Page - 235 - in The Complete Plato

CALLICLES: Certainly he is. SOCRATES: And was not Pericles a shepherd of men? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: 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? CALLICLES: Quite true. SOCRATES: And are not just men gentle, as Homer says?—or are you of another mind? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: 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. CALLICLES: Do you want me to agree with you? SOCRATES: Yes, if I seem to you to speak the truth. CALLICLES: Granted then. SOCRATES: And if they were more savage, must they not have been more unjust and inferior? CALLICLES: Granted again. SOCRATES: Then upon this view, Pericles was not a good statesman? CALLICLES: That is, upon your view. SOCRATES: 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? CALLICLES: I should think not. SOCRATES: Well, but if so, the truth is as I have said already, that in the 235