Name even one
SocratesWell then. And the rhetoric addressed to the people of Athens and to the other peoples in the cities, the peoples of free men—what on earth is that one, in our view? Do the orators seem to you always to speak with a view to the best, aiming at this, that through their speeches the citizens will be the best they can be? Or are these too set on gratifying the citizens, and, neglecting the common good for the sake of their own private interest, do they deal with the peoples as with children, trying only to gratify them, and not caring at all whether they will be better or worse because of it?
CalliclesWhat you’re asking now is no longer a simple question: there are some who say what they say because they care for the citizens, and there are also the kind you describe.
SocratesThat is enough. For if this too is twofold, one part of it, I suppose, would be flattery and shameful popular oratory, and the other fine: working to make the souls of the citizens the best they can be, and fighting it out by saying what is best, whether it will be more pleasant or more unpleasant to those who hear it. But you have never yet seen this rhetoric; or if you can name any of the orators who is like that, why haven’t you told me too who he is?
CalliclesBut by Zeus, I for one can’t name you a single one of today’s orators, at least.
SocratesWhat then? Among the men of old, can you name one because of whom the Athenians are said to have become better, once he began to address the people, when in the time before they had been worse? For I don’t know who that is.
CalliclesWhat? Don’t you hear it said that Themistocles proved a good man, and Cimon and Miltiades and Pericles, the one who died so recently, whom you heard yourself?