc in the discussions, asking surreptitiously about the natural whenever some-

one mentions the conventional, and about the conventional when they refer to the natural.

It happened just now in the references to doing injustice and suffering injustice. When Polus

referred to what is base according to convention, you pursued the argument according to

nature. For by nature, everything that is more base, such as suffering injustice, is also more

bad, whereas by convention, doing injustice is more base. Indeed, this predicament of suf-

fering injustice does not belong to a man, but to some slave, for whom it is better to die

than to live, someone who, on suffering injustice or being mistreated, is unable to defend

himself or anyone else he cares for. But in my view, those who set down the laws are the

weak people, the multitude. They institute the laws with a view to themselves and their own

advantage, and they praise what they praise and censure what they censure. To intimidate

the stronger people who have the power to get more than their share, and to ensure they

don’t get more than the multitude, they say that getting more than your share is base and

unjust, and that seeking to have more than others constitutes unjust activity. For I believe

that they themselves, being lesser men, would be delighted with an equal share. Of course,

that’s why they say that this ‘seeking to have more than the multitude’ is, by law, unjust

and base, and they refer to it as unjust action. And yet I believe that nature itself testifies to

this: that it is just for the superior men to have more than the inferior men, and for the more

powerful to exceed the less powerful. And it is evident in many cases that this is so, both

among animals in general, and in the cities and dynasties of men. What is just is decided in

this way: the stronger rule over the weaker and have more than them.

To what conception of justice did Xerxes

have recourse when he waged war against

Greece, or his father against the Scythians? And we could describe countless other instances

of this sort. Yet I believe these people are acting in accord with the nature of the just. Yes,

by Zeus, in accord with the law of nature anyway, though probably not in accord with the

one we institute, moulding the superior and stronger men among us. Capturing them when

they are young, as though they were lions, we reduce them to slaves with enchantments

and beguilements, declaring that equality is what is needed, and that’s what’s fair and just.

And yet, if a man whose nature is up to the task were to arise, having shrugged off all this,

broken it asunder and fled, trampled upon our traditions, aphorisms, verses, and all laws

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–––––

Alcibiades was a prominent and controversial Athenian statesman, orator and general. He was a close associate of

Socrates, and two dialogues that bear his name have been attributed to Plato. He also features prominently towards the

end of Plato’s Symposium, where he describes his relationship with Socrates.

The Athenian demos refers to the populace of Athens. Demos also happens to be the name of Callicles’ beloved.

This is a light-hearted euphemistic oath alluding to the dog-headed god, Anubis.

Xerxes, the son of Darius, was King of the Persian (Achaemenid) Empire.

that are opposed to nature, that slave would prove to be our master, and the justice of nature

would blaze forth. And it seems to me that Pindar makes the point I am making in the ode

in which he says that

Law the lord of all,

of mortals and immortals both...

and then he says, it

conducts extreme violence

with a high hand and renders it just.

My proof lies in the deeds of Heracles,

When, without payment...

It says something of that sort, for I don’t know the ode. But it does say that he drove off the

cattle of Geryon

without payment and without permission, because by nature that’s what

is just. Both the oxen and all the other possessions of the lesser and the weaker belong to

the superior and the stronger.

Now, that is the truth of the matter, and you will recognise this once you have bidden

farewell to philosophy and moved on to greater things. Yes, philosophy is indeed a delight

if it is taken up in due measure at the right age, but if a man continues its practise for longer

than necessary, it can ruin people. For even if he has great natural endowments, but engages

in philosophy beyond the right age, a man must perforce remain inexperienced in all matters

where experience is needed, by anyone who intends to be a noble, good man who is well

thought of. In fact, he is rendered inexperienced in the laws governing the city and the lan-

guage one must use to engage in the business dealings of men, be they public or private, in

the pleasures and desires of humanity, and, in short, he becomes completely inexperienced

in the ways of the world. So, once they take to any private or political business they become

laughing stocks, just as the men of politics would, I presume, become laughable too if they

in turn were to take up this activity of yours and its arguments. And this confirms the state-

ment of Euripides that ‘each person shines in this and is eager for this’,

Assigning the greater part of the day to this

Where he himself excels...

But he shuns and reviles the activity in which he is inferior, and he praises the other one

out of good will towards himself, believing that he himself is praising himself by doing so,

but in my view it is best to have a share of both. Insofar as philosophy is educational, it is

good to partake thereof, and it is no disgrace for a young man to engage in philosophy.

However, if he still engages in philosophy as an older man, he becomes a comical character,

Socrates, and I myself have exactly the same feeling towards the philosophers as I do

towards people who mumble or behave childishly. For when I see a little child mumbling

and being immature, it is still appropriate for him to converse in this manner, so I am pleased

and it seems delightful to me, free-spirited and suited to the age of the child. However,

when I hear a young child expressing himself articulately, this seems distasteful to me. It

offends my ears, and I regard it as more appropriate for a slave. And whenever anyone hears

a man mumbling or sees him behaving immaturely, this appears comical and unmanly and

deserving of a beating. Now, I myself have the very same feeling towards the philosophers,

for I am delighted when I see philosophy in a young adolescent. It seems appropriate to

me, and I regard this man as a free-spirited person, and the one who does not engage in

philosophy as devoid of freedom, one who will never prove himself worthy of any fair and

noble dealings. And yet, when I see an older man still engaging in philosophy and not giving

it up, at that stage, Socrates, the man seems to me to be in need of a beating. For as I said

just now, even if this man has many natural endowments, he is prone to become unmanly,

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avoiding the centres and meeting places of the city – in which, as the poet says,

men

become illustrious – slinking away to live the rest of his life whispering with three or four

adolescents in a corner, never expressing anything unbridled and visionary to meet the need

of the moment.

Now, Socrates, I do have a somewhat friendly disposition towards you, so having

been reminded of Zethus, I am now inclined to have the same feeling as he had towards

Amphion in Euripides’ play.

In fact, it occurs to me to say the same sort of things to you

as he said to his brother: “Socrates, you care not for what you should, and although your

soul has been granted a noble nature, you are pre-eminent in the guise of some youthful

figure, and you could neither present speeches before the assemblies of justice in the proper

manner, nor proclaim anything persuasive or probable, nor advocate a novel proposal on

behalf of someone else.” What’s more, dear Socrates – and don’t be angry with me for I

am about to speak with good intentions towards you – doesn’t it seem disgraceful to you to

be in the predicament I think you are in, along with the rest of those who are in the habit of

pressing philosophy too far? For if someone were now to take hold of you, or anyone else

of your sort, and cart you off to prison, claiming that you had acted unjustly when you had

done nothing wrong, you know that you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. No, you

would be dizzy, open-mouthed, not knowing what you should say, and on being brought to

court, meeting some lowly, knavish accuser, you would be executed if he wanted the death

penalty for you. Yes, indeed, Socrates. “How can this be anything wise, a skill that takes a

naturally talented man and makes him worse?”, unable either to help himself or to save

either himself or anyone else from the utmost dangers, liable to have all his property con-

fiscated by his enemies, living in the city effectively deprived of his rights? And to put it

quite crudely, it is possible to slap someone like this across the face and pay no penalty. So,

good fellow, heed my entreaty: desist from the practice of refutation. Practise the sweet

music of business affairs instead. Practise something that will make you seem intelligent.

Leave the subtleties to other people, the nonsensicalities, or fooleries, or whatever they

should be called, for these will have you “dwelling in empty halls”.

Do not envy those

who engage in these trifling refutations, but men of substance, reputation and other advan-

tages aplenty.

SOCRATES: Callicles, if my soul happened to be made of gold, do you not think I would be pleased

to discover one of those stones with which they test gold, the best one there is? And if I applied

the soul to this, and it confirmed to me that my soul had been properly cared for, would I

be right to accept that I am, finally, in good condition, or would I still need another test?

CALLICLES: Why are you asking this question, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I will tell you right now. I think that this chance encounter with you is an encounter

with a god-send of this kind.

CALLICLES: In what way?

SOCRATES: I know very well that if you agree with me on the issues about which my soul forms

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–––––

This fragment is from a lost ode of Pindar.

This refers to the Tenth Labour of Heracles. Geryon was a fearsome legendary giant who is described as having had

multiple heads and/or bodies.

Euripides was one of the three great Athenian tragic playwrights. These lines, from a much-quoted speech by Zethus,

appear in his play Antiope.

Iliad ix.441.

Amphion is the musician brother of Zethus, who was a herdsman. In Antiope, the brothers represent two contrasting

ways of life, one artistic, the other practical.

Both here and in the lines quoted above, Callicles paraphrases Euripides’ Antiope.

opinions, such agreements then constitute truth itself. For I realise that someone who pro-

poses to test comprehensively whether or not the soul lives aright surely needs to have three

qualities, all of which you possess: knowledge, good intentions and frankness. Indeed, I

meet many people who are not able to test me because they are not wise like you. There are

others who are wise, but they are not prepared to speak the truth to me because they do not

care about me, as you do. These two visitors, Gorgias and Polus, despite being wise and

being friends of mine, are yet lacking in frankness, and are both more reticent than they

need to be. How could they not be? They both ended up in such embarrassment that for

shame, each of them dared to contradict themselves in front of a lot of people on issues of

the utmost importance. But you possess all those qualities that the others lack, for you have

been properly educated, as numerous Athenians would attest, and you are well disposed

towards me.

What evidence do I have? I shall tell you. I know, Callicles, that there are four of

you who have become associates in wisdom: yourself, Teisander of Aphidnae, Andron, son

of Androtion, and Nausicydes of Cholargos.

And I once heard you deliberating on how

far one should pursue the practice of wisdom, and I know that an opinion prevailed among

you that went something like this: that you should not be eager to engage in philosophy in

a serious way; instead you encouraged one another to be careful lest you become wise

beyond the limit of necessity and get corrupted without noticing it. Now, when I hear you

giving me the same advice you give to your own companions, that is enough evidence for

me that you are, in truth, well disposed towards me. And, indeed, you yourself assert, and

the speech you made a short time ago confirms, that you are able to speak frankly and be

devoid of shame. So, it is evident that this is where we stand on these issues. If you come

to agree with me on anything in these discussions, the point in question will at that stage

have been adequately tested by you and me, and will not need to be subjected to any other

test. For you would never have gone along with it, either from lack of wisdom or excessive

shame, and, what is more, you would not make the concession to deceive me, for, as you

say yourself, you are my friend. Therefore, agreement between you and me will, in fact,

already constitute complete truth. But the most sublime enquiry of all concerns the issues

over which you rebuked me: the sort of person a man should be, the pursuits he should

engage in and how far he should pursue them, both when he is younger and when he is

older. Indeed, if I am acting incorrectly in some aspect of my own life, rest assured that I

am not going astray deliberately, but through my own ignorance. And since you have begun

to correct me, do not give up. Rather show me, satisfactorily. what it is that I should pursue

and the manner in which I may acquire it. And if you find me agreeing with you now, and

yet sometime later not enacting what was agreed, you should regard me as an utter fool,

and never correct me again thereafter because I do not deserve it.

But tell me from the beginning, what do you and Pindar claim that the justice that

accords with nature actually involves? Is it that the stronger carry off the possessions of the

weaker by force, that the superior rule over the inferior, and that better men have more than

lesser men? Are you saying that justice is something else, or am I recalling this correctly?

CALLICLES: Yes, that’s what I said then, and that’s what I say now.

SOCRATES: And do you refer to superior and stronger as the same? Indeed, I was not really able to

understand what precisely you were saying. Are you calling the more powerful people

stronger? And should the weaker people obey the stronger, which is what I think you were

indicating earlier, since the bigger cities attack the smaller ones in accord with what is just

by nature, because they are stronger and more powerful, since the stronger, more powerful

and superior are the same? Or is it possible to be superior and yet lesser and weaker, to be

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stronger and yet in a worse state? Or is the definition of the superior and of the stronger the

same? Make this particular distinction for me in a clear manner. Are the superior the

stronger, and the more powerful the same, or are they different?

CALLICLES: But I am telling you clearly that they are the same.

SOCRATES: In that case, is the multitude not stronger, according to nature, than the individual? And

indeed they impose laws upon the individual, as you also said earlier.

CALLICLES: Of course.

SOCRATES: So, the laws of the multitude are the laws of the stronger?

CALLICLES: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: Are they, therefore, the laws of the superior folk? For according to your argument, I

presume the stronger are superior.

