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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Thrasymachus of Chalcedon (a Greek colony on the Bosporus) was an orator, active during the second half of the fifth century. We have no reliable information about his life. He is best known today from the vivid caricature Plato gives of him in the first book of the Republic. Otherwise, ancient writers speak of him as a stylist, not a political theorist. For the suggestion that he may be the author of a speech we have assigned to Critias, see the discussion on Critias, fr. 26, in the Bibliographical Note (§ B.5).
(DK 1)
This excerpt is quoted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Demosthenes 3), who presents it as an example of the “mixed” style (combining the “plain” and “elaborate” styles). The overall level of generality has led some scholars to suggest that this is a display piece, not written for any specific occasion.
I would have preferred, Athenians, to have taken part in the public life of the old days when young men could remain silent, since affairs did not compel them to speak in public and their elders were running the city correctly. But since the gods have assigned us to live in a time when we obey the rule of others in the city but endure its misfortunes ourselves, and since the greatest of these misfortunes have been brought not by the gods or fortune but by those in charge, I am compelled to speak.
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