gorgias   

exile any one whom they please.

Soc. By the dog, Polus, I cannot make out at each deliverance of

yours, whether you are giving an opinion of your own, or asking a

question of me.

Pol. I am asking a question of you.

Soc. Yes, my friend, but you ask two questions at once.

Pol. How two questions?

Soc. Why, did you not say just now that the rhetoricians are like

tyrants, and that they kill and despoil or exile any one whom they

please?

Pol. I did.

Soc. Well then, I say to you that here are two questions in one, and

I will answer both of them. And I tell you, Polus, that rhetoricians

and tyrants have the least possible power in states, as I was just now

saying; for they do literally nothing which they will, but only what

they think best.

Pol. And is not that a great power?

Soc. Polus has already said the reverse.

Soc. No, by the great-what do you call him?-not you, for you say

that power is a good to him who has the power.

Pol. I do.

Soc. And would you maintain that if a fool does what he think

best, this is a good, and would you call this great power?

Pol. I should not.

Soc. Then you must prove that the rhetorician is not a fool, and

that rhetoric is an art and not a flattery-and so you will have

refuted me; but if you leave me unrefuted, why, the rhetoricians who

do what they think best in states, and the tyrants, will have

nothing upon which to congratulate themselves, if as you say, power be

indeed a good, admitting at the same time that what is done without

sense is an evil.

Pol. Yes; I admit that.