Thrasymachus

“ He is made to admit that justice is a thief, and that the virtues follow the analogy of the arts (i. 333 E) . From his brother Lysias (contra Eratosth. p. 121) 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 (267 D) , is the personification of the Sophists, according to Plato’s conception of them, in some of their worst characteristics. ”

“ And, should vestiges of the morality of the weaker, from whose ranks they have risen, assail them in the form of conscience, they discover that even the gods can be squared and that a liberal support of deserving charities, coupled with the occasional endowment of a church, are calculated—so they are assured—to procure for them as honoured a place in the hereafter as their own successful injustice has obtained for them in the present.
Thus Thrasymachus’ phrase “morality is the interest of the stronger” has a double significance. ”

“ The hermit thrush is a lover of the deep, dark shades where he can sit on a twig and watch the stirring life about him without being a part of it—a kind of chimney corner philosopher, if you please. The rufous tail in sharp contrast to the olive brown head and back will tell you his name every time, for he is the only member of the thrush family found in these regions in which the color of the tail differs materially from that of the back. ”

“ A force sent by the Thirty was repulsed and routed by a surprise attack. Thrasybulus now gained the Peiraeus, 1000 strong, and successfully held the steep hill of Munychia against the oligarchs' full force. After this repulse the Thirty gave way to a provisional government of moderate oligarchs. Meanwhile a Spartan fleet, which the latter had summoned, blockaded the Peiraeus, but king Pausanias, commanding the land forces, after some skirmishes effected a general reconciliation by which the democracy was restored (October 403) . Thrasybulus was now the hero of the people ”

“ This Thrush, which I met with on the Rio Negro of Patagonia, so closely approximates to T. rufiventris in colour, language, and habits, that the casual observer finds it difficult to distinguish one from the other. Its nest and eggs are also precisely like those of its northern representative. The song is, however, much poorer, and reminds one of the first attempts of a young bird. That a member of so melodious a family should have so inferior a song I attribute to the fact that Thrushes (unlike the songsters of other genera) sing only in the warm season and when the air is calm. ”

“ I have no notice regarding the other rare species of Italian Thrushes, but certainly the Dusky-Thrush (T. fuscatus) , and perhaps the Black-throated Thrush (T. atrigularis) , must be met with as stragglers. I preserve in my collection an adult male of the former, which was caught at Breno, a few miles from Bergamo, and not very far from the beginning of the Brembana Valley. [8] The Rock-Thrush (Monticola saxatilis, V. Cueròss) is a common bird, summer visitor, and breeding. The Blue Rock-Thrush (M. cyanus) is particularly abundant in rocky parts of Taleggio Valley at Vedeseta (2490 ft.) ”

“ Because of his brown color and his speckled breast, the Brown Thrasher has often been erroneously called the Brown Thrush. Careful observation reveals many points of difference. He is three or four inches longer than our common thrushes—in fact, his tail alone is only about 21⁄2 inches shorter than the entire body of the veery or the hermit thrush; his bill is almost four times as long as theirs and is decidedly curved. Instead of dark, thrush-like eyes, he has pale yellow ones that give him an uncanny appearance.
He is not a dweller in woods, but, like the catbird, prefers thickets. ”

“ I. Character of Thrasybulus; he proceeds to deliver his country from the Thirty Tyrants, — II. His success and conduct in the enterprise, — III. His act of oblivion, III.— IV. He is honoured with an olive crown; is killed on the coast of Sicily. I. Thrasybulus, the son of Lycus, was a native of Athens. If merit is to be valued by itself, without regard to fortune, I doubt whether I ought not to place him first of all the Greek commanders. This I can say without hesitation, that I set no man above him in integrity, firmness, greatness of mind, and love for his country ”

“ Kriijorl's face was tilted upward, and in the faint glow of the planetesimal belt that girdled Thrayx, it seemed more than ever that of an heroic Viking king of ages gone.
"There's a chance he hasn't!" Mason breathed. He had the thought now, pinned down, clear in his head. "If there has been no alarm back at our own camp we may still have the mentacom to ourselves. We'll signal Ihelos as you planned and then—then there is something else you will say. Something else that I think will, as the saying goes on Earth, kill two birds with a single blast." ”

