The author asks two questions. The first, is war really the best action of a polis how the introductory conversation of the Timaeus suggests. The second, has been the Sokrates’ desire to see his ideal polis in action fulfilled in the Timaeus-Critias sequence. The approach to the problems seems to be found in the Laws, where these two questions are turned to this one: might war be the pattern for a lawgiver.

The conviction that Plato manipulated Thrasymachus’ views is today accepted by the scholarly opinion. Given the absence of testimonies regarding the political and moral views held by the historical Thrasymachus, the degree of this manipulation can be gauged only by assessing the degree of incoherence and ambiguity in the views of the Platonic Thrasymachus. This perspective, of necessity a self-referential one, is overcome by the hypothesis presented in the following article, namely, that Plato manipulates not as much the views of (...) the historical Thrasymachus as the extremely concise and ambiguous thesis which he has ascribed to him; and that the goal of this manipulation is to mock Thrasymachus’ style and rhetorical posture – both confirmed by testimonies outside the Platonic text – as ill suited to the philosophical reflection on the content of this thesis. (shrink)