Fragment 1
Dionysius of Halicarnassus' essay On the Style of Demosthenes preserves (as an example of the "middle style") the lengthiest surviving fragment of Thrasymachus' writing. It seems to be "the beginning of a political speech, apparently composed for delivery by a young upper-class Athenian of conservative sympathies" and "was probably composed in the early 420s."
| “ | I could wish, men of Athens, to have belonged to that long-past time when the young were content to remain silent unless events compelled them to speak, and while the older men were correctly supervising affairs of State. But since Fate has so far advanced us in time that we must obey others as rulers but must suffer the consequences ourselves; and when the worst results are not the work of Heaven or Fate but of our administrators, then it is necessary to speak. A man either has no feeling, or has too much patience, if he is willing to go on offering himself up to whoever wishes as the object of their mistakes, and is ready to take on himself the blame for the guile and wickedness of others.
No, the past is enough for us—that we have exchanged peace for war, reaching the present through dangers, so that we regard the past with affection and the future with fear; and that we have sacrificed concord for enmity and internal disturbance. Others are driven to excesses and civil strife through a surfeit of prosperity; but we behaved soberly in our prosperity. We were seized with madness at a time of adversity, which usually makes others act soberly. Why then should anyone delay to say what he knows, if he happens to feel grief at the present state of affairs, and to believe that he has a means of bringing this to an end? First of all, therefore, I shall prove in my speech that those of the orators and others who are at variance are mutually experiencing something that is bound to befall those who engage in senseless rivalry: believing that they are expressing opposite views, they fail to perceive that their actions are the same, and that the theory of the opposite party is inherent in their own theory. For consider from the beginning what each party is seeking. In the first place, the 'ancestral constitution' is a cause of dissension between them, though it is easiest to grasp and is the common property of all citizens. Whatever lies outside our knowledge must necessarily be learnt from earlier generations, but whatever the elder generation has itself witnessed, we can find out from those who know. (85B1 DK, trans. Freeman) |
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