If Plato wished to change Greek values, or rather the interpretation of Greek values, he had to displace all rival teachers of values, both traditional and more recent. The earliest teachers were the poets, among whom Homer and Hesiod held pride of place...The influence of Homer and Hesiod continued to be powerful in Plato's day: the Homeric poems constituted a large part of the Athenian schoolboy's literary education. The tragedians were important too: any Athenian citizen might attend tragic performances several times each year and absorb any values that the playwright favoured. Less renowned teachers, but ever present, were the prominent citizens of each polls, who possessed such rule of_thumb political wisdom as was available. In earlier periods in Greece the younger members of each generation, or those of its members who had the status and leisure to aspire to an active political role, must have learned their practical politics from this source (Plato, Meno, 92e, [Theages] 126d). But in the later decades of the 5th century a new phenomenon appeared in Greece. Teachers made their way from polis to polis, giving instruction to those who could afford to pay (Plato, Apology, 19d_20c, Protagoras, 316c). Their views and values were far from uniform, and they professed a variety of skills and areas of knowledge; but the skills needed for success in politics were, as we shall see, most in demand. Her empire rendered Athens more prosperous. A significant number of the wealthier citizens must have been able to pay the high prices that the sophists charged for their tuition, if they wished. Athens' position must also have engendered administrative, legal and political problems of a complexity greater than those which can have faced the majority of Greek poleis at any period. Anyone who, with however little justification, claimed to be able to solve the problems and to enable the aspiring young to succeed in politics was assured of a ready hearing. For some purposes it is useful to divide these itinerant teachers into sophists and rhetoricians, but for the present purpose it is unnecessary. From Plato's point of view both, like the poets and the prominent politicians, imparted values which he regarded as unsatisfactory and dangerous. In time, Plato came to realise that everyone took part in the socialisation of the young, and labelled the general public as the greatest sophists (Republic, 492a8_b1; compare the attitude of the sophist Protagoras as portrayed by Plato in Protagoras, 327e_28b).

Most of the important value-terms found in the Homeric poems remained important in Plato's own day. This fact might have little significance; a word might continue to be the most important word to commend a man while the qualities which it was used to commend changed radically. After all, Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries, a democracy under the rule of law, surely cannot value most highly in its citizens the qualities valued most highly in Homeric Ithaca or in the Greek army before Troy. But in fact the resemblances are remarkably close; and therein lies Plato's problem.

In the Homeric poems, the adjective agathos is used to commend the most admired type of man, and the noun arete to commend his most admired qualities. . . . Only the most admired qualities are commended by arete (which I shall in future render by 'virtue'), and the agathos (hereafter 'good', or, when a noun is needed, 'goodman'), remains 'good' insofar as he manifests those qualities. Those qualities which are admired to a lesser degree are not 'virtues'. (At this period there is no Greek word which denotes and commends all the qualities, and only the qualities, which are generally termed 'virtues' by users of modern English.) The Homeric poems portray a world of small groups whose existence, like that of most small groups, is precarious. Their members naturally value most highly those of their number who seem most able to ensure their continued existence, and in those persons the characteristics which seem most relevant to the performance of that most important function. The first need is evidently defence againt other similar virtually autonomous small groups. Homer's Ithaca gives us an example of these 'virtues' in action, and indicates the vital importance of the Homeric oikos, or noble household, and the relative unimportance of the polis (Ed. or City-State).

In such a situation, those persons who can most effectively defend their own will be most valued, and valued for those characteristics which seem most relevant to their primary task: courage, a strong right arm, and effective weapons, so wielded as to bring about a successful conclusion.

The most effective weapons in Homeric society are very elaborate: body-armour, a helmet, large shield, two throwing-spears, a sword and a two-horse chariot. Such armour is expensive. Few are well armed. The individual purchases his own weapons. In the money-less society of the Homeric poems, wealth consists of land and the movable and immovable goods thereon. This wealth is controlled by the head of the noble oikos, who obtained it by inheritance. Only the heads of noble oikoi (plural of 'oikos') and any adult male members of the immediate family can hope to possess the essential weapons, and so manifest their 'virtue'. Other members of society cannot be 'good', and the other qualities of the 'goodman' will be regarded as less important.