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Are their laws not good, by nature, being the laws of the stronger?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: And do the multitude conventionally believe, as you said already, that it is just to main-

tain equality, and more base to do injustice than to suffer injustice? Is this the case or is it

not? And do not get trapped here and become ashamed like the others. Does the multitude

conventionally believe this or not: that it is just to have an equal share and no more, and it

is more base to do injustice than to suffer injustice? Do not begrudge me an answer to this,

Callicles, so that should you agree with me, I may finally attain certainty through you,

seeing that a man who is competent to decide has agreed with me.

CALLICLES: Well, the multitude at any rate do conventionally believe this.

SOCRATES: So, it is not only by convention, but also by nature, that doing injustice is more base

than suffering injustice, and that the maintenance of equality is just. And so, it is very likely

that you were not speaking the truth and your criticism of me was incorrect when you said

that nature and convention are opposed, and that I knew this and wreaked havoc in the argu-

ments by referring to convention whenever someone spoke on the basis of nature, and refer-

ring to nature when they spoke on the basis of convention.

CALLICLES: This man will not cease talking nonsense! Tell me, Socrates, are you not ashamed, at

your age, to be chasing after words and making out that it is a godsend if someone goes

awry in expressing himself? Indeed, do you think I am saying that being stronger is some-

thing different from being superior? Did I not tell you long ago that I declare the superior

and stronger to be the same? Or do you think I am saying that if a mob of slaves and people

of all sorts were to get together, worthless except perhaps for their physical strength, and

these fellows were to make some pronouncements, that such pronouncements would con-

stitute law?

SOCRATES: So be it, my utterly wise Callicles. Is that your meaning?

CALLICLES: Yes, very much so.

SOCRATES: Well, my divine friend, I myself have been guessing for some time that you meant

something of this sort by ‘the stronger’, and I am eager to understand clearly what you

are saying. For I presume that you do not regard two as superior to one, nor your slaves

as superior to you because they are stronger than you. So tell me once more, from the

beginning, what precisely you mean by ‘the superior’, since they are not the stronger?

And, my wonderful friend, instruct me more gently to begin with, so that I do not leave

your school.

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–––––

These were wealthy, ambitious and somewhat unscrupulous young men. Teisander was a property owner, Andron an

oligarchic politician, and Nausicydes a miller and owner of foreign slaves.

CALLICLES: You are being ironical, Socrates.

SOCRATES: By Zethus, I am not, Callicles, to refer to the character you invoked just now, when

you were being highly ironical towards me. Come on, tell us! Who do you say are the

superior?

CALLICLES: I mean the better.

SOCRATES: Do you not see that you yourself are uttering words but explaining nothing? Will you

not tell us whether by the superior and the stronger you mean the more intelligent, or some-

one else?

CALLICLES: Yes, by Zeus, that is what I mean, emphatically so.

SOCRATES: So, in most cases, according to your argument, one man of intelligence is stronger than

ten thousand who are devoid of intelligence, and this man should rule and the others should

be ruled, and the ruler should have more than those who are ruled. Yes, this is what I think

you wish to say, and I am not trapping you with words, if the one is stronger than the ten

thousand.

CALLICLES: Indeed, that is what I mean. For I believe this is just, by nature: those who are superior

and more intelligent rule over, and have more than, the lesser people.

SOCRATES: Hold it there! What exactly are you saying now? Suppose we are together, in the same

place just as we are now, a large gathering with a large common store of food and drink,

and suppose we are a mixed group, some strong, others weak. But one of us is more intel-

ligent about these matters as he is a physician, although in all likelihood he would be phys-

ically stronger than some but weaker than others. Will this fellow be superior and stronger

in these matters, as he is more intelligent about them than we are?

CALLICLES: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: Now, should he have more of these provisions than the rest of us because he is superior?

Or, in virtue of his authority, should this man distribute them all, and yet obtain no more

than anyone else by consuming them and diverting them towards his own person, if he is

to avoid paying a penalty? And should some get more while others get less? And if the

superior man happens to be more feeble than everyone else, should he get less than everyone

else, Callicles? Or does it not work like this, my friend?

CALLICLES: You keep referring to food and drink and physicians and fooleries, but I am not talking

about these.

SOCRATES: Are you not saying that the more intelligent person is superior? Say yes or no.

CALLICLES: I am.

SOCRATES: And should the superior not have more?

CALLICLES: Not of food and drink though.

SOCRATES: I understand. But maybe it applies to clothing, and the most accomplished weaver has

the largest cloak, and goes about dressed in the utmost variety and finery.

CALLICLES: What has clothing got to do with this?

SOCRATES: But in relation to shoes it is obvious that the man who is most intelligent in this area,

the utterly superior man, should have more. The cobbler should walk about shod in the

grandest and greatest number of shoes.

CALLICLES: Why mention shoes? You are talking persistent nonsense!

SOCRATES: Well, if that is not the sort of thing you mean, then it is probably something like this.

For instance, a man of farming stock, intelligent with respect to the land, noble and good,

this fellow should probably have more seeds and use as much seed as he possibly can on

his own land.

CALLICLES: You keep on saying the same things, Socrates!

SOCRATES: Not only that, Callicles, but also in relation to the same issues.

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CALLICLES: Ye s, by the gods, you are absolutely always talking about cobblers, clothes-cleaners,

cooks and physicians – you never stop – as if these had anything to do with the argument.

SOCRATES: So, why will you not say who it relates to? What is it that the superior, more intelligent

man has more of, and justly so? Or will you neither accept what I am suggesting, nor pro-

pose anything yourself?

CALLICLES: But I have been saying this for quite some time. Firstly, by those who are superior, I

mean neither cobblers nor cooks, but those who are intelligent in relation to the affairs of

the city and the manner in which it may be well administered. And they are not merely

intelligent, but also courageous, competent to bring their plans to completion without fal-

tering through softness of soul.

SOCRATES: Do you see, utterly superior Callicles, that your accusation against me is not the same

as my accusation against you? You claim that I am always saying the same things, and you

censure me for this. But I make the opposite accusation of you, that you never say the same

things in relation to the same issues, but one moment you define the superior and stronger

as the more powerful, then again as the more intelligent. And now you arrive holding an

alternative view, some more courageous people are proposed by you as the stronger and

superior. But, good fellow, tell me once and for all, who exactly do you say are superior

and stronger, and in what respect?

CALLICLES: But I have already said that they are the men who are intelligent in relation to the

affairs of the city, and who are courageous. For it is fitting for these people to rule the cities,

and that is what justice is. These people have more than the others. The rulers have more

than the ruled.

SOCRATES: But what about themselves, my friend? Are they ruling or being ruled?

CALLICLES: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean each one ruling himself. Or do you think there is no need for someone to rule

himself, but only to rule others?

CALLICLES: What do you mean by ruling himself?

SOCRATES: Nothing contrived, just what most people mean: being sound-minded, master of himself,

ruling over pleasures and desires within himself.

CALLICLES: How innocent of you. You are saying that the foolish people are the sound-minded

people.

SOCRATES: How could I be? Anyone can see that that is not what I am saying.

CALLICLES: It certainly is, Socrates! For how could a person become happy whilst in slavery to

anyone else at all? No, I will speak frankly now, and tell you what is noble and just accord-

ing to nature. Anyone who would live rightly should allow his own desires to be as great as

possible and not restrain them, but be competent to minister unto them when they are at

their utmost, through courage and intelligence, and satisfy them with whatever the desire

of the moment is for. But in my view, most people are unable to do this, and so out of shame

they criticise people of this sort, concealing their own impotence. And, as I said earlier,

they claim that this lack of restraint is base, enslaving the naturally superior men. Being

unable themselves to attain fulfilment of their desires, they praise sound-mindedness and

justice on account of their own cowardice. Yet for men who, from the very outset, are either

sons of kings or are themselves naturally competent to secure some authority, be it a tyranny

or a power-group, what in truth could be more base and ignoble for these men than sound-

mindedness and justice? When they are allowed the benefit of good things with no inter-

ference from anyone, what could be worse than they themselves imposing a master on

themselves – the law, word and censure of the majority of men? Or how could they avoid

becoming wretched on account of this ‘benefit’ of justice and sound-mindedness, whereby

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GORGIAS – 491a–492c | 659

they bestow no more upon their friends than upon their enemies, even though they are ruling

in their own city? But in truth, Socrates – since you claim to pursue the truth – the fact of

the matter is that luxury, lack of restraint and freedom, provided they have support, consti-

tute excellence and happiness, while all else, the niceties and the unnatural contrivances of

humanity, are foolishness, and of no value.

SOCRATES: Callicles, the frankness with which you tackle the argument is not devoid of nobility.

Indeed, you are now stating clearly what others are thinking, but they are reluctant to express

this. So, I ask you not to relent in any way, so that the manner in which a person should live

may actually become evident. Now tell me, do you say that the desires should not be

restrained if a man is to be as he should be? Rather, letting them develop to the utmost,

should he prepare satisfaction for them from any source whatsoever, and does this constitute

excellence?

CALLICLES: Yes. That is what I declare.

SOCRATES: So, it would not be correct to say that those who are in need of nothing are happy?

CALLICLES: No, for in that case stones and corpses would be happiest.

SOCRATES: But surely the life you are describing is awful too. In fact, I would not be surprised if

Euripides is speaking the truth, in the lines where he says,

Who knows whether being alive is being dead

And being dead is being alive.

And we perhaps are actually dead, for I heard at some stage, from one of the wise, that we

are now dead and the body is our tomb, while this part of the soul in which the desires

reside is prone to persuasion and to fluctuation back and forth. And some subtle person –

perhaps a Sicilian or an Italian – told a story involving a play upon the words, and due to

its credulous and persuadable nature he called it a pitcher, and the mindless people he called

‘uninitiated’, and the part of the soul of the mindless people in which the desires reside, the

unrestrained and the unconfined part of it, he compared to a leaking pitcher because of its

insatiability. Now, this fellow, in contrast to yourself, Callicles, indicates that these unini-

tiated people are the most wretched of those in Hades, by which he means ‘the unseen’,

and they carry water to their leaky pitcher in another such leaky vessel, a sieve. And accord-

ing to the person who told me this, he means that the sieve is the soul, and he likened the

soul of the mindless people to a sieve because it is leaking, since due to disbelief and for-

getfulness it is unable to retain anything.

Now, this is all somewhat strange, yet it does indicate what I wish to prove to you,

if I am able, in order to persuade you to change your stance and choose an orderly life, ever

content and satisfied with what you have at any moment, rather than a life without restraint,

and devoid of satisfaction. Well, am I persuading you, and are you changing to the view

that the orderly people are happier than those without restraint? Or would you not change

your position, even if I were to relate many more stories of this kind?

CALLICLES: The latter option is truer, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Come on then, I will relate another image from the same school as this one. Yes, con-

sider whether you are saying something of this sort about the lives of the sound-minded

and unrestrained people. It is as if two men each have a number of pitchers, and in one case

they are sound and full of wine, honey and milk. And there are many others with a variety

of contents, but the supply of each of these is meagre and hard to come by and is made

available with considerable exertion and difficulty. In one case, once filled, the man neither

replenishes them nor worries about them, and on account of this he is at peace. But in the

other case, as with the other man, the supply can be made available but it is hard to come

by, and the vessels are leaky and unsound, so he is compelled to fill them constantly, night

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and day, or suffer intense pain. Now, since this is what their lives are like, would you say

that the life of the unrestrained person is happier than that of the orderly person? In saying

all this, do I persuade you at all to go along with the view that the orderly life is better than

the unrestrained life, or are you unpersuaded?

CALLICLES: You do not persuade me, Socrates. For one man no longer has any pleasure at all once

he has been filled, but as I said just now that is to live like a stone, no longer experiencing

delight or tribulation once you have been filled up. But living a life of pleasure involves

taking, inasmuch as you can.

SOCRATES: But if a lot is to flow in, mustn’t a lot flow out? And mustn’t the holes for the outflow

be of considerable size?

CALLICLES: Very much so.

SOCRATES: In that case, you are describing the life of a gull rather than a corpse or a stone. Are you

referring to something like being hungry, and eating when you are hungry?

CALLICLES: I am.

SOCRATES: Or being thirsty, and drinking when you are thirsty?

CALLICLES: That’s what I mean, and having all the other desires, and delighting in being able to

satisfy them and live happily.

