Did the Athenians become better?
SocratesBut I am not asking out of a love of winning; I truly want to know in what way you think one ought to engage in politics among us. Or, once you have taken up the city’s affairs, will you, then, concern yourself for us with anything other than how we citizens may be the best we can be? Or have we not agreed many times already that this is what the politician must do? Have we agreed, or haven’t we? Answer. We have agreed—I will answer for you. If, then, this is what the good man must provide for his own city, now recall and tell me about those men you were speaking of a little earlier, whether they still seem to you to have been good citizens: Pericles, Cimon, Miltiades and Themistocles.
CalliclesI think so.
SocratesThen if they were good, clearly each of them made the citizens better instead of worse. Did he, or didn’t he?
CalliclesYes.
SocratesThen when Pericles began speaking before the people, were the Athenians worse than when he made his last speeches?
CalliclesPerhaps.
SocratesNot perhaps, my good friend, but necessarily, from what has been agreed, if he really was a good citizen.
CalliclesWhat of it, then?
SocratesNothing. But tell me this next: are the Athenians said to have become better because of Pericles, or, quite the opposite, to have been corrupted by him? For this is what I, for one, hear: that Pericles made the Athenians idle, cowardly, chattering and fond of money, by being the first to put them on public pay.
CalliclesYou hear that from the men with the broken ears, Socrates.
SocratesBut this I no longer hear; I know it clearly, and so do you: at first Pericles was well thought of, and the Athenians convicted him in no shameful case while they were worse; but once they had become fine and good by his doing, at the end of Pericles’ life, they convicted him of theft and very nearly set death as his penalty too—clearly because they took him for a wicked man.
CalliclesWhat of it? Was Pericles bad for that reason?