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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gorgias, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Practice and Goal of Oratory
Justice, Injustice, and the Treatment of the Soul
The Pleasant Life vs. the Good Life
Philosophy vs. Politics
Summary
Analysis
Socrates illustrates his previous point by telling an illustrative tale from Homer. He says that Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto took over the kingship from their father Cronus, dividing his sovereignty among themselves. At that time, just and pious human beings went to the Isles of the Blessed after death. Unjust and godless people, however, went to a place of retribution. They’d face judges right before death, while fully dressed, but the judges handled the cases poorly. Zeus decided that this was because wicked souls are often beautifully dressed and are able to get witnesses to testify to their good lives. Now, people will be prevented from knowing ahead of time when they’ll die. They’ll be judged after death, when they’re naked. This will allow the judge to study each soul in isolation and without obstruction. Zeus appoints three of his sons as judges.
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (written in the 8th or 7th century B.C.E.) were Ancient Greece’s foundational literary works. Homer’s tales would have been familiar to anyone in Plato’s audience. So Socrates’s retelling of an episode from Homer, far from being an odd digression, would be seen as a fitting capstone for the arguments he’s been making. This story involves the judgment of souls at death. It used to be that souls were judged before death, but this allowed the wicked to manipulate the judges for their own advantage.
Themes
From this story, Socrates concludes that death is the separation of the soul and the body. When these parts separate, they remain in basically the same condition they were in during life. The treatment the person’s body received during life—whether indulgence or injury or suffering inflicted by someone else—will be evident on their corpse. In the same way, the condition of the person’s soul during life will be evident after death. Studying this condition, without regard for the person’s identity or station in life, will allow the judge to make a just judgment.
Socrates explains that the soul after death will bear clear evidence of the way it was treated during life, thus determining the person’s eternal destiny. This means that Socrates’s arguments about the corruption of the soul, the difference between a pleasant life and a good life, and the indispensable role of philosophy have eternal repercussions.
Themes
Anyone who’s punished will either become bitter or will benefit from it, or else will serve as an example to others, allowing those others to become better. Those who are benefited have curable souls. Those who become examples to others have incurable souls, so their punishment serves no other purpose to them. Tyrants and other powerful people are often among this group—this is because it’s difficult to live justly when one has the freedom to behave otherwise.
Socrates says that punishment is of use to a curable soul, but to some hardened souls, punishment can only benefit onlookers by giving them an example of what not to become. He even suggests that the powerful—those most admired and defended by Callicles and Polus—are often among the incurable, because they become so accustomed to behaving unjustly and shirking the benefit of discipline.
Themes
Socrates finds Homer’s account convincing, and he hopes to reveal to the judge the healthiest soul possible. This is why he rejects what most people consider to be the good things in life and tries to live the best life he can, so that he’ll die in the same way. He encourages other people, including Callicles, to do the same—lest Callicles find himself tongue-tied at the judgment.
Socrates’s belief in the final judgment of the soul guides his way of life. This means rejecting much that is considered to be part of “the good life”—like the indulgence of pleasure—and instead aiming at a far greater, even eternal, benefit. Turning Callicles’s warning on its head, he warns his friend to do the same—rather than Socrates becoming a politician, Callicles should become a philosopher.
Themes
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