SOCRATES: Excellent, well said! Proceed as you have begun and take care that you suffer no shame.

And it seems I must exhibit no shame either. So, tell me ﬁrstly whether someone who is

itchy, and is scratching with unlimited scope for scratching, who spends his life scratching,

is living happily.

CALLICLES: How strange you are, Socrates, an out and out rabble-rouser!

SOCRATES: Yes, indeed, Callicles, and I shocked Polus and Gorgias and made them ashamed, but

you should be neither shocked nor ashamed, for you are courageous. So, just answer the

question.

CALLICLES: In that case, I declare that the scratcher also lives pleasantly.

SOCRATES: Since he lives pleasantly, does he also live happily?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Is this so if he only scratches his head? What if I ask you about other parts? Consider

how you would reply, Callicles, if someone were to ask about all the parts in turn, working

down from there. And what about the ultimate consideration in all this, the life of the

catamites?

Is this not terrible, shameful and wretched? Or will you dare to say that these

fellows are happy provided they have unlimited access to what they want?

CALLICLES: Are you not ashamed at leading our discussion onto topics of this kind, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Am I the one who led us there, my noble friend? Or was it the person who said, in such

absolute terms, that those who enjoy pleasure, regardless of how they enjoy it, are happy,

and who did not distinguish between good pleasures and bad ones? But you should also

declare now whether you are saying that pleasure and good are the same, or that there are

some pleasures that are not good.

CALLICLES: Well, since my responses will be contradictory if I say they are different, I declare that

they are the same.

SOCRATES: You are undermining your opening assertions, Callicles, and will no longer be investi-

gating things that are, in an adequate manner, along with me if you actually speak contrary

to your own opinions.

CALLICLES: The same goes for you, Socrates.

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–––––

These lines are from Euripides’ Phrixus or Polyidos.

A catamite was the passive partner in male homosexual relationships.

SOCRATES: Then if I am actually doing this, neither of us is acting correctly. But, blessed man, con-

sider the possibility that the good may not be this unqualiﬁed gratiﬁcation. Indeed, if this

is how matters stand, then the many shameful conclusions I hinted at just now, and many

more besides, must follow.

CALLICLES: That’s what you think anyway, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And do you really hold to those views, Callicles?

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: So, should we tackle this argument on the basis that you are serious about it?

CALLICLES: Yes, very much so.

SOCRATES: Come on then, since that is what you think. Make the following distinctions for me. I

presume there is something you refer to as knowledge?

CALLICLES: There is.

SOCRATES: And did you not say just now that courage is something that may accompany knowledge?

CALLICLES: I said so indeed.

SOCRATES: So, on the basis that courage is different from knowledge, you referred to two things?

CALLICLES: Most emphatically.

SOCRATES: What about this? Are pleasure and knowledge the same or different?

CALLICLES: Different of course, O wisest of men.

SOCRATES: And is courage different from pleasure?

CALLICLES: How could it not be?

SOCRATES: Come then, make sure we remember that Callicles of Acharnae declares pleasure and

good to be the same, but knowledge and courage to be different from one another, and from

the good.

CALLICLES: And Socrates of Alopece disagrees with us on this. Or does he agree?

SOCRATES: He does not agree, and I do not think Callicles will agree either once he sees himself

correctly. Indeed, tell me. Do you not believe that those who are acting well are charac-

terised by the opposite quality to those who act badly?

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: Well then, since these are opposite to one another, must not the same consideration

apply to them as applies to being healthy and to being ill? For a person is obviously not

healthy and ill at the same time, nor is he rid of health and illness at the same time.

CALLICLES: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: For example, take any part of the body you wish, and consider it. Can a person get the

disease of the eyes called ophthalmia?

CALLICLES: Of course he can.

SOCRATES: And the same eyes are obviously not, simultaneously, healthy.

CALLICLES: Not at all.

SOCRATES: But what happens when he is rid of the ophthalmia? Is he also rid of the health at that

stage, and does he end up rid of both at the same time?

CALLICLES: Not in the least.

SOCRATES: Yes, I think that would be a strange and illogical outcome. Is that so?

CALLICLES: Very much so.

SOCRATES: Rather, I believe we acquire either of them and lose them in turn.

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: Does not the same go for strength and weakness?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And for swiftness and slowness?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

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SOCRATES: And for anything good and for happiness, and the opposites of these, anything bad and

wretchedness. Are they acquired in turn, and are we quit of either of them in turn?

CALLICLES: That is totally obvious.

SOCRATES: So, if we were to ﬁnd any qualities that a person is quit of and possesses at the same

time, it is obvious that these would not be the good and the bad. Do we agree on this? And

give this very serious consideration before you reply.

CALLICLES: But I couldn’t agree more!

SOCRATES: Let us go back to what we agreed upon earlier. Did you say that hunger was pleasant

or unpleasant? I am referring just to the hunger.

CALLICLES: I say it is unpleasant, but to eat when hungry is pleasant.

SOCRATES: So do I. I understand. However, the hunger itself is unpleasant, is it not?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: Does not the same go for thirst?

CALLICLES: Very much so.

SOCRATES: Now, should I ask you even more questions, or do you agree that all lack and desire is

unpleasant?

CALLICLES: I do. Stop asking.

SOCRATES: So be it. And do you agree that to drink when thirsty is pleasant?

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: So, this formulation ‘when thirsty’ obviously means ‘when in pain’.

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the drinking is both the satisfaction of the lack, and a pleasure.

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Therefore, whilst the drinking takes place, you say there is enjoyment.

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: When you are thirsty anyway.

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: And experiencing pain?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Now, are you aware of the conclusion that whenever you say that you drink whilst

thirsty, you are saying that you experience enjoyment and are in pain simultaneously? Does

this not occur at the same time and in the same place, be it in soul or in body? I do not think

it makes any difference which it is. Is this the case or is it not?

CALLICLES: It is.

SOCRATES: However, you do declare that acting well and acting badly at the same time is impossible.

CALLICLES: Yes, I do.

SOCRATES: And yet you have agreed that it is possible to have enjoyment whilst experiencing dis-

pleasure.

CALLICLES: Apparently.

SOCRATES: So, enjoyment is not ‘acting well’, nor is displeasure ‘acting badly’, and consequently

pleasure turns out to be different from the good.

CALLICLES: I don’t understand these wise utterances of yours, Socrates.

SOCRATES: You do understand but you are playing the simpleton, Callicles. Just move on to the

next point anyway so that you may know how wise you are to admonish me. Does not each

of us cease being thirsty and simultaneously cease being pleased by the drinking?

CALLICLES: I do not know what you mean.

GORGIAS: Don’t be like that, Callicles, but answer him for our sake too so that the arguments may

be concluded.

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CALLICLES: But Socrates is always like this, Gorgias. He asks petty, worthless questions, and refutes

people.

GORGIAS: But why does it matter to you? It is not really up to you to assess their worth, Callicles,

but to allow Socrates to carry out his refutation in any way he pleases.

CALLICLES: Well, since that is what Gorgias thinks, ask your petty, restrictive questions.

SOCRATES: You are blessed, Callicles, that you have been initiated into the Great Mysteries prior

to the Lesser ones.

I did not realise that this was permitted. Now, answer the question from

where you left off. Does not each of us cease being thirsty and simultaneously cease expe-

riencing pleasure?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: In that case, is there cessation of hunger and the other desires, and cessation of pleasures

simultaneously?

CALLICLES: This is the case.

SOCRATES: Therefore, there is a simultaneous cessation of the pains and the pleasures?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: However, as you have agreed, there is not a simultaneous cessation of whatever is good

and whatever is bad. But do you not agree now?

CALLICLES: I agree. So what?

SOCRATES: Then, whatever is good, my friend, turns out not to be the same as whatever is pleasant,

nor is what is bad the same as what is unpleasant. For in one case there is simultaneous

cessation, and in the other case there is not, because they are different. So, how could

whatever is pleasant be the same as whatever is good, or the unpleasant be the same as

whatever is bad?

But consider it in the following manner if you prefer, for I do not think you agree

based on this approach. Look at it this way. Do you not call good people good, due to the

presence of goods, just as you call those to whom beauty is present, beautiful?

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: What about this? Do you refer to the unintelligent and cowards as good men? Well,

you did not do so earlier anyway; rather, you said the good were the courageous and intel-

ligent. Or do you not refer to these men as good?

CALLICLES: I certainly do.

SOCRATES: What about this? Have you ever seen an unintelligent child being delighted?

CALLICLES: I have.

SOCRATES: And have you ever yet seen an unintelligent man being delighted?

CALLICLES: I think I have, but what about it?

SOCRATES: Nothing, just answer.

CALLICLES: I have seen this.

SOCRATES: And does someone possessed of intelligence experience pain and delight?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: But who experiences delight and pain to the greatest extent, the intelligent or the foolish?

CALLICLES: Well, I don’t think they differ very much.

SOCRATES: That will do. And have you ever seen a cowardly man in battle?

CALLICLES: Of course.

SOCRATES: What about the withdrawal of the enemy? Which of them seemed to you to be most

delighted, the cowards or the courageous?

CALLICLES: Both, in my view, but perhaps the cowards delight more, or else they are nearly equal.

SOCRATES: That makes no difference. So, the cowards are delighted too?

CALLICLES: Intensely so.

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SOCRATES: The fools too, so it seems.

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And at the approach of the enemy, do the cowardly alone experience pain? Or do the

courageous do so too?

CALLICLES: Both.

SOCRATES: To a similar extent?

CALLICLES: Perhaps the cowardly experience it more.

SOCRATES: But do they not experience more delight at the withdrawal?

CALLICLES: Perhaps.

SOCRATES: Then according to you, the foolish and the sensible, the cowardly and the brave, expe-

rience pain and delight to a similar extent, although the cowardly experience them to a

greater extent than the brave?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: However, the sensible and courageous are good, while the cowardly and foolish are bad?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then the good and the bad experience delight and pain to a similar extent?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: So, are the good people and the bad people good and bad to a similar extent? Or are the

bad people even more good?

CALLICLES: By Zeus, I do not know what you are saying.

SOCRATES: Do you not know that you are saying that the good are good by the presence of goods,

and the bad are bad by the presence of what is bad? And that the goods are the pleasures,

and what is bad are the displeasures?

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: Are not the goods, the pleasures, present to those who are experiencing delight, if they

are actually experiencing delight?

CALLICLES: Obviously.

SOCRATES: And since goods are present, are not those who experience delight good?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: What about this? Are not bad things, pains, present to those who experience displeasure?

CALLICLES: Yes, they are present.

SOCRATES: And yet you think that the bad people are bad due to the presence of what is bad. Or do

you no longer say so?

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: So, those who experience delight are good, while those who experience displeasure

are bad.

CALLICLES: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: Those who experience these to a greater extent are so to a greater extent. Those who

experience these to a lesser extent are so to a lesser extent. Those who experience these to

a similar extent are so to a similar extent.

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Now, do you not claim that the sensible men and the fools, the cowardly and the coura-

geous, are delighted and pained to a similar extent, or that the cowardly experience them

even more?

CALLICLES: I do.

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–––––

This refers to annual initiation rites. The Lesser Mysteries were held in spring in Attica; the Greater Mysteries were

held in autumn at the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in Eleusis.

SOCRATES: Well, please sum up what follows from all that we have agreed, along with me. For

they say it is well to state and investigate anything exalted twice or even thrice. We say that

the intelligent and courageous man is good. Is this so?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: But the foolish and cowardly man is bad?

CALLICLES: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: And what is more, the man who experiences delight is good?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the man who experiences displeasure is bad?

CALLICLES: Necessarily.

SOCRATES: So, the good and the bad experience displeasure and delight to a similar extent, but per-

haps the bad person experiences them more?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Does it not turn out that the bad man is good and bad to a similar extent as the good

man, or is even more good? Do not these, and those former consequences, follow once

someone declares that pleasures and good are the same? Is this not necessarily the case,

Callicles?

CALLICLES: Socrates, I have been listening to you for some time now, making concessions and

reﬂecting that if someone grants you anything at all, even in jest, you hold onto it in delight

just like a child. Do you really think that I, or any other man whatsoever, does not realise

that some pleasures are better and some are worse?

