Soc. But if they were good, then clearly each of them must have made the citizens better instead of worse ?
Cal. Yes.
Soc. And, therefore, when Pericles first began to speak in the assembly, the Athenians were not so good as when he spoke last ?
Cal. Very likely.
Soc. Nay, my friend, “likely” is not the word ; for if he was a good citizen, the inference is certain.
Cal. And what difference does that make ?
Soc. None ; only I should like further to know whether the Athenians are supposed to have been made better by Pericles, or, on the contrary, to have been corrupted by him ; for I hear that he was the first who gave the people pay, and made them idle and cowardly, and encouraged them in the love of talk and money.
Cal. You heard that, Socrates, from the laconising set who bruise their ears.
Soc. But what I am going to tell you now is not mere hearsay, but well known both to you and me : that at first, Pericles was glorious and his character unimpeached by any verdict of the Athenians — this was during the time when they were not so good — yet afterwards, when they had been made good and gentle by him, at the very end of his life they convicted him of theft, and almost put him to death, clearly under the notion that he was a malefactor.
Cal. Well, but how does that prove Pericles’ badness ?
Soc. Why, surely you would say that he was a bad manager of asses or horses or oxen, who had received them originally neither kicking nor butting nor biting him, and implanted in them all these savage tricks ? Would he not be a bad manager of any animals who received them gentle, and made them fiercer than they were when he received them ? What do you say ?
Cal. I will do you the favour of saying “yes.”
Soc. And will you also do me the favour of saying whether man is an animal ?
Cal. Certainly he is.
Soc. And was not Pericles a shepherd of men ?
Cal. Yes.
Soc. And if he was a good political shepherd, ought not the animals who were his subjects, as we were just now acknowledging, to have become more just, and not more unjust ?
Cal. Quite true.
Soc. And are not just men gentle, as Homer says ? — or are you of another mind ?
Cal. I agree.
Soc. And yet he really did make them more savage than he received them, and their savageness was shown towards himself ; which he must have been very far from desiring.
Cal. Do you want me to agree with you ?
Soc. Yes, if I seem to you to speak the truth.
Cal. Granted then.
Soc. And if they were more savage, must they not have been more unjust and inferior ?
Cal. Granted again.
Soc. Then upon this view, Pericles was not a good statesman ?
Cal. That is, upon your view.
Soc. Nay, the view is yours, after what you have admitted. Take the case of Cimon again. Did not the very persons whom he was serving ostracize him, in order that they might not hear his voice for ten years ? and they did just the same to Themistocles, adding the penalty of exile ; and they voted that Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, should be thrown into the pit of death, and he was only saved by the Prytanis. And yet, if they had been really good men, as you say, these things would never have happened to them. For the good charioteers are not those who at first keep their place, and then, when they have broken — in their horses, and themselves become better charioteers, are thrown out — that is not the way either in charioteering or in any profession — What do you think ?
Cal. I should think not.
Soc. Well, but if so, the truth is as I have said already, that in the Athenian State no one has ever shown himself to be a good statesman — you admitted that this was true of our present statesmen, but not true of former ones, and you preferred them to the others ; yet they have turned out to be no better than our present ones ; and therefore, if they were rhetoricians, they did not use the true art of rhetoric or of flattery, or they would not have fallen out of favour.