A conversation held with Pericles the son of the great statesman may here be introduced.274 Socrates began:

I am looking forward, I must tell you, Pericles, to a great improvement in our military affairs when you are minister of war.275 The prestige of Athens, I hope, will rise; we shall gain the mastery over our enemies.

Pericles replied: I devoutly wish your words might be fulfilled, but how this happy result is to be obtained, I am at a loss to discover.

Shall we (Socrates continued), shall we balance the arguments for and against, and consider to what extent the possibility does exist?

Pray let us do so (he answered).

Soc. Well then, you know that in point of numbers the Athenians are not inferior to the Boeotians?

Per. Yes, I am aware of that.

Soc. And do you think the Boeotians could furnish a better pick of fine healthy men than the Athenians?

Per. I think we should very well hold our own in that respect.

Soc. And which of the two would you take to be the more united people — the friendlier among themselves?

Per. The Athenians, I should say, for so many sections of the Boeotians, resenting the selfish policy276 of Thebes, are ill disposed to that power, but at Athens I see nothing of the sort.

Soc. But perhaps you will say that there is no people more jealous of honour or haughtier in spirit.277 And these feelings are no weak spurs to quicken even a dull spirit to hazard all for glory’s sake and fatherland.

Per. Nor is there much fault to find with Athenians in these respects.

Soc. And if we turn to consider the fair deeds of ancestry,278 to no people besides ourselves belongs so rich a heritage of stimulating memories, whereby so many of us are stirred to pursue virtue with devotion and to show ourselves in our turn also men of valour like our sires.

Per. All that you say, Socrates, is most true, but do you observe that ever since the disaster of the thousand under Tolmides at Lebadeia, coupled with that under Hippocrates at Delium,279 the prestige of Athens by comparison with the Boeotians has been lowered, whilst the spirit of Thebes as against Athens had been correspondingly exalted, so that those Boeotians who in old days did not venture to give battle to the Athenians even in their own territory unless they had the Lacedaemonians and the rest of the Peloponnesians to help them, do nowadays threaten to make an incursion into Attica single-handed; and the Athenians, who formerly, if they had to deal with the Boeotians280 only, made havoc of their territory, are now afraid the Boeotians may some day harry Attica.

To which Socrates: Yes, I perceive that this is so, but it seems to me that the state was never more tractably disposed, never so ripe for a really good leader, as today. For if boldness be the parent of carelessness, laxity, and insubordination, it is the part of fear to make people more disposed to application, obedience, and good order. A proof of which you may discover in the behaviour of people on ship-board. It is in seasons of calm weather when there is nothing to fear that disorder may be said to reign, but as soon as there is apprehension of a storm, or an enemy in sight, the scene changes; not only is each word of command obeyed, but there is a hush of silent expectation; the mariners wait to catch the next signal like an orchestra with eyes upon the leader.

Per. But indeed, given that now is the opportunity to take obedience at the flood, it is high time also to explain by what means we are to rekindle in the hearts of our countrymen281 the old fires — the passionate longing for antique valour, for the glory and the wellbeing of the days of old.

Well (proceeded Socrates), supposing we wished them to lay claim to certain material wealth now held by others, we could not better stimulate them to lay hands on the objects coveted than by showing them that these were ancestral possessions282 to which they had a natural right. But since our object is that they should set their hearts on virtuous pre-eminence, we must prove to them that such headship combined with virtue is an old time-honoured heritage which pertains to them beyond all others, and that if they strive earnestly after it they will soon out-top the world.

Por. How are we to inculcate this lesson?

Soc. I think by reminding them of a fact already registered in their minds,283 that the oldest of our ancestors whose names are known to us were also the bravest of heroes.

Per. I suppose you refer to that judgment of the gods which, for their virtue’s sake, Cecrops and his followers were called on to decide?284

Soc. Yes, I refer to that and to the birth and rearing of Erectheus,285 and also to the war286 which in his days was waged to stay the tide of invasion from the whole adjoining continent; and that other war in the days of the Heraclidae287 against the men of Peloponnese; and that series of battles fought in the days of Theseus288 — in all which the virtuous pre-eminence of our ancestry above the men of their own times was made manifest. Or, if you please, we may come down to things of a later date, which their descendants and the heroes of days not so long anterior to our own wrought in the struggle with the lords of Asia,289 nay of Europe also, as far as Macedonia: a people possessing a power and means of attack far exceeding any who had gone before — who, moreover, had accomplished the doughtiest deeds. These things the men of Athens wrought partly single-handed,290 and partly as sharers with the Peloponnesians in laurels won by land and sea. Heroes were these men also, far outshining, as tradition tells us, the peoples of their time.

Per. Yes, so runs the story of their heroism.

Soc. Therefore it is that, amidst the many changes of inhabitants, and the migrations which have, wave after wave, swept over Hellas, these maintained themselves in their own land, unmoved; so that it was a common thing for others to turn to them as to a court of appeal on points of right, or to flee to Athens as a harbour of refuge from the hand of the oppressor.291

Then Pericles: And the wonder to me, Socrates, is how our city ever came to decline.

Soc. I think we are victims of our own success. Like some athlete,292 whose facile preponderance in the arena has betrayed him into laxity until he eventually succumbs to punier antagonists, so we Athenians, in the plenitude of our superiority, have neglected ourselves and are become degenerate.

Per. What then ought we to do now to recover our former virtue?

Soc. There need be no mystery about that, I think. We can rediscover the institutions of our forefathers — applying them to the regulation of our lives with something of their precision, and not improbably with like success; or we can imitate those who stand at the front of affairs today,293 adapting to ourselves their rule of life, in which case, if we live up to the standard of our models, we may hope at least to rival their excellence, or, by a more conscientious adherence to what they aim at, rise superior.

You would seem to suggest (he answered) that the spirit of beautiful and brave manhood has taken wings and left our city;294 as, for instance, when will Athenians, like the Lacedaemonians, reverence old age — the Athenian, who takes his own father as a starting-point for the contempt he pours upon grey hairs? When will he pay as strict an attention to the body, who is not content with neglecting a good habit,295 but laughs to scorn those who are careful in this matter? When shall we Athenians so obey our magistrates — we who take a pride, as it were, in despising authority? When, once more, shall we be united as a people — we who, instead of combining to promote common interests, delight in blackening each other’s characters,296 envying one another more than we envy all the world besides; and — which is our worst failing — who, in private and public intercourse alike, are torn by dissension and are caught in a maze of litigation, and prefer to make capital out of our neighbour’s difficulties rather than to render natural assistance? To make our conduct cons............