SOCRATES: My, my, Callicles. How clever you are, and how like a child you treat me, deceiving

me by saying at one moment that this is how matters stand, and the next moment that the

same matters stand otherwise. And yet, I had not expected at the outset that I would be

intentionally deceived by you since you are my friend. But now I have been played false,

and it seems necessary for me, as the old saying goes, ‘to make the best of what is there’

and to accept what you have given me. And, indeed, what you are now saying, it seems, is

that certain pleasures are good, while others are bad. Is this so?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Well, are the beneﬁcial pleasures good, while the harmful ones are bad?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And do the beneﬁcial ones bring about something good, the harmful ones something

bad?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: So, do you mean, for instance, in the case of the bodily pleasures we referred to just

now, pleasures of eating and drinking, that those producing health or strength or some other

physical excellence in the body are good, while those producing the opposite effects to

these are bad?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Does not the same go for pains – some are useful while others are evil?

CALLICLES: Inevitably.

SOCRATES: Should the useful pleasures and pains be selected and enacted?

CALLICLES: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: But not the evil ones?

CALLICLES: Obviously.

SOCRATES: Indeed, you may recall that it seemed to us, Polus and I, that everything must somehow

be enacted for the sake of whatever is good. Do you also share this view, that the aim of all

actions is the good, and all else must be enacted for the sake of that, rather than the other

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way around? Are you also voting with us, as a third vote?

CALLICLES: I am.

SOCRATES: So, everything else, pleasures included, must be enacted for the sake of whatever is

good, rather than enacting whatever is good for the sake of the pleasures.

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Now, does it belong to every man to select what sort of pleasures are good and what

sort are bad, or is a skilled person required in each case?

CALLICLES: A skilled person is required.

SOCRATES: Then let us go on, recalling what I was saying to Polus and Gorgias. I said, if you

remember, that there are processes that go as far as pleasure and furnish pleasure alone and

do not recognise the better and the worse, and there are processes which do recognise what

is good and what is bad. And in the category concerned with pleasure, I placed cookery a

practice, but not a skill. In the category concerned with the good, I placed the skill of med-

icine. And in the name of friendship, Callicles, do not presume that you need to play games

with me, and do not respond at random and contrary to your opinions, and do not, again,

treat my utterances as some sort of game playing. Indeed, our discussions are concerned

with a topic on which even a man of minute intelligence should be most serious, the man-

ner in which a person should live. Is it the one to which you exhort me: namely, engaging

in these manly activities, speaking in public, practising rhetoric, and engaging in the mode

of politics that you people practise these days? Or is it the life spent in philosophy? And

how exactly does this life differ from the other one? Now, perhaps it is best to distinguish

them as I tried to do before, and once we have made the distinction and agreed with one

another, then consider if these are indeed two ways of life, how they differ from one

another, and which of the two we should live by. But perhaps you do not understand what

I mean yet.

CALLICLES: Not at all.

SOCRATES: Then I shall relate it to you more clearly. Since we have agreed, you and I, that there is

a good and there is a pleasant, that the pleasant is different from the good, that there is a

study and process of acquisition belonging to both, one pursuing the pleasant, the other pur-

suing the good. But ﬁrst you should either agree or disagree with me about this. Do you

agree?

CALLICLES: I agree with this.

SOCRATES: Come on, then. You should agree with me fully on the points I made to our friends here,

provided I seemed to you to be speaking the truth at the time. I think I said that cookery did

not seem to me to be a skill, but a practice. But in the case of medicine, I said that it con-

siders the nature of whomever it cares for and the motive for whatever it enacts, and is able

to give an account of each of these. But the other one cares for pleasure and is directed

entirely to that, going about it in an utterly unskilled manner. It provides pleasures without

considering either the nature of the pleasure or the motivation for it, utterly irrational,

scarcely bothering to count classiﬁcations, retaining, through habit and experience, only a

memory of what usually happens. Now, in the ﬁrst place, do you think these have been ade-

quately described? Or do there also seem to be any processes of this kind concerning the

soul, some of which involve a skill and possess a certain foresight of what is best for the

soul, and others which make light of this, while they, for their part, consider, as in the former

case, only the pleasure of the soul and the manner in which this may be brought about, nei-

ther investigating which of the pleasures is better or worse, nor studying anything except

the gratiﬁcation alone, be it better or be it worse? Indeed, Callicles, I think these processes

exist, and I declare that this sort of thing is ﬂattery in relation to the body or in relation to

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the soul, or anything whose pleasure one may care for, without having any concern for the

better or the worse. Anyway, do you subscribe to the same opinion as we do on these issues,

or do you disagree?

CALLICLES: I don’t agree, but I am going along with this so that you may conclude the discussion,

and so that I may gratify Gorgias here.

SOCRATES: And does this apply to a single soul, but not to two or many?

CALLICLES: No, it applies to two or many.

SOCRATES: Is it not also possible to gratify a gathering of souls, all at the same time, without con-

sidering what is best?

CALLICLES: Yes, I think so.

SOCRATES: Now, can you say what particular activities bring this about? But if you like, it is better

that as I ask questions, you agree if the suggestion seems to you to belong to that category,

but otherwise disagree. And ﬁrst, let us consider ﬂute-playing. Does this not seem to you,

Callicles, to be an activity of this kind, one that pursues only our pleasure and thinks of

nothing else?

CALLICLES: It seems so to me anyway.

SOCRATES: Does not the same go for all activities of that sort, such as playing the cithara in com-

petitions?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: What about the instruction of the dramatic choruses or the composition of poetic

verses? Is it not obvious to you that they are also like this? Or do you think Cinesias, son

of Meles,

gives some consideration to how he may say the kind of thing that will enable

his hearers to become better people, or instead how he is going to gratify the crowd of

spectators?

CALLICLES: Obviously the latter, Socrates, in the case of Cinesias anyway.

SOCRATES: What about his father, Meles? Do you think he sang to the cithara with a view to what

is best, or did the man even consider what is most pleasant? Indeed, his singing inﬂicted

pain upon the spectators. But think about this. Does it seem to you that all singing to the

cithara and all composition of poetic verses have been devised for the sake of pleasure?

CALLICLES: I think so.

SOCRATES: But what about the solemn one herself, the wonder that is the composition of tragic

verses? What is she intent upon? What, in your view, is her endeavour and intention? Is it

only to gratify the spectators? Or in the case where something is pleasant and gratifying to

them, but evil, does she engage in a struggle so as not to utter this? And if something hap-

pens to be unpleasant but beneﬁcial, will she speak and sing this whether it delights them

or not? Which of these two approaches does the composition of tragic verses seem to you

to adopt?

CALLICLES: Well, Socrates, it is obviously the latter, the one that is most intent on pleasure and the

gratiﬁcation of the spectators.

SOCRATES: Did we not say just now that this sort of thing is ﬂattery, Callicles?

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Come now, if someone were to strip poetic composition of all its melody, rhythm and

metre, would the residue turn out to be nothing but words?

CALLICLES: Necessarily.

SOCRATES: Are not those words spoken to a considerable crowd and to the populace?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: So, poetic skill is a kind of public speaking.

CALLICLES: So it appears.

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SOCRATES: Would it not be rhetorical public speaking, or do you think that the poets do not engage

in rhetoric in the theatres?

CALLICLES: I think they do.

SOCRATES: So, we have now discovered a type of rhetoric directed to a kind of populace that con-

sists of women and children alike, of men both enslaved and free, a rhetoric we do not

greatly admire, for we assert that it is based on ﬂattery.

CALLICLES: Very much so.

SOCRATES: So be it. But what about the rhetoric directed to the Athenian populace and the other

assemblies of free men in the cities? What exactly are we to make of it? Do the rhetoricians

seem to you to speak always with regard to what is best, working out how the citizens may

be as good as possible on account of their speeches? Or do these fellows aim at the gratiﬁ-

cation of the citizens, belittle the common good for the sake of their own private interest,

and associate with the populace as though they were children, merely trying to gratify them

but thinking nothing of whether they will be better or worse as a result of all this?

CALLICLES: This is no longer a simple question. There are some who say what they say out of con-

cern for the citizens, but there are others of the sort you are describing.

SOCRATES: That is sufﬁcient. For if there are indeed two aspects to this, then I presume that one

would be ﬂattery and a disgraceful public speaking, while the other would be noble, con-

triving that the souls of the citizens be as good as possible and constantly striving to utter

what is best, regardless of whether it be more pleasant or less pleasant to those who hear it.

But this is a rhetoric you have never yet seen. Or if you are able to mention any rhetorician

of this kind, why have you never told me who he is?

CALLICLES: But, by Zeus, I cannot mention anyone to you, not among the contemporary rhetori-

cians anyway.

SOCRATES: What about the older generation? Can you name anyone, on account of whom the

Athenians are reputed to have become better after that person began speaking in public?

Indeed, I do not know who the person is.

CALLICLES: Is that so? Do you not hear people say that Themistocles was a good man, Cimon too,

and Miltiades, and Pericles himself, who died recently, whom you yourself have heard?

SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, if what you described earlier is true excellence, the satisfaction of your

own desires and those of others. However, if this is not the case, and instead, as in the earlier

discussion, we are compelled to agree that the satisfaction of some desires make a person

better and these should be fulﬁlled, while others make him worse and should not be fulﬁlled,

and there is a skill involved in this as we thought, can you still claim that any of those four

men turned out to be someone with this sort of skill?

CALLICLES: I cannot ﬁnd any basis for saying so.

SOCRATES: But if you search properly you will ﬁnd one. So, we should examine this in a calm man-

ner and see whether any of these men prove to be a person of this kind. Come on, would

not the good man, whose speech is aimed at what is best, say what he says not at random,

but with something particular in view? Indeed, he is just like the other artiﬁcers, each look-

ing to their own work, selecting whatever they bring to bear not at random, but in such a

way as to give a particular form to whatever they are working on. Take, for example,

painters, builders, shipwrights and all the other artisans, any one of them you want. See

how he places whatever he places in a particular order, and compels this to ﬁt with that and

to be in harmony until he has wrought the entire into an organised and orderly entity. And

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–––––

Cinesias was a poet who composed choral songs in honour of Dionysus. Meles was a famous cithara player but a very

poor singer.

the same goes for the other artiﬁcers and those we mentioned earlier, the trainers and physi-

cians who are concerned with the body, and presumably order and organise the body. Do

we agree that this is the case or not?

CALLICLES: Let this be the case.

SOCRATES: Would a household possessing organisation and order be effective, and would a disor-

ganised one be degenerate?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: Does not the same go for a ship?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And do we also say this about our own bodies?

CALLICLES: Very much so.

SOCRATES: And what about the soul? Will it be effective when possessed of disorder or when pos-

sessed of some organisation and order?

CALLICLES: Based on what was said earlier, it is also necessary to accept this.

SOCRATES: Now, what is the name of the condition that arises in the body from organisation and

order?

CALLICLES: You probably mean health and strength.

SOCRATES: I do. But what about the condition engendered in the soul from organisation and order?

Try to ﬁnd its name and state it as you did in the other case.

CALLICLES: Why don’t you state it yourself, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Well, I shall say it if that is more pleasing to you, and you should agree if you think I

am speaking truly. And, if not, you should refute me and you should not yield to me. For I

think that the name of this organisation of the body is ‘healthiness’ and, from this, health

arises in it, and so do the other excellences of the body. Is this the case or is it not?

CALLICLES: It is.

SOCRATES: On the other hand, I think that the names of the organisation and order of the soul are

lawfulness and law, and from these it becomes lawful and orderly, and these conditions are

justice and self-control. Do you agree or not?

CALLICLES: Be it so.

SOCRATES: Then, looking towards these, this rhetorician who is skilled and good also brings the

speeches he delivers, and all his actions too, to bear upon the souls. And when he bestows

a gift, he will bestow it, and when he confiscates something, he will confiscate it, with

his mind ever intent upon how justice may arise in the souls of his fellow citizens and

injustice may be banished; how sound-mindedness may be engendered and indiscipline

banished; how excellence in general may be engendered and evils done away with. Do

you agree or not?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: Indeed, what is the beneﬁt, Callicles, in giving a person, sick in body, in a degenerate

condition, a lot of food – even the most pleasant – or drink, or anything else that does not

beneﬁt him one bit more and, on the contrary, may rightly be said to beneﬁt him less? Is

this so?

CALLICLES: Be it so.

