The Republic | Page 8

Polemarchus drops at the end of the first argument, and Thrasymachus is reduced to
silence at the close of the first book. The main discussion is carried on by Socrates,
Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Among the company are Lysias (the orator) and Euthydemus,
the sons of Cephalus and brothers of Polemarchus, an unknown Charmantides--these are
mute auditors; also there is Cleitophon, who once interrupts, where, as in the Dialogue
which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of Thrasymachus.
Cephalus, the patriarch of the house, has been appropriately engaged in offering a
sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old man who has almost done with life, and is at peace

with himself and with all mankind. He feels that he is drawing nearer to the world below,
and seems to linger around the memory of the past. He is eager that Socrates should come
to visit him, fond of the poetry of the last generation, happy in the consciousness of a
well-spent life, glad at having escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts. His love of
conversation, his affection, his indifference to riches, even his garrulity, are interesting
traits of character. He is not one of those who have nothing to say, because their whole
mind has been absorbed in making money. Yet he acknowledges that riches have the
advantage of placing men above the temptation to dishonesty or falsehood. The respectful
attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation, no less than the mission
imposed upon him by the Oracle, leads him to ask questions of all men, young and old
alike, should also be noted. Who better suited to raise the question of justice than
Cephalus, whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation with which
old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of existence is characteristic,
not only of him, but of Greek feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of
Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described by Plato in the most
expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches. As Cicero remarks (Ep. ad
Attic.), the aged Cephalus would have been out of place in the discussion which follows,
and which he could neither have understood nor taken part in without a violation of
dramatic propriety (cp. Lysimachus in the Laches).
His 'son and heir' Polemarchus has the frankness and impetuousness of youth; he is for
detaining Socrates by force in the opening scene, and will not 'let him off' on the subject
of women and children. Like Cephalus, he is limited in his point of view, and represents
the proverbial stage of morality which has rules of life rather than principles; and he
quotes Simonides (cp. Aristoph. Clouds) as his father had 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