The dialogues of Plato in five volumes, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Translated into English with analyses and introductions
Plato · en
others, will lay hold of you and my friend Alcibiades, and you will
suffer for the misdeeds of your predecessors. The old story is always
being repeated—‘after all his services, the ungrateful city banished
him, or condemned him to death.’ As if the statesman should not
have taught the city better! He surely cannot blame the state for
having unjustly used him, any more than the sophist or teacher
can find fault with his pupils if they cheat him. And the sophist 520
and orator are in the same case; although you admire rhetoric
and despise sophistic, whereas sophistic is really the higher of the
two. The teacher of the arts takes money, but the teacher of
virtue or politics takes no money, because this is the only kind of
service which makes the disciple desirous of requiting his teacher.
[Sidenote: _Analysis 520-524._]
Socrates concludes by finally asking, to which of the two modes
of serving the state Callicles invites him:—‘to the inferior and
ministerial one,’ is the ingenuous reply. That is the only way of 521
avoiding death, replies Socrates; and he has heard often enough,
and would rather not hear again, that the bad man will kill the
good. But he thinks that such a fate is very likely reserved for
him, because he remarks that he is the only person who teaches
the true art of politics. And very probably, as in the case which 522
he described to Polus, he may be the physician who is tried by a
jury of children. He cannot say that he has procured the citizens
any pleasure, and if any one charges him with perplexing them, or
with reviling their elders, he will not be able to make them
understand that he has only been actuated by a desire for their
good. And therefore there is no saying what his fate may be. ‘And
do you think that a man who is unable to help himself is in a good
condition?’ Yes, Callicles, if he have the true self-help, which is
never to have said or done any wrong to himself or others. If I
had not this kind of self-help, I should be ashamed; but if I die
for want of your flattering rhetoric, I shall die in peace. For
death is no evil, but to go to the world below laden with offences
is the worst of evils. In proof of which I will tell you a tale:—