SOCRATES: For in my view it is not advantageous for a person to live with degeneracy of the body,

since it is necessary under those circumstances to live in a degenerate manner. Or is this

not so?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Do not the physicians, for the most part, allow a person to satisfy his desires, such as

eating as much as he wants when he is hungry and drinking when thirsty, as long as the

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person is healthy? However, when he is ill, they hardly allow him to be sated by the objects

of his desire at all. Do you also agree with this?

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: And in the case of the soul, excellent man, is there not the same tendency? As long as

it is corrupt, foolish, undisciplined, unjust and unholy, it needs to be shut away from the

desires and not be allowed to engage in any other activities apart from those whereby it

will be made better. Do you agree or not?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: For presumably that is what is better for the soul itself?

CALLICLES: Very much so.

SOCRATES: Now, is the shutting away from what is desired equivalent to discipline?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, being disciplined is better for the soul than the indiscipline which you were advo-

cating a moment ago.

CALLICLES: I don’t know what you are talking about, Socrates. Just ask someone else.

SOCRATES: This man cannot put up with being helped and undergoing for himself the process with

which our discussion is concerned – being disciplined.

CALLICLES: Nor does anything you are saying interest me, and I gave you these answers to oblige

Gorgias.

SOCRATES: So be it. What shall we do now? We are cut off in mid-argument.

CALLICLES: Decide for yourself.

SOCRATES: But they say that it is not lawful to leave off, even in the middle of stories. Rather, they

should be given a conclusion so that they do not go about without a head. So, you should

also answer the remaining questions so that our argument may acquire a head.

CALLICLES: How forceful you are, Socrates! But if you take my advice you will bid farewell to

this argument, or else you should converse with someone else.

SOCRATES: Well, who else is willing? For we should not leave the argument incomplete.

CALLICLES: Could you not work through the argument yourself, either speaking on your own behalf

or responding to yourself?

SOCRATES: So that the saying of Epicharmus may be fulﬁlled in me: “The words that were spoken

by two men, I, one man, must rise to delivering.”

Anyway, it seems to be absolutely nec-

essary, so that is how we should do it then. I, for one, think that we should possess a thirst

for victory when it comes to knowing what the truth is, and what is false, in relation to the

matters we are discussing. Indeed, it is a good, common to everyone, that this be made man-

ifest. Now, I shall proceed with the argument based upon how it seems to me. However, if

any of you think I am agreeing with myself contrary to things that are, you should pull me

up and refute me. For I am not really saying what I am saying as someone who has some

comprehensive knowledge. No, I am seeking along with you, and so if someone who con-

tradicts me proves to have a point, I shall be the ﬁrst to go along with him. Yet, I am asking

all this assuming that the argument should be brought to a conclusion. However, if you do

not wish to do so, let us bid it farewell at this stage and go our ways.

GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I don’t think we need to go our ways, but you need to work through the

argument, and it appears to me that the others think so too. Indeed, I myself wish to hear

you going through the remaining issues by yourself.

SOCRATES: But of course, Gorgias, so do I, although I would gladly have conversed further with

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–––––

Not following Dodds’ punctuation, who has this as a question.

Epicharmus was a comic poet from Syracuse in Sicily. The source of the line quoted is unknown.

Callicles here until I had given him the statement of Amphion in response to that of Zethus.

However, Callicles, since you are not willing to conclude the argument, you should at least

interject as you hear me if you think I am expressing anything badly, and should you refute

me. I shall not be angry with you as you were with me. Instead, you will be inscribed as my

greatest benefactor.

CALLICLES: Speak on, good man, and ﬁnish it yourself.

SOCRATES: Then hear me as I take up the argument from the beginning.

Are the pleasant and the good the same?

They are not the same, as Callicles and I have agreed.

Is the pleasant enacted for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the pleasant?

The pleasant for the sake of the good.

Is pleasure that from which, when it has arisen, we are pleased? And is good that from

which, when it is present, we are good?

Very much so.

But of course we are good, and so too is everything else that is good, from some excellence

that arises.

I think this is necessarily the case, Callicles.

And yet the excellence of anything, of an implement, a body, or indeed a soul, or of every

living creature, does not best arise in a random manner, but through organisation, correct-

ness, and a skill that has been assigned to each. Is this the case?

Yes, I agree.

So, is the excellence of each an arrangement and an ordering due to organisation?

I would say so.

Then each of the things that are is rendered good by a certain order engendered in each,

and particular to each.

So it seems to me anyway.

Then is a soul too, possessing its own order, better than a disordered one?

It must be.

But of course, the one possessed of order is orderly?

How could it not be?

And the orderly is sound-minded?

Most necessarily.

So, the sound-minded soul is good.

Now, dear friend, Callicles, I have nothing else to say in opposition to all this.

However, if you have, teach it.

CALLICLES: Speak on, my good man.

SOCRATES: Well, I say that if the good soul is sound-minded, the one affected by the opposite of

sound-mindedness is bad, and that is the one devoid of self-control and discipline.

Very much so.

And, indeed, the sound-minded person would perform actions that are appropriate in relation

both to gods and men, for those who perform inappropriate actions would not be exercising

sound-mindedness.

This is necessarily the case.

And, indeed, in relation to men, those who are performing appropriate actions would be

performing just actions, and in relation to gods, holy actions, and the person who performs

just and holy actions is necessarily just and holy.

This is so.

Then again, he is necessarily courageous too, for it is not the part of a sound-minded man

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either to pursue or ﬂee from whatever is not appropriate. No, he should ﬂee from and pursue

whatever he ought to ﬂee from or pursue, be they actions, persons, pleasures or pains, and

endure steadfastly wherever he ought. Consequently, it is very necessary, Callicles, just as

we were explaining, that the sound-minded man, being just, courageous and holy, be a per-

fectly good man. And the good man, whenever he acts, acts well and nobly, and he who

acts well must be blessed and happy, while the corrupt man, acting in an evil manner, must

be wretched. And this fellow, the undisciplined man whom you were praising, would be in

an opposite condition to the sound-minded man.

So, I am setting down these principles in this manner, and I declare that they are

true. And if this is true, then someone who wishes to be happy must, it seems, pursue and

practise sound-mindedness, and each of us must ﬂee from indiscipline as fast as his feet

will carry him. And we should contrive as best we can not to be lacking in any discipline,

and if it is lacking, either in ourselves, in any member of our household, in an individual,

or in a city, then justice and discipline must be imposed if they are going to be happy. This,

in my view anyway, is the vision one should look to in life, and all one’s own efforts and

those of the city should be directed towards this, the manner in which justice and sound-

mindedness will be available to the person who is to be blessed. This is how one should

act, not allowing desires to be undisciplined and endeavouring to satisfy them, an endless

vexation, living the life of a thief. For a person of this sort would be friendly neither to God

nor to another human being, for he is unable to commune, and to anyone devoid of com-

munion there would be no friendship. And the wise declare, Callicles, that communion,

friendship, orderliness, sound-mindedness and justice hold heaven and earth, gods and men,

together. And on account of this, my friend, they refer to the whole as an ‘order’, and not

as a ‘disorder’ or ‘indiscipline’. But I think you have not applied your mind to these matters,

and although you are wise in this area, you are unaware that geometrical equality is a great

power among both gods and men, and so, because you neglect geometry, you think it nec-

essary to practise taking more. So be it. Now, we should either refute this argument so that

the happy are not happy due to the acquisition of justice and sound-mindedness, and the

wretched are not wretched due to evil, or else, if this argument is true, we should consider

the consequences. All those consequences follow, Callicles, the ones you asked if I was

serious about, when I said that one should prosecute oneself, one’s son and one’s friend, if

they do anything wrong, and that rhetoric should be used for this. And the ones you thought

that Polus conceded due to shame also turn out to be true. Doing injustice, insofar as it is

more shameful than suffering injustice, is more base to that extent. And he who intends to

be a rhetorician in the proper sense must also be just and knowledgeable in matters of jus-

tice, and have knowledge of all aspects of justice. That is what Polus, in turn, stated that

Gorgias agreed to out of shame.

Now, having established all this, let us consider the precise issue on which you cen-

sure me, and whether or not it is valid to assert that I am unable to assist either myself or

any of my friends or family members, or deliver them from extreme dangers: that I am just

like an outcast, subject to the whim of any random person who, to use that bold phrase of

yours, wishes to slap me across the face, or to conﬁscate my property, or to expel me from

the city, or ultimately to kill me. And according to your argument, to be in such a predica-

ment is the most base condition of all. And although my argument has been stated many

times already, there is no reason not to state it again. I deny, Callicles, that being slapped

across the face unjustly is the most base experience possible, nor is having one’s body or

one’s purse picked. No, striking me or cutting me and what belongs to me in an unjust man-

ner is more base and more evil, and, indeed, stealing, enslaving, house-breaking and, in

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short, any unjust action whatsoever towards me and mine is both more evil and more base

for the perpetrator of the injustice than for me, the sufferer of the injustice. Once all this

had become evident to us in this way earlier, in the previous discussions, it was fastened

and secured by – if it is not too crude an expression – arguments of iron and adamant, or

that is how they seem anyway. And if you, or someone more forceful than you, does not

break them, anyone who says anything different from what I am now saying will be unable

to speak properly. Indeed, my argument is always the same. I myself do not know how these

matters stand; however, no one I have ever met, and no one today, is able to say otherwise

without being ridiculous.

Now I, for my part, am proposing that this is how matters stand. Yet if this is the

case for the doer of injustice, and injustice is the greatest of evils, and even greater than

this greatest of evils, if that is possible, is doing injustice without paying a penalty, what

assistance should a man, in truth, be able to provide to himself to avoid being ridiculous?

Is it not the kind that averts the greatest harm? Yes, this really must be the assistance which

it is utterly base not to be able to proffer either to oneself or to one’s own friends and family

members. The second worst baseness relates to the second worst harm, the third to the third

worst, and so on. The beauty of being able to assist against each evil, and the baseness of

being unable to assist, are proportional to the natural magnitude of each evil. Is this the case

or is it otherwise, Callicles?

CALLICLES: It is not otherwise.

SOCRATES: So, of the two – doing injustice and suffering injustice – we declare doing injustice to

be the greatest evil, and suffering injustice to be the lesser. Now, with what should a man

be provided so that he may assist himself and obtain both of these beneﬁts, the one that

comes from not acting unjustly, and the one that comes from not suffering injustice? Is it a

power or a wish? What I mean is this. If he does not wish to suffer injustice, will he not

suffer injustice, or if he has been provided with the power of not suffering injustice, will he

not suffer it?

CALLICLES: Well, that’s obvious anyway. The power would be needed.

SOCRATES: And in the case of doing injustice? If he does not wish to act unjustly, is that sufﬁcient

to avoid acting unjustly? Or is some power needed for this too, and the provision of some

skill which, unless it is learned and practised, he will act unjustly? Why do you not give

me an answer to this question anyway, Callicles? Do you think that Polus and I were or

were not compelled to agree in the right way in those earlier discussions when we agreed

that no one wishes to do injustice, but all those who do injustice do injustice unwillingly?

CALLICLES: I grant you that this is the case, Socrates, so that the argument may be concluded.

SOCRATES: Then it seems that a power and a certain skill must be provided for this purpose too, so

that we do not act unjustly.

CALLICLES: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Now, what precisely is the skill of equipping ourselves to suffer no injustice, or the least

possible? Decide whether your view is the same as mine. Indeed, it seems to me that one

should either rule in the city oneself, even as a tyrant, or else be an associate of the existing

constitution.

CALLICLES: Observe, Socrates, how willing I am to praise you when you make a good point. Yes,

I think that was a very good point.

SOCRATES: Then decide whether you think this is nicely expressed too. It seems to me that one

person is friend to another to the greatest extent possible on the basis stated by the ancients

and the wise, ‘like unto like’. Do you not think so too?

CALLICLES: I do.

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SOCRATES: Therefore, wherever a crude and uneducated tyrant is ruler, and someone in the city is

much better than this fellow, the tyrant would obviously fear him, and he would never

become a friend to the tyrant with his entire mind.

CALLICLES: This is so.

SOCRATES: Nor, if someone was far inferior, would that man be his friend either. For the tyrant

would despise him, and would never take him seriously as he would a friend.

CALLICLES: That is also true.

