Dialogues of Plato - MobileReference [195]
MEGILLUS: Certainly not.
ATHENIAN: Does a captain require only to have nautical knowledge in order to be a good captain, whether he is sea-sick or not? What do you say?
MEGILLUS: I say that he is not a good captain if, although he have nautical skill, he is liable to sea-sickness.
ATHENIAN: And what would you say of the commander of an army? Will he be able to command merely because he has military skill if he be a coward, who, when danger comes, is sick and drunk with fear?
MEGILLUS: Impossible.
ATHENIAN: And what if besides being a coward he has no skill?
MEGILLUS: He is a miserable fellow, not fit to be a commander of men, but only of old women.
ATHENIAN: And what would you say of some one who blames or praises any sort of meeting which is intended by nature to have a ruler, and is well enough when under his presidency? The critic, however, has never seen the society meeting together at an orderly feast under the control of a president, but always without a ruler or with a bad one:--when observers of this class praise or blame such meetings, are we to suppose that what they say is of any value?
MEGILLUS: Certainly not, if they have never seen or been present at such a meeting when rightly ordered.
ATHENIAN: Reflect; may not banqueters and banquets be said to constitute a kind of meeting?
MEGILLUS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: And did any one ever see this sort of convivial meeting rightly ordered? Of course you two will answer that you have never seen them at all, because they are not customary or lawful in your country; but I have come across many of them in many different places, and moreover I have made enquiries about them wherever I went, as I may say, and never did I see or hear of anything of the kind which was carried on altogether rightly; in some few particulars they might be right, but in general they were utterly wrong.
CLEINIAS: What do you mean, Stranger, by this remark? Explain. For we, as you say, from our inexperience in such matters, might very likely not know, even if they came in our way, what was right or wrong in such societies.
ATHENIAN: Likely enough; then let me try to be your instructor: You would acknowledge, would you not, that in all gatherings of mankind, of whatever sort, there ought to be a leader?
CLEINIAS: Certainly I should.
ATHENIAN: And we were saying just now, that when men are at war the leader ought to be a brave man?
CLEINIAS: We were.
ATHENIAN: The brave man is less likely than the coward to be disturbed by fears?
CLEINIAS: That again is true.
ATHENIAN: And if there were a possibility of having a general of an army who was absolutely fearless and imperturbable, should we not by all means appoint him?
CLEINIAS: Assuredly.
ATHENIAN: Now, however, we are speaking not of a general who is to command an army, when foe meets foe in time of war, but of one who is to regulate meetings of another sort, when friend meets friend in time of peace.
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: And that sort of meeting, if attended with drunkenness, is apt to be unquiet.
CLEINIAS: Certainly; the reverse of quiet.
ATHENIAN: In the first place, then, the revellers as well as the soldiers will require a ruler?
CLEINIAS: To be sure; no men more so.
ATHENIAN: And we ought, if possible, to provide them with a quiet ruler?
CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: And he should be a man who understands society; for his duty is to preserve the friendly feelings which exist among the company at the time, and to increase them for the future by his use of the occasion.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: Must we not appoint a sober man and a wise to be our master of the revels? For if the ruler of drinkers be himself young and drunken, and not over-wise, only