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 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 in 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 humor 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 of
remark as the process of the argument. Nothing is more amusing than
his complete submission when he has been once thoroughly beaten. At
first he seems to continue the discussion with reluctance, but soon
with apparent good-will, and he even testifies his interest at a later
stage by one or two occasional remarks. When attacked by Glaucon