SOCRATES: There remains only one man deserving of the title ‘friend’ to such a person, someone

of similar character, who censures and applauds the same things and who is willing to be

ruled and submit to his rulership. This fellow will wield great power in this city, and no one

will treat him unjustly and get away with it. Is this not the case?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, if one of the young people in this city were to think, “By what means may I acquire

great power, and have no one treat me unjustly?” The way for him to do so, it seems, is to

accustom himself from his very youth to delight in and to detest the same things as the des-

pot, and contrive that he be as like unto that fellow as possible. Is this not so?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then, according to your argument, immunity from unjust treatment and great power in

the city will have been attained in this case.

CALLICLES: Very much so.

SOCRATES: Now, does this also apply to not acting unjustly? Or is this very different, since he is

like the ruler who is unjust and wields great power alongside him? Yes, I believe anyway

that in this regard his contrivance will be the exact opposite, to be able to do as much injus-

tice as possible and not pay any penalty for acting unjustly. Is this so?

CALLICLES: Apparently.

SOCRATES: Therefore the greatest evil will befall him, being corrupted and mutilated in soul,

through power and his imitation of the despot.

CALLICLES: I don’t know how you manage to continually twist the arguments this way and that,

Socrates. Do you not realise that this imitator will put anyone who does not imitate the

tyrant to death, if he wishes, and conﬁscate his possessions?

SOCRATES: I do realise that, good Callicles, unless I am deaf anyway, since I am hearing it con-

stantly from you and from Polus just now, and from almost everyone else in the city. But

you hear me. He will kill him, if he wishes, but as a degenerate person killing a good and

noble person.

CALLICLES: Yes, isn’t that what’s most annoying?

SOCRATES: Not to a man possessing intelligence, as the argument indicates. Or do you think that a

man should contrive to live for as long as possible, and study those skills that preserve us

always from danger, such as the one you also directed me to study, the rhetoric that keeps

us safe in courts of law?

CALLICLES: Yes, by Zeus, and I am giving you sound advice.

SOCRATES: What about this, best of men? Do you also think the knowledge of swimming is some-

thing august?

CALLICLES: By Zeus, I do not.

SOCRATES: And yet it does save people from death whenever they end up in the sort of danger

where this knowledge is needed. But if you think this is trivial, I will refer you to a more

important knowledge than this, the piloting of ships, which saves not only souls, but also

bodies and property from extreme dangers, just as rhetoric does. It is unpretentious and

orderly, and it does not strike self-important poses as if engaged in some remarkable activity.

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But having engaged in the same activity as the courtroom advocates, getting you safely

from Aegina

to here, it charges two obols,

I think. And if it is a journey from Egypt or

the Pontus,

for this enormous service, having given safe passage to everyone I have just

mentioned – yourself, your children, your property and your womenfolk – and having

landed them in the harbour, it charges two drachmas at the very most. And the person who

possesses this skill and has engaged in these activities disembarks and walks about on shore

beside his ship with a modest demeanour. Indeed, he understands enough to ﬁgure out that

it is unclear which of the passengers he has beneﬁted by not allowing them to be drowned

at sea, and which of them he has harmed, knowing that he disembarked them no better

either in body or soul than when he embarked them. He ﬁgures out, therefore, that on the

one hand, if someone afﬂicted with serious, incurable bodily diseases does not drown, he

is wretched because he did not die, and he is not beneﬁted by the pilot. Yet on the other

hand, if someone has numerous diseases of something more exalted than the body, namely

the soul, and these are incurable, he reckons that this man’s life is not worth living and he

will not be beneﬁting this man if he saves him from the sea, or a court-action, or anything

else whatsoever. He knows, rather, that it is not better for a degenerate person to be alive,

for he must perforce live badly.

For these reasons, it is not conventional for the pilot to give himself airs, even though

he does save us. Nor, for that matter, my wonderful friend, does the military mechanic who

is sometimes able, no less than the general, not to mention the pilot or anyone else, to save

people. Indeed, on occasion he saves entire cities. You do not think he is comparable to a

courtroom advocate, do you? And yet, if he were to speak after the manner of you people,

Callicles, solemnising his profession, he would bury you with words, proclaiming and

extolling the need to become mechanics, setting the other professions at naught, for he

would have a plausible argument. But you despise this man and his skill nonetheless, and

you would call him ‘mechanic’ as a term of reproach, and you would not be prepared to

give your daughter to his son, nor would you yourself accept that man’s daughter. And yet,

given the basis on which you praise your own profession, for what just reason do you

despise the mechanic and the others you mentioned just now? I know you would claim to

be better, and from better stock. But if ‘better’ is not what I say it is, and excellence is just

saving yourself and your own possessions, regardless of the sort of person you happen to

be, then your censure turns out to be laughable, be it of a mechanic or a physician or any

other skills that have been devised in order to save people. But, blessed man, look again

lest the noble and the good may be something else besides saving and being saved. For he

who is truly a man must not be attached to life, and must give up the notion of living for a

particular period of time. Rather, having turned these matters over to the god, and given

credence to women, who say that one should not ﬂee from fate, he should consider this. In

what way may a person best live the span of life that he will live? Should he assimilate

himself to the constitution under which he abides? And should you now become as much

like the Athenian populace as you can if you are going to be beloved of them, and wield

great power in the city? See if there is advantage in this for you and for me, my miraculous

friend, so that we do not suffer the fate they impute to those women of Thessaly who pull

down the moon,

and this choice of ours, this power in the city, be at the cost of all that is

dearest to us. But if you believe that any person could bestow upon you the sort of skill that

would make you extremely powerful in this city, while being unlike its constitution – per-

haps better, perhaps worse – then in my view you have not been properly advised, Callicles.

For you need to be not just their imitator, but like them in your own nature if you are going

to achieve anything genuine in friendship with the Athenian demos, or indeed, by Zeus,

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with Demos, the son of Pyrilampes. So, whoever renders you most like unto them will make

you a politician, in the way that you want to be a politician, and a rhetorician too. For every

populace is delighted by speeches delivered after their own fashion, but they are troubled

by anything alien to this. Do you have anything different to say my friend? Can we say

anything against this, Callicles?

CALLICLES: You seem to me – I do not know how – to be expressing this well, Socrates, but I have

experienced what most people experience. I am not entirely persuaded by you.

SOCRATES: The love of the populace residing in your soul is opposing me, Callicles, but if we con-

sider these same issues more frequently, thoroughly and better, you will be persuaded. But

now you should recollect that we said there are two means of caring for anything, be it soul

or body. One operates with pleasure as its aim, the other aims for the very best, does not

engage in gratiﬁcation, and is assertive. Is that not how we deﬁned them at the time?

CALLICLES: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: Is not the one that aims at pleasure ignoble, amounting to nothing but ﬂattery? Is this so?

CALLICLES: Be it so, if you wish it so.

SOCRATES: While the other, whether it happens to be body or soul that we are caring for, intends

that it will be as good as possible.

CALLICLES: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: Must we therefore take the city and the citizens in hand in this manner and care for

them, making the citizens themselves as good as possible? For surely in the absence of this,

as we found in our earlier discussions, there is no advantage in bestowing any other service

whatsoever when the understanding of those who are going to acquire a lot of money or

authority over something, or any other power at all, is not noble and good. Should we

declare that this is so?

CALLICLES: Entirely so, if it pleases you more.

SOCRATES: Now, Callicles, suppose that we were embarking upon civic affairs, and we encouraged

one another to engage in construction projects involving large structures such as walls,

dockyards or temples. Would we need to examine ourselves and ﬁnd out ﬁrstly whether or

not we had knowledge of this skill of construction, and from whom we learned it? Would

we need to do this or not?

CALLICLES: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: And secondly, would we also have to ﬁnd out whether we had ever constructed any

structure at all, privately, either for one of our friends or for ourselves, and whether this

structure was beautiful or ugly. And if we found through these deliberations that our teachers

had been notable and good, and we had constructed many beautiful structures whilst with

our teachers, and many indeed on our own after we left those teachers, under such circum-

stances it would make sense for us to embark upon public projects. However, if we were

able neither to point out our own teachers, nor any structures at all, or a lot of worthless

ones, it would then be stupid, I presume, to turn our hands to public projects, or encourage

one another to do so. Should we assert that this is a correct formulation or not?

CALLICLES: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: Would this not also apply to all other situations where, having embarked upon public

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–––––

Aegina is an island, south of Athens, in the Saronic Gulf.

There are six obols in a drachma.

The Pontus is the region of northern Asia Minor including the south coast of the Black Sea.

There was a widespread belief that Thessalian witches caused eclipses and had to pay for their powers with the loss of

a family member.

Not accepting Dodds’ emendation of the manuscript text at this point.

service, we might encourage one another to enter public service perhaps as properly qual-

iﬁed physicians, for instance? Presumably we would scrutinise one another – I, you, and

you, me – asking, “Come on, Socrates. By the gods, where does your own body stand in

respect of health? Has anyone else, slave or free, ever been quit of disease through the

agency of Socrates?” And I think I would make other enquiries of that sort about you. And

if we did not ﬁnd anyone, citizen or stranger, man or woman, who had been improved in

body through our agency, by Zeus, Callicles, would it not be laughable, in truth, if human

stupidity were to attain such a level that before practising on a private basis, often in a hap-

hazard manner but often working systematically and exercising the skill properly, we were

to encourage ourselves and other people of this sort to turn a hand to public service and, as

the saying goes, attempt to learn pottery by working on a large vessel? Do you not think it

would be stupid to act in this way?

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: But now, best of men, since you have just begun to engage in civic affairs, and since

you are encouraging me and censuring me because I am not engaged in this, shall we not

scrutinise one another? So come on, has Callicles already made any of our citizens better?

Is there anyone who was previously degenerate, unjust, undisciplined and stupid, be he cit-

izen or stranger, slave or free, who became noble and good through the agency of Callicles?

Tell me, if anyone scrutinises you on these bases, Callicles, what will you say? What person

will you claim to have made better through their association with you? Why are you reluc-

tant to answer if there really is some achievement of yours from your days as a private cit-

izen, before you turned your hand to public service?

CALLICLES: You have a thirst for victory, Socrates.

SOCRATES: No, I am not asking out of a thirst for victory, but as someone who truly wishes to know

the precise manner in which you think political activity should be conducted among us. Or,

once you embark upon civic affairs among us, will you really care for anything else besides

the issue of how we citizens may become as good as possible? Have we not agreed several

times already that this is what a political man should do? Have we agreed or not? Please

answer. I shall answer on your behalf. We have agreed. In that case, if this is the service a

good man should furnish to his own city, recollect and tell me now about the men you men-

tioned a short while ago, Pericles, Cimon, Miltiades and Themistocles. Do you still think

these men were good citizens?

CALLICLES: I do.

SOCRATES: Then, since they were good, it is obvious that each of them made the citizens better

rather than worse. Did they do this or not?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: In that case, when Pericles began speaking in the Assembly, were the Athenians worse

than when he delivered his ﬁnal speeches?

CALLICLES: Probably.

SOCRATES: Surely, best of men, this is not probably, but necessarily the case, based on what we

have agreed, if, in fact, Pericles was, at any rate, a good citizen.

CALLICLES: What about it?

SOCRATES: Nothing. But tell me this as well. Do the Athenians claim to have become better through

the agency of Pericles, or quite the contrary, to have been corrupted by the man? Indeed,

what I hear anyway is that Pericles turned the Athenians into lazy, cowardly, blabbering

money-lovers by ﬁrst instituting paid public service.

CALLICLES: You have heard all this from admirers of Sparta, Socrates.

SOCRATES: But there is something else that I do not just hear but know full well, and so do you:

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that Pericles was well regarded at ﬁrst, and the Athenians levelled no charge of baseness

against him when they were in a worse state. However, once they had become good and

noble through his agency, towards the end of Pericles’ life, they charged him with embez-

zlement, and indeed almost condemned him to death on the obvious ground that he was

corrupt.

CALLICLES: What of it? Does it follow that Pericles was a bad person?

SOCRATES: Yet it seems that someone who cares for donkeys or horses or oxen would be bad if he

were the sort of person who took charge of them when they neither trampled him nor gored

him nor bit him, and turned them out so wild that they performed all these mischiefs. Or do

you not think that any caretaker of any living creature whatsoever is bad who takes charge

of them when gentle and turns them out wilder than when he took them on? Do you think

this or not?

CALLICLES: Entirely so, just to gratify you.

SOCRATES: Then you should also gratify me by answering this question. Is a human being also one

of those living creatures, or is he not?

CALLICLES: How could he not be?

