elicited from him by the dialectic of Socrates. He has not yet experienced
the influence of the Sophists like Glaucon and Adeimantus, nor is he
sensible of the necessity of refuting them; he belongs to the pre-Socratic
or pre-dialectical age. He is incapable of arguing, and is bewildered by
Socrates to such a degree that he does not know what he is saying. He is
made to admit that justice is a thief, and that the virtues follow the
analogy of the arts. From his brother Lysias (contra Eratosth.) we learn
that he fell a victim to the Thirty Tyrants, but no allusion is here made
to his fate, nor to the circumstance that Cephalus and his family were of
Syracusan origin, and had migrated from Thurii to Athens.

The 'Chalcedonian giant,' Thrasymachus, of whom we have already heard in
the Phaedrus, is the personification of the Sophists, according to Plato's
conception of them, in some of their worst characteristics. He is vain and
blustering, refusing to discourse unless he is paid, fond of making an
oration, and hoping thereby to escape the inevitable Socrates; but a mere
child in argument, and unable to foresee that the next 'move' (to use a
Platonic expression) will 'shut him up.' He has reached the stage of
framing general notions, and in this respect is in advance of Cephalus and
Polemarchus. But he is incapable of defending them in a discussion, and
vainly tries to cover his confusion with banter and insolence. Whether
such doctrines as are attributed to him by Plato were really held either by
him or by any other Sophist is uncertain; in the infancy of philosophy
serious errors about morality might easily grow up--they are certainly put
into the mouths of speakers in Thucydides; but we are concerned at present
with Plato's description of him, and not with the historical reality. The
inequality of the contest adds greatly to the humour of the scene. The
pompous and empty Sophist is utterly helpless in the hands of the great
master of dialectic, who knows how to touch all the springs of vanity and
weakness in him. He is greatly irritated by the irony of Socrates, but his