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To sum up the values of earlier Greece. The 'goodman', who is so termed because he possesses both certain excellences and a certain social and economic position, employs his 'virtues' to defend his own well-being, and that of his philoi, 'friends', and if possible increase it. That well-being is usually interpreted in material terms, and the excellences are the competitive ones. The cooperative excellences are rendered choiceworthy for those who are too powerful to be constrained by their fellow-men, by the belief that the gods will punish the unjust or the over-successful, by reducing their material well-being.

Now if the competitive 'virtues' are valued for the direct contribution that they make to the well-being of the group (oikos or polis) and the gods are firmly believed to ensure the desirability of the cooperative excellences by inflicting damage on those who do not behave in accordance with them, a stable situation may result. But for anyone who holds these values and ceases to believe either that the gods exist or that, if they exist, they interest themselves in human behaviour, the cooperative excellences will cease to be attractive unless some other reason for their attractiveness can be discovered. Several methods of increasing their attractiveness suggest themselves: (a) the less powerful members of society may believe that if they commit injustice they will be haled before the courts by those whom they have wronged, and punished. But detection and punishment must be quite likely if even these members of society are to be convinced; and in ancient Athens the absence of an investigative police force rendered a high level of detection and punishment unlikely. The more powerful members of society will be less restrained; and their crimes may be on a larger scale; (b) in addition, one might attempt to give the cooperative excellences the status of 'virtues' by demonstrating that their instrumental relationship with the desired goal of prosperity and stability for the individual and the polls was so important that they merited inclusion among the 'virtues'; (c) one might attempt to reach the goal of (b) by simple suasion. Since the 'goodman' was a member of an admired social class, a 'gentleman', the moralist might attempt to include the practice of the cooperative excellences under the rubric of 'gentlemanly behaviour'. All these methods were attempted, as can readily be demonstrated from the literature of the later 5th century, and from Plato's own works.

A fourth possibility, that of demonstrating the intrinsic benefits of justice and other cooperative excellences, will be discussed below.

The list of the 'virtues' in later 5th century Greece contained a number of recent recruits, whose requirements in a given situation might conflict with the requirements of the traditional 'virtues'. Much hard thought, of a kind not yet to be found in Greece, was needed before such conflicts could be resolved. The competitive excellences had deeper historical roots, and their contribution to the well-being of the 'goodman' and his 'friends' was more readily apparent. They were likely to be given precedence in a crisis. Since the result might be the disruption of civic order and harmony, one of Plato's goals when portraying Socrates in conversation with the well-meaning who accepted (at least in some circumstances) the addition of cooperative excellences to the 'virtues' was to ensure that they were not discarded in a crisis.

In the Crito Plato portrays Crito in just such a crisis. Crito is Socrates' oldest friend, and, though evidently in no sense a philosopher, he has previously agreed with Socrates in regarding the cooperative excellences as 'virtues', and therefore desirable. In this crisis he reverts to traditional values: any 'goodman' should help his friends when their well-being is threatened, and be ready to spend money and hazard his life if need be. Socrates himself is betraying himself and his family by his refusal to escape from prison. The situation is not merely kakon (hereafter 'harmful') for Socrates but also aischron (hereafter 'shameful/ugly') for him. Socrates is showing himself deficient in 'virtue' and his refusal to let his friends help him causes them to seem deficient in 'virtue' too.

In reply, Socrates asks Crito whether he has abandoned his former agreement that living dikaios ('justly') is to be equated with living kalos ('honourably/beautifully'), and living eu, ('well', in the sense of 'efficiently' or 'in a flourishing manner', not in the sense of 'justly'). Crito replies that he has not. The reply commits him to the pursuit of any course of action of whose justice he is convinced, or can be convinced by Socrates, for eu zen (hereafter 'living well' in the sense explained above) is synonymous with eudaimonia (hereafter 'human flourishing') which all pursue as their goal. Socrates accordingly devotes the rest of the dialogue to demonstrating that it is just for him to remain in prison.