SOCRATES: And did Pericles not care for human beings?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: What now? Should they not have become more just rather than more unjust through

his agency, based on what we have agreed a moment ago, if he really took charge of them

as a man who was good in relation to civic affairs?

CALLICLES: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: Are not just people civilised, according to Homer?

But what do you say? Is this not

the case?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And yet, Pericles rendered them more uncivilised than when he took charge of them,

and these mischiefs were directed against himself, the last person he would have wanted it

for.

CALLICLES: Do you want me to agree with you?

SOCRATES: If you think I am speaking the truth.

CALLICLES: Well, let it be so.

SOCRATES: Now, since they were more uncivilised, were they not more unjust and bad?

CALLICLES: Be it so.

SOCRATES: So, according to this argument, Pericles was not good at civic affairs.

CALLICLES: You say he was not anyway.

SOCRATES: By Zeus, even you said so, based on what you have agreed. But tell me again about

Cimon. Did not the very people he was caring for ostracise him so that they would not hear

his voice for ten years? And did they not do the same things to Themistocles, and punish

him with exile too? And they voted to cast Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, into the pit,

and were it not for the presiding ofﬁcial he would have been thrown in. However, if these

fellows were good men, as you claim, they would never have suffered those misfortunes.

It is not the fate of good charioteers that at the beginning of their careers they are not prone

to fall out of the chariots, but when they have tended their horses and have themselves

become better charioteers, they are prone to fall out then. This is not the case, either in char-

ioteering or in any other activity. Or do you think it is?

CALLICLES: I do not.

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The phrase ‘kindly and god-fearing’ is used three times in Homer’s Odyssey vi.120, ix.175, xiii.201.

SOCRATES: So, it seems that our previous statements were true. We know not a single man in this

city who has become good in relation to civic affairs. You agree that there are none among

the present generation, and although you selected those four men from the previous gener-

ation, they actually turned out to be on a par with the moderns. And so, if they were rhetori-

cians, they did not employ the true rhetoric, or they would not have been cast out, nor did

they use the ﬂattering kind either.

CALLICLES: But surely, Socrates, none of today’s men will ever accomplish anything like what was

accomplished by anyone of those four you care to choose.

SOCRATES: You extraordinary man! I am not criticising these fellows either, not as servants of the

city anyway. No, they seem to me to have been of greater service than our contemporaries,

and better able to provide the city with what it desired. However, when it came to redirecting

those desires rather than pandering to them, persuading and compelling them to the one

whereby the citizens were going to be better, in this respect these men of the past were, in

a way, no different from those of the present day. Yet this is the sole task of a good citizen.

But I agree with you, that in providing ships, walls and dockyards, and anything else like

that, those men were more ingenious than these contemporaries of ours.

Now, you and I are engaging in comical behaviour in these arguments. For through-

out our entire discussion we are being borne around unceasingly to the same place, each

ignorant of what the other is saying. So, I believe you have agreed many times, and realised

that this activity itself is something twofold, both in relation to the body and in relation to

the soul. One aspect affords a service by which it can provide food when our bodies are

hungry, drink when they are thirsty, clothing, bedding and shoes when they are cold, or

whatever else the bodies come to desire. And I am deliberately describing this to you based

on the same illustrations so that you may understand more easily. Now, if someone can pro-

vide these either as a retailer, a merchant or as a manufacturer of any of these things them-

selves, being a baker or a cook or weaver or cobbler or tanner, it is little wonder that such

a person seems, both to himself and others, to be an attendant of the body. Thus does it

seem, to everyone who does not know, that besides all of these activities, there is a particular

skill of gymnastics and medicine, which is the true attendance upon the body, and this

indeed deserves to rule over all of those other skills and make use of what they produce,

because this skill knows what food and drink is useful or detrimental to the excellence of

the body, while all the others are ignorant of this. Accordingly, those other skills are slavish,

servile and devoid of freedom in their dealings with the body, while gymnastics and med-

icine are, in justice, their mistress.

Now, when I say that these same considerations also apply to the soul, you seem to

me to understand, and on occasion you agree, as though you know what I mean. But then

you come along a little later, claiming that there have been men in this city who were good

and noble citizens. But once I ask you who they were, you offer as exemplars men engaged

in civic affairs, just as if I were to ask you about gymnastic affairs and which men had

become good at this and are good attendants of our bodies, and you were to inform me, in

all seriousness, that Thearion the breadmaker, and Mithaikos who wrote the book on Sicilian

cookery, and Sarambos the wine merchant prove themselves wonderful attendants upon

our bodies as these fellows provide us with wonderful bread in one case, and with food and

wine in the other instances.

Perhaps you might get angry if I were to tell you, “My man, you understand nothing

about gymnastics. You tell me of men who are servants and satisﬁers of desires, while appre-

ciating nothing good and noble about them, who stuff and fatten people’s bodies in any way

they can, destroy the natural ﬂesh of the people too, and are praised for doing so. These

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people, for their part, through inexperience, do not blame the banqueters for causing the

diseases, and the wasting of their very ﬂesh when disease arrives a long time later, brought

on by the excess indulged without regard to the rules of health. No, they blame whoever

happens to be around at the time, and who offers them any advice, and they would do these

men harm if they could. And they praise the previous fellows who are responsible for the

problems.” And you are now behaving just like this, Callicles, praising men who have

feasted these citizens by feeding them up on whatever they desired. Yes, they say that these

men have made this city great. But they are not aware that it is bloated and festering

because of those men of old. For, omitting sound-mindedness and justice, they have ﬁlled

up the city with harbours and dockyards and walls and tribute-money and nonsense of that

sort, yet whenever a bout of debilitation afﬂicts her, they blame the present-day advisers,

and praise Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, the men who caused the problems. And

they will probably attack you if you are not careful, and my own companion Alcibiades

too, whenever they lose what they had to begin with, along with all they have acquired

since. Not that you have direct responsibility for the problems, but perhaps you do share

some responsibility.

What is more, I also see an absurd process going on these days, and I hear about it

too in relation to the men of old. For I observe that whenever the city proceeds against one

of its political men on the grounds that he acted unjustly, they get angry and complain bit-

terly because they are treated so terribly. They argue that having done so much good for

the city, they are now being destroyed by it in an unjust manner. But this is a complete lie,

for not one protector of a city could ever be destroyed by the very city that he was protecting.

Indeed, the circumstances of those who make themselves out to be politicians, and those

who set themselves up as sophists, are probably the same. In fact, the sophists, though wise

in other respects, engage in this strange process by which, having claimed to be teachers of

excellence, they frequently accuse their own pupils of treating them unjustly by withholding

payment from them and failing to afford them any gratitude for being so well treated by

them. Now, what process could be more irrational than this description by which men, who

have become good and just, whose injustice has been eradicated by their teacher, who have

come to possess justice, behave unjustly on account of that which they do not possess?

Does this not seem strange to you, my friend? In truth, Callicles, you have made it necessary

for me to engage in mob oratory, through your reluctance to answer me.

CALLICLES: But were you not the one who was unable to speak unless someone responded to you?

SOCRATES: So it seemed, anyway. But now, since you are unwilling to answer me, I am protracting

my utterances quite considerably. But, good man, tell me in the name of friendship, does it

not seem irrational to you for someone who claims to have made someone else good to cen-

sure that person, because having become good through his agency, and still being good, he

is an evildoer after all?

CALLICLES: It seems so, to me anyway.

SOCRATES: Do you not hear this sort of thing from those men who claim to educate people towards

excellence?

CALLICLES: I do. But what can you say about people who are worthless?

SOCRATES: And what can you say about those who, whilst claiming to have taken charge of the

city and cared for it, so that it will be as good as it possibly can be, turn around when cir-

cumstances dictate, and accuse it of being a gross evil doer? Do you think these fellows

differ at all from the others? Sophist and rhetorician are the same, bless you, or nearly so,

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Alcibiades was condemned to death in absentia after he had fled to Sparta.

and very similar, just as I was saying to Polus. But you, through ignorance, think that rhet-

oric is something glorious, and you despise the other activity. But in truth, to the extent that

law-making is more noble than jurisprudence, and gymnastic than medicine, so too is

sophistry more noble than rhetoric. And I for one believe that the popular speakers and

sophists alone are not permitted to censure the very personage whom they educate, on the

grounds that he is corrupt in his dealing with themselves, or else they would, by this same

argument, be accusing themselves of not beneﬁting those whom they claim to beneﬁt. Is

this not so?

CALLICLES: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: And if what I said is true, I presume it is acceptable for them alone, so it seems, to

bestow this service without a fee. For in the case of some other service, someone who has

received the beneﬁt might perhaps withhold the recompense. For instance, someone who

has become a fast runner through the agency of a trainer might do so if the trainer were to

bestow the service without stipulating a fee and arranging to get the money as soon as the

swiftness had been bestowed. Yet it is certainly not on account of slowness, I presume, that

people act unjustly, but on account of injustice. Is this so?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Therefore, if someone eradicates this injustice itself, he should not fear that any injustice

will ever befall him, and this service alone may be bestowed without any risk if anyone is

really able to make another person good. Is this not the case?

CALLICLES: I agree.

SOCRATES: So, for these reasons, it seems there is no disgrace in taking money for giving advice

on other matters, such as house-building or on other areas of expertise.

CALLICLES: So it seems anyway.

SOCRATES: And yet, when it comes to advising on how one may be as good as possible and best

manage one’s own household and city, it is regarded as a disgrace to refuse to give advice

on this unless someone gives you money. Is this so?

CALLICLES: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the reason for this is, of course, that this is the only service that makes the recipient

of the beneﬁt desire to confer a beneﬁt in return. Accordingly, it seems to be a good sign if

someone who has conferred a beneﬁt through this service is treated well in return, and it is

not a good sign if he is not. Is this how matters stand?

CALLICLES: It is.

SOCRATES: Now, deﬁne which of these services to the city you are encouraging me to engage in,

the one that struggles with the Athenians, like a physician, so that they will become as good

as possible, or the one where I serve them and minister to their pleasure? Tell me the truth,

Callicles, for it is right that since you were so frank with me in the beginning, you continue

to say what you are thinking. So, speak out truly and nobly.

CALLICLES: Well then, I mean that you should act as their servant.

SOCRATES: So, noblest of men, you are encouraging me to act as their ﬂatterer.

CALLICLES: Yes, if it pleases you to be so blunt, Socrates. Since if you do not engage in this...

SOCRATES: Please do not say what you have said many times, that whoever wishes will kill me so

that I, for my part, do not have to say that he will do so as an evil man killing a good man.

Nor should you say that he will conﬁscate all my possessions, so that I, for my part, do not

have to say that once he has conﬁscated them, he will not know how he should use them.

Rather, having conﬁscated them from me in an unjust manner, he will make use of them in

the unjust manner in which he acquired them, and if he uses them unjustly he uses them

basely, and if he uses them basely he uses them badly.

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CALLICLES: You seem to me, Socrates, to believe that you will not suffer a single one of these mis-

fortunes, as though you dwelt apart and could not be hauled into court, probably by some

utterly corrupt and quite ordinary person.

SOCRATES: Well, I am, in truth, a fool, Callicles, if I do not believe that in this city of ours anything

can happen to anyone. However, I do know that if I were to end up in court facing one of

these dangers you refer to, the one who prosecuted me would be an evil-doer, for no worthy

person would take an innocent man to court, and it would be nothing strange if I were put

to death. Would you like me to tell you why I expect all this?

CALLICLES: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: I believe that I am one of few Athenians – I do not say I am the only one – who has

taken to the true skill of civic affairs, and I am the only person these days who engages in

civic affairs, since any words I ever speak are spoken not with a view to gratiﬁcation, but

with a view to what is best rather than what is most pleasant. And, having no desire to

engage in those subtleties that you recommend, I shall have nothing to say in the courtroom.

And the same argument that I presented to Polus applies to me, for I shall be judged as a

physician would be judged before a jury of children on the accusations of a cook. Yes, con-

sider this. What defence would a person like this, trapped in these circumstances, make if

someone were to accuse him, saying, “O children, this man here has inﬂicted many evils

upon you, yes, on yourselves. And he maims the very youngest of you by cutting and burn-

ing, he induces distress by withering and choking you, gives you bitter potions and makes

you go hungry and thirsty, unlike me who has feasted you sumptuously on a great variety

of pleasant delights.” What do you think a physician caught up in such an evil predicament

would be able to say? And if he were to speak the truth, that “Children, I have carried out

all of these procedures for the sake of health”, would there not be an enormous outcry from

such jurors as those?

