d quoted Pindar. But after this he has no more to say; the answers
which he makes are only 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 noisy and imbecile rage
only lays him more and more open to the thrusts of his assailant. His
determination to cram down their throats, or put 'bodily into their
souls' his own words, elicits a cry of horror from Socrates. The
state of his temper is quite as worthy o