he rhetorician, and
yet for the voyage from Aegina to Athens he does not charge more than
two obols, and when he disembarks is quite unassuming in his demeanour?
The reason is that he is not certain whether he has done his passengers
any good in saving them from death, if one of them is diseased in body,
and still more if he is diseased in mind--who can say? The engineer too
will often save whole cities, and yet you despise him, and would not
allow your son to marry his daughter, or his son to marry yours. But
what reason is there in this? For if virtue only means the saving of
life, whether your own or another's, you have no right to despise him or
any practiser of saving arts. But is not virtue something different from
saving and being saved? I would have you rather consider whether you
ought not to disregard length of life, and think only how you can live
best, leaving all besides to the will of Heaven. For you must not expect
to have influence either with the Athenian Demos or with Demos the son
of Pyrilampes, unless you become like them. What do you say to this?

'There is some truth in what you are saying, but I do not entirely
believe you.'

That is because you are in love with Demos. But let us have a little
more conversation. You remember the two processes--one which was
directed to pleasure, the other which was directed to making men as good
as possible. And those who have the care of the city should make the
citizens as good as possible. But who would undertake a public building,
if he had never had a teacher of the art of building, and had never
constructed a building before? or who would undertake the duty of
state-physician, if he had never cured either himself or any one else?
Should we not examine him before we entrusted him with the office? And
as Callicles is about to enter public life, should we not examine him?
Whom has he made better? For we have already admitted that this is the
statesman's proper business. And we must ask the same question about
Pericles, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and Themistocles. Whom did they make
better? Nay, did not Pericles make the citizens worse? For he gave
them pay, and at first he was very popular with them, but at last they
condemned him to death. Yet surely he would be a bad tamer of animals
who, having received them gentle, taught them to kick and butt, and
man is an animal; and Pericles who had the charge of man only made him
wilder, and more savage and unjust, and