CALLICLES: Probably. I should think so.

SOCRATES: Do you not think he would be in utter perplexity as to what he should say?

CALLICLES: Entirely so.

SOCRATES: Now, I know that I too would ﬁnd myself in such a predicament as this were I to be

landed in court. Indeed, I would not even be able to recount any pleasures I have provided

to them which these people regard as services or beneﬁts, and I would envy neither those

who provide them nor the people to whom they are provided. And if someone were to say

that I corrupt the young people by reducing them to perplexity, or that I revile the older

generation by speaking bitter words to them in public or in private, I would be unable to

state the truth that “I say all this and I enact all this in a just manner, O gentlemen of the

jury”, to use your phrase, Callicles. And I would have nothing else to say either, and so I

would suffer whatever fate might decree.

CALLICLES: Well, Socrates, do you think a man who is unable to help himself when he is in this

situation is well established in the city?

SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, if he possessed one quality which you have accepted on a number of

occasions: if he has assisted himself not to be unjust, neither towards gods nor men, neither

in word nor in deed. For we have agreed many times that this assistance to oneself is the

most powerful. So, if someone were to convict me of being unable to help myself or anyone

else through this kind of assistance, I would be ashamed, whether I was convicted by many

people, by a few, or one on one. And if I were to be put to death on account of this particular

inability, I would be troubled by that. But if I were put to death because I lack the ﬂattering

kind of rhetoric, I know very well that you would see me bearing death lightly. For no one

is afraid of dying itself, unless he is utterly irrational and cowardly. Rather he is afraid of

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acting unjustly. For the worst of all calamities is to arrive in Hades with one’s soul full of

injustices. And if you wish, I am prepared to give you an account indicating that this is the

case.

CALLICLES: Well, since you have concluded the other issues, conclude this too.

SOCRATES: Then, listen to a very beautiful narrative, as they say, one which I believe you may

regard as a myth, but which I regard as an account, for whatever I am about to recount to

you I shall recount as the truth. Indeed, as Homer explains, Zeus, Poseidon and Pluto made

a distribution of the sovereignty after they inherited it from their father.

Now, there was a

law relating to humanity from the time of Cronus, which had always been in place, and still

is among the gods. Those people who have passed their lives in a just and holy manner

depart, after they die, to the Isles of the Blest to dwell in complete happiness far from evils,

while those who have lived in an unjust and godless manner go to the prison-house of ret-

ribution and justice that they call Tartarus. But in the time of Cronus, and even more recently

under the sovereignty of Zeus, their judges were alive, and they were judged whilst still

alive on the very day they were going to die, and so the cases were judged badly. Then both

Pluto and the attendants from the Isles of the Blest went to Zeus and reported that unde-

serving people were making their way to them in either place. So Zeus said, “Well, I shall

stop this from happening. The cases are indeed being decided badly at present, for those

who are judged are judged whilst fully clothed because they are judged whilst still living.

So, many people possessing degenerate souls are clothed in beautiful bodies, lineage and

wealth, and once there is a trial, numerous witnesses appear on their behalf testifying that

they have lived in a just manner. Now, the judges are overwhelmed by all this, and what is

more, they themselves are fully clothed as they make their judgements, having concealed

their own souls behind eyes and ears and the entire body. All of these, both their own cloth-

ing and that of the people being judged, become a screen in front of them. So, in the ﬁrst

place, he said, “Their foreknowledge of death must be stopped, for at present they know in

advance. And so Prometheus has been instructed to put an end to this foreknowledge of

theirs.

Hereafter, they must be judged naked of all those additions, for judgement must be

passed when they have died. And their judge must be naked, dead, immediately beholding

their soul itself with his soul itself once each person has died, bereft of kindred, having left

that entire order behind him on the earth, so that the judgement may be just. Now I, having

recognised these issues before you did, have made judges of my own sons, two from Asia,

Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe, Aeacus.

Accordingly, as soon as people

die, they will pass judgement in the meadow, at the fork from which two roads lead, one to

the Isles of the Blest and the other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus will judge those from Asia,

Aeacus those from Europe, and I shall bestow seniority upon Minos to give a ﬁnal judge-

ment in case either of the others are in perplexity, so that the decision about the destination

of human beings may be as just as possible.”

Well, Callicles, this is what I have heard and believe to be true, and on the basis of

those accounts I conclude that certain consequences follow. It seems to me that death hap-

pens to be nothing else but the separation from one another of two entities, the soul and

the body. And yet once they have been separated from one another, both of them retain

their own condition, which is no worse than when the man was alive, and so the body

retains its own nature, and all the care it was given and all the afﬂictions it suffered are

plain to be seen. For instance, if someone’s body was large either by nature or through

nurture or both, the corpse of this man will be large once he has died, and if he was fat it

will be fat when he is dead, and the same goes for the other characteristics. And what is

more, if he had long hair his corpse will be long-haired, and if he was a rogue who merited

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whipping and he had the scars, the imprints of the blows on his body, either from whips

or from other injuries during his life, one can see that the corpse also has these when he is

dead. Or if someone’s limbs were broken or deformed during his life, those same features

will be in evidence when he has died. And, in short, whatever bodily features he developed

while he was alive will also be in evidence, all of them or most of them, for some time

after he has died.

And so, Callicles, it seems to me that the same argument applies to the soul.

Everything in the soul is plain to be seen once it has been stripped of the body, both the

natural qualities and the effects that the person retains in his soul due to the conduct of par-

ticular actions. Now, when they arrive in front of the judge, those from Asia stand before

Rhadamanthus, and Rhadamanthus stops them and beholds the soul of each, not knowing

whose soul it is. And very often, having come across the Great King, or some other king or

potentate, he observes that there is nothing healthy in the soul, rather it bears the marks of

scourging and is full of scars which his own behaviour has imprinted upon his soul on

account of oath breaking and injustices. Its ways are all crooked due to falsity and pretence,

and nothing is straight because its nurture was devoid of truth. And he sees the soul full of

distortion and deformity due to licence, luxury, insolence and unrestrained actions. Having

seen this, he sends it away in dishonour straight to the conﬁne, where on arrival it will await

the afﬂictions that are appropriate to it.

It is proper that all who undergo punishment, and are punished by another in the cor-

rect manner, either become better and are beneﬁted, or else act as examples to other people

so that others who see them being afﬂicted by whatever they suffer may become better out

of fear. Now, those who are beneﬁted, and make retribution before gods and men, are the

people who have engaged in transgressions that are curable. Nevertheless, it is through pain

and suffering that the beneﬁt comes to them, both here and in Hades, for they cannot be

quit of injustice in any other way. However, those who have engaged in utterly unjust actions

and are rendered incurable on account of such injustices are the ones who act as examples

to others. These people themselves are no longer beneﬁted at all, since they are incurable.

But other people are beneﬁted when they see them suffering the most enormous, most

painful and most fearful afﬂictions throughout eternity on account of their transgressions,

simply hanging up as examples there, in Hades, in the prison-house, a spectacle and a warn-

ing to those unjust people who are continually arriving there. And if what Polus says is true,

then I maintain that Archelaus will be one of these, as will anyone else who is a tyrant of

that sort. And I believe most of these examples to other people have come from the ranks

of tyrants, kings, potentates and those who administer the affairs of our cities, for these peo-

ple, on account of their immense power, also engage in the most enormous and unholy

transgressions. Homer bears witness to these claims when he represents kings and potentates

as the ones who are punished throughout eternity in Hades – Tantalus and Sisyphus and

Tityus.

But no one represents Thersites, or any other wrongdoer who is a private citizen,

as being incurable and afﬂicted by these enormous punishments, for in my view he lacked

the immense power and so is more fortunate than those who do possess power. Anyway,

Callicles, the people who become extreme evildoers come indeed from the ranks of the

powerful, yet there is nothing to prevent good men from arising among them too, and those

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–––––

Iliad xv.187ff.

Prometheus was the champion and benefactor of mankind to whom he gave fire. His name means ‘forethought’.

Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus were famous judges in their lifetimes who became judges in the underworld after

death.

The punishments of Tantalus, Sisyphus and Tityus are described in Homer’s Odyssey xi.576-600.

who do arise deserve great admiration. Indeed, Callicles, it is difﬁcult, and deserving of

much praise, to live one’s life in a just manner having come by an enormous power to act

unjustly. Few people of this sort arise. And yet they have arisen, both here and elsewhere,

and in my view there will be more of them, noble and good in this excellence of managing

in a just manner whatever is entrusted to them. One even became extremely well respected

among the other Greeks as well, Aristides,

son of Lysimachus. But, best of men, most of

the powerful people became corrupt.

Now, as I was saying, once the judge Rhadamanthus gets hold of someone like this,

he knows nothing else about him at all, neither who he is nor who he is descended from,

except that he is an evil doer. And having discerned this, he dispatches him to Tartarus with

a mark indicating whether he is regarded as curable or incurable, and when he arrives there

he suffers whatever is appropriate. But sometimes when he looks upon another soul that

has lived a holy life in company with truth, belonging to a private citizen or someone else,

especially, or so I assert anyway Callicles, the soul of a philosopher who has performed his

own duties and has not been excessively active throughout his life, he is delighted and

despatches it to the Isles of the Blest. Aeacus also engages in the same activities, both of

them holding a staff, but Minos sits and oversees them, he alone holding a sceptre of gold,

as Homer’s Odysseus says that he saw him

holding a golden sceptre, passing judgements upon the dead.

Now then, Callicles, I have been persuaded by these accounts, and I give consideration to

how I might present my soul to the judge in the healthiest possible condition. So, having

bid farewell to the honours so prized by humanity, practising the truth, I shall endeavour to

live my life being as good as I can actually be, and when I die, to die in the same manner.

And to the best of my ability I encourage all other people as well, and indeed I exhort you

in return towards this life and this struggle, which I assert exceeds all the struggles of this

world. And I censure you, because you will be unable to assist yourself whenever you come

to the trial and the judgement I have just described. Rather, having arrived in front of that

judge, the son of Aegina, once he has hold of you and is controlling you, you will gape and

you will be dizzy in that place, just as much as I am in this place, and someone will probably

slap you contemptuously on the face and splatter you all over with mud.

Well then, perhaps these descriptions seem to you just like a myth an old woman

might recount, and you despise them. And it would be no surprise if we were to despise

them, if, in our search, we were somehow able to discover something better and truer than

them. But now you see that the three of you, yourself, Polus and Gorgias, who really are

the wisest Greeks of the present day, are unable to prove that one should live any other life

than this one, a life which also turns out to be proﬁtable in the hereafter. But in the midst

of all these assertions, the others having been refuted, this proposition alone is left undis-

turbed: that it is necessary to be more wary of doing injustice than of suffering injustice;

and it is all the more important for a man to work at being good, both in private and in pub-

lic, rather than seeming good; and if he becomes bad in some respect, he should be punished.

And this good, becoming good and paying a penalty by being punished, stands in second

place after being good. And all ﬂattery concerning yourself or concerning others, be they

few or be they many, must be shunned, and rhetoric should be used in this manner, always

directed to the just, and so should every other activity.

So heed me, and follow me to a place where, on arrival, you will be happy both in

life and after death, as the argument indicates. And let someone despise you as a fool and

splatter you with mud if he wants to. Yes, by Zeus, and be bold enough to let him strike

you that contemptuous blow for nothing terrible will befall you if you really are noble

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and good, practising excellence. And after we have practised together in this way, then at

that stage, if we deem it useful, we shall contribute to civic affairs, or we shall deliberate

upon whatever issues occur to us as we shall be better equipped to deliberate than we are

now. Indeed, it is quite disgraceful, given our present condition, that we disport ourselves

in a youthful fashion as if we amounted to something, we who are in such an ill-educated

state that we never, ever, hold the same views on the same issues, even on issues of the

utmost importance. So, let us use the argument that has now been revealed to us, just like

a guide. It has indicated to us that this way of life is best: to live and to die in the practice

of justice and all other excellence. So, let us follow this, and encourage others to do so,

and not that way of life that you believe in and encourage upon me, for that is worth noth-

ing, Callicles.

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–––––

Aristides was an Athenian politician and general. Nicknamed ‘the Just’, he was a leader of the Athenian resistance

against the Persian invasion.

Odyssey xi.569.