Gorgias

Soc.

And thus he will find himself possessed of the greatest evil, that of having his soul depraved and maimed as a result of his imitation of his master and the power he has got.

Call.

You have a strange way of twisting your arguments, at each point, this way or that, Socrates! Surely you know that this imitator will put to death anyone who does not imitate his master, if he pleases, and will strip him of his property.

Soc.

I know that, my good Callicles, if I am not deaf, as I have heard it so often of late from you and Polus, and from almost every one else in the town; but you in return must hear what I say—that he will put a man to death if he pleases, but it will be a villain slaying a good man and true.

Call.

And is not this the very thing that makes one indignant?[*](Cf. Callicles’ warning (Plat. Gorg. 486b) against the danger of being put to death on the false accusation of some paltry rascal.)

Soc.

Not if one is a man of sense, as our argument indicates. Or do you suppose that the object of a man’s efforts should be to live as long a time as possible, and to cultivate those arts which preserve us from every danger; such as that which you bid me cultivate—rhetoric, the art that preserves us in the law courts?

Call.

Yes, on my word I do, and sound advice it is that I give you.

Soc.

But now, my excellent friend, do you think there is anything grand in the accomplishment of swimming?

Call.

No, in truth, not I.

Soc.

Yet, you know, that too saves men from death, when they have got into a plight of the kind in which that accomplishment is needed. But if this seems to you too small a thing, I will tell you of a more important one, the art of piloting, which saves not only our lives but also our bodies and our goods from extreme perils, as rhetoric does. And at the same time it is plain-fashioned and orderly, not giving itself grand airs in a pretence of performing some transcendent feat; but in return for performing the same as the forensic art—bringing one safely over, it may be, from Aegina—it charges a fee, I believe, of two obols[*](About fourpence.); or if it be from Egypt or the Pontus, at the very most—for this great service of bringing safe home, as I said just now, oneself and children and goods and womenfolk—on landing charges a couple of drachmae[*](About two shillings); the actual possessor of the art, after performing all this, goes ashore and strolls on the quay by his vessel’s side, with an unobtrusive demeanor. For he knows, I expect, how to estimate the uncertainty as to which of his passengers he has benefited by not letting them be lost at sea, and which he has injured, being aware that he has put them ashore not a whit better than when they came aboard, either in body or in soul.