Gorgias

​SOCRATES: Therefore, according to your argument, one wise person is often superior to ten thousand unwise people, and this person should rule while the others are ruled, and the ruler should have more than the ruled. For you seem to mean this—and I am not hunting after words—if the one is superior to the ten thousand. CALLICLES: Well, that is indeed what I mean. For I think this is what is just by nature, that the one who is better and wiser should both rule and have more than the inferior ones. SOCRATES: Hold on there. What on earth are you saying now? If we are gathered together in large numbers in the same place, just as we are now, and we have in common a large amount of food and drink, and we are of all sorts, some strong and some weak, but one of us is wiser about these things, being a doctor, and he is, as is likely, stronger than some and weaker than others; since he is wiser than us, will he not be better and superior to us in these matters? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Should he then have more of this food than us because he is better? Or, while he should distribute everything because he rules, should he not have more for his own consumption and use for his own body, unless he is to be punished, but rather give more to some and less to others? And if he happens to be the weakest of all, should not the best person have the least of all, Callicles? Is it not so, my good friend? CALLICLES: You talk about food and drink and doctors and nonsense; I do not mean these things. SOCRATES: Do you not say the wiser is the better? Say yes or no. CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: But did you not say the better should have more? CALLICLES: Not of food or drink. SOCRATES: I understand. Perhaps of clothes, then, and the most skilled weaver should have the largest cloak and go about wearing the most and most beautiful clothes? CALLICLES: What clothes? SOCRATES: Then about shoes, it is clear that the wisest and best in these matters should have more. Perhaps the shoemaker should walk about wearing the largest shoes and the greatest number of shoes. CALLICLES: What shoes? You keep talking nonsense. SOCRATES: But if you do not mean such things, perhaps you mean things like this: for example, a farmer who is wise, noble, and good about land; perhaps this man should have more of the seeds and use the greatest amount of seed on his own land. CALLICLES: How you always say the same things, Socrates. SOCRATES: Not only that, Callicles, but also about the same things.

​CALLICLES: By the gods, you literally never stop talking about shoemakers, fullers, cooks, and doctors, as if our discussion were about them. SOCRATES: Then will you not say about what things the superior and wiser person justly has more and gets more? Or will you neither tolerate my prompting nor say so yourself? CALLICLES: Why, I have been saying so for a long time. First of all, by the superior ones, I do not mean shoemakers or cooks, but those who are wise in the affairs of the city, in what way it may be well governed, and not only wise but also courageous, being capable of carrying out what they have conceived, and not flagging through softness of soul. SOCRATES: You see, my excellent Callicles, how you and I do not accuse each other of the same things? For you say that I always say the same things, and you blame me; but I, on the contrary, blame you because you never say the same things about the same things. At one time you defined the better and superior as the stronger, next as the wiser, and now again you have come with something else; the superior and better are now said by you to be the more courageous. But, my good friend, speak once and for all and make it clear: who on earth do you say the better and superior are, and in what? CALLICLES: Why, I have indeed said they are those who are wise and courageous in the affairs of the city. For it belongs to these to rule the cities, and this is what is just, that these should have more than the others, the rulers more than the ruled. SOCRATES: But what about themselves, my friend? What are they? Are they rulers or ruled? CALLICLES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: I mean each single one ruling himself. Or is there no need for this, to rule oneself, but only to rule others? CALLICLES: What do you mean by ruling himself? SOCRATES: Nothing complicated, but just as the many say: being temperate and self-controlled, ruling the pleasures and desires within himself. CALLICLES: How pleasant you are! You mean the fools by ‘the temperate’. SOCRATES: How so? There is no one who would not know that I do not mean this.