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Updated: May 10, 2025
Thrasymachus, a brazen fellow like Callicles in the Gorgias, argues that Justice is the interest of the stronger and that law and morality are mere conventions. The implications of this doctrine are of supreme importance.
A precious assembly you will meet at his house, no doubt. SPEUSIPPUS. The first men in Athens, probably. CALLIDEMUS. Whom do you mean by the first men in Athens? SPEUSIPPUS. Callicles. CALLIDEMUS. A sacrilegious, impious, unfeeling ruffian! SPEUSIPPUS. Hippomachus. CALLIDEMUS. A fool, who can talk of nothing but his travels through Persia and Egypt. Go, go.
SPEUSIPPUS. At all events, it will be long before you taste such wine again, Alcibiades. CALLICLES. Nay, there is excellent wine in Sicily. When I was there with Eurymedon's squadron, I had many a long carouse. You never saw finer grapes than those of Aetna. HIPPOMACHUS. The Greeks do not understand the art of making wine. Your Persian is the man. So rich, so fragrant, so sparkling!
The second argument is the well-known sophistic one, that the gods are nomôi, not physei, they depend upon convention, which has nothing to do with reality. In this connexion the argument adds that what applies to the gods, applies also to right and wrong; i.e. we find here in the Laws the view with which we are familiar from Callicles in the Gorgias, but with the missing link supplied.
Critias was a kinsman of Plato, is introduced by name in several dialogues, nay, one dialogue even bears his name, and he is everywhere treated with respect and sympathy. Nowadays, therefore, it is generally acknowledged that Callicles is a real person, merely unknown to us as such.
Come, Callicles, you were not so timid when you plundered the merchantman off Cape Malea. Take up the torch and move. Hippomachus, tell one of the slaves to bring a sow. CALLICLES. And what part are you to play? ALCIBIADES. I shall be hierophant. Herald, to your office. Torchbearer, advance with the lights. Come forward, fair novice. We will celebrate the rite within. No.
"I, therefore, Callicles, am persuaded by these accounts, and consider how I may exhibit my soul before the judge in a healthy condition. Wherefore, disregarding the honors that most men value, and looking to the truth, I shall endeavor in reality to live as virtuously as I can and, when I die, to die so.
He does this in a positive form, as a consequence of his point of view: after death the gods reward the just and punish the unjust; but he expressly assumes that Callicles will regard it all as an old wives’ tale. In Callicles an attempt has been made to see a pseudonym for Critias. That is certainly wrong.
ALCIBIADES. Yes, and the greatest of philosophers, if he can answer it. SPEUSIPPUS. Pythagoras is of opinion HIPPOMACHUS. Pythagoras stole that and all his other opinions from Asia and Egypt. The transmigration of the soul and the vegetable diet are derived from India. I met a Brachman in Sogdiana CALLICLES. All nonsense! CHARICLEA. What think you, Alcibiades? Do you remember Anacreon's lines?
Callicles, though refuted, advises Socrates to fawn on the city, for he is certain to be condemned sooner or later; the latter, however, does not fear death after living righteously. Most men have held doctrines similar to those refuted here. There is an idea abroad that what is "natural" must be intrinsically good, if not godlike.
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