Gorgias
Plato (428–347 BC)
Plato's Gorgias in the Greek text edited by John Burnet.
Section 447
Section 448
Section 449
Section 450
Section 451
Section 452
Section 453
Section 454
Section 455
Section 456
Section 457
Section 458
Section 459
Section 460
Section 461
Section 462
Section 463
Section 464
Section 465
Section 466
Section 467
Section 468
Section 469
Section 470
Section 471
Section 472
Section 473
Section 474
Section 475
Section 476
Section 477
Section 478
Section 479
Section 480
Section 481
Section 482
Section 483
Section 484
Section 485
Section 486
Section 487
Section 488
Section 489
Section 490
Section 491
[491] CALLICLES: Yes, by the Gods, you are literally always talking of cobblers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if this had to do with our argument.
SOCRATES: But why will you not tell me in what a man must be superior and wiser in order to claim a larger share; will you neither accept a suggestion, nor offer one?
CALLICLES: I have already told you. In the first place, I mean by superiors not cobblers or cooks, but wise politicians who understand the administration of a state, and who are not only wise, but also valiant and able to carry out their designs, and not the men to faint from want of soul.
SOCRATES: See now, most excellent Callicles, how different my charge against you is from that which you bring against me, for you reproach me with always saying the same; but I reproach you with never saying the same about the same things, for at one time you were defining the better and the superior to be the stronger, then again as the wiser, and now you bring forward a new notion; the superior and the better are now declared by you to be the more courageous: I wish, my good friend, that you would tell me, once for all, whom you affirm to be the better and superior, and in what they are better?
CALLICLES: I have already told you that I mean those who are wise and courageous in the administration of a state—they ought to be the rulers of their states, and justice consists in their having more than their subjects.
SOCRATES: But whether rulers or subjects will they or will they not have more than themselves, my friend?
CALLICLES: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: I mean that every man is his own ruler; but perhaps you think that there is no necessity for him to rule himself; he is only required to rule others?
CALLICLES: What do you mean by his “ruling over himself”?
SOCRATES: A simple thing enough; just what is commonly said, that a man should be temperate and master of himself, and ruler of his own pleasures and passions.
CALLICLES: What innocence! you mean those fools,—the temperate?
SOCRATES: Certainly:—any one may know that to be my meaning.