Gorgias (516)

Soc.

Ah, but what is no longer a matter of hearsay, but rather of certain knowledge, for you as well as for me, is that Pericles was popular at first, and the Athenians passed no degrading sentence upon him so long as they were worse; but as soon as they had been made upright and honorable by him,

at the end of our Pericles’ life they convicted him of embezzlement, and all but condemned him to death, clearly because they thought him a rogue.

Call.

What then? Was Pericles a bad man on that account?

Soc.

Well, at any rate a herdsman in charge of asses or horses or oxen would be considered a bad one for being like that—if he took over animals that did not kick him or butt or bite, and in the result they were found to be doing all these things out of sheer wildness. Or do you not consider any keeper

of any animal whatever a bad one, if he turns out the creature he received tame so much wilder than he found it? Do you, or do you not?

Call.

Certainly I do, to oblige you.

Soc.

Then oblige me still further by answering this: is man also one of the animals, or not?

Call.

Of course he is.

Soc.

And Pericles had charge of men?

Call.

Yes.

Soc.

Well now, ought they not, as we admitted this moment, to have been made by him more just instead of more unjust,

if he was a good statesman while he had charge of them?

Call.

Certainly.

Soc.

And the just are gentle, as Homer said.[*] But what say you? Is it not so?

Call.

Yes.

Soc.

But, however, he turned them out wilder than when he took them in hand, and that against himself, the last person he would have wished them to attack.

Call.

You wish me to agree with you?

Soc.

Yes, if you consider I am speaking the truth.

Call.

Then be it so.

Soc.

And if wilder, more unjust and worse?

Call.

Be it so.

Soc.

Then Pericles was not a good statesman, by this argument.

Call.

You at least say not.

Soc.

And you too, I declare, by what you admitted. And now about Cimon once more, tell me, did not the people whom he tended ostracize him in order that they might not hear his voice for ten years? And Themistocles, did they not treat him in just the same way, and add the punishment of exile?

And Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, they sentenced to be flung into the pit, and had it not been for the president, in he would have gone. And yet these men, had they been good in the way that you describe them, would never have met with such a fate. Good drivers, at any rate, do not keep their seat in the chariot at their first race to be thrown out later on, when they have trained their teams and acquired more skill in driving! This never occurs either in charioteering or in any other business; or do you think it does?

Call.

No, I do not.