“ On their last attack, Thrayxite ships succeeded in penetrating our innermost planetary defenses, and heavily damaged a number of our cities. Many of our women and young were victims.
"We therefore evacuated our planet's entire female population to an uninhabited world far distant. It was a young world and covered with thick forests, much like the labor planetoid which circles Thrayx, and we believed our breeders would be quite sufficiently camouflaged." ”

“ You should be safe enough in that respect. You're an alien, not a part of our conflict. Their labor planetoid for you, I would imagine. It is a jungle covered sphere at the edge of their planetary ring; our scouts have sighted it on numerous occasions. A handful of men in each of its camps, mining, probably, for the ore used in Thrayxite engines. But it will be better than death."
"What are our chances, Kriijorl?" Mason felt the familiar nervousness returning to his wiry body, yet this time it was in some way different. Not the kind that ate your insides out from too much Space, for too long. ”

“ The force of Thrasybulus, however, was not increased in proportion to his expectations; for even in those times good men spoke for liberty with more spirit than they fought for it.
Hence he went to the Piraeeus, and fortified the Munychia, [2] which the tyrants twice attempted to storm, but being disgracefully repulsed, and having lost their arms and baggage, they immediately fled back to the city. Thrasybulus, on this occasion, exercised not less prudence than valour; for he forbade those that fled to be injured, thinking it just that "countrymen should spare countrymen;" ”

“ Next among the true thrushes are the olive-backed, hermit, and allied species. These occur usually in woodlands, and are rather shy, keeping at a distance. The wood thrush inhabits deeply-wooded glens. The mocking thrushes prefer thickets in the neighborhood of dwellings,—for example, the cat-bird. The brown thrush also inhabits thickets, but are not, as a rule, fond of the society of man, while the smaller thrushes, of which the golden-crowned is an example, prefer the woodlands ”

“ The hermit thrush you will rarely see. But late some afternoon, when the sun is lifting along the trunks of the hardwood forest, if you are very lucky and very quiet, you will hear him far in the depth of the blackest swamps. Musically expressed, his song is very much like that of the wood thrush--three cadenced liquid notes, a quivering pause, then three more notes of another phrase, and so on. But the fineness of its quality makes of it an entirely different performance. If you symbolize the hermit thrush by the flute, you must call the wood thrush a chime of little tinkling bells. ”

“ This bird is perhaps the only restless creature that bears the name of thrush, and he is totally unlike the rest of his family, having neither dignity, composure, nor repose of manner. My brown thrush, however, was exceedingly interesting in his own way, if only as a study of perpetual motion, of the varieties of shape and attitude possible to him, and the fantastic tricks upon wing of which he was capable. One never tired of watching him, for he was erratic in every movement, always inventing some new sort of evolution, or a fresh way of doing the old things, and scarcely a moment at rest. ”

“ A thrush will very often have a special sacrificial stone, on which he dashes the shells of Helix aspersa and nemoralis, holding them by the lip with his beak, until the upper whorls are broken; heaps of empty shells will be found lying about the place of slaughter. The bearded Titmouse (Parus biarmicus) consumes quantities of Succinea putris and small Pupa, which are swallowed whole and become triturated in the bird’s stomach by the aid of numerous angular fragments of quartz. ”

“ From so simple a beginning may flow consequences so far-reaching and impressive; for in the light of the rude Thracian ceremony we may surmise that the high tragedy of the death and resurrection of Dionysus originated in a rustic mummers' play acted by ploughmen for the purpose of fertilising the brown earth which they turned up with the gleaming share in sunshiny days of spring, as they followed the slow-paced oxen down the long furrows in the fallow field. ”

“ IV. Thrace. 87. The Thracian kingdom of Lysimachus has no history that need detain us. Unlike Egypt or Syria under Macedonian rule, it contributed nothing to literature, science, or general civilization. The several tribes were powerful by reason of their numbers, their hardy contempt of danger and exposure, and their untamable love of freedom; but their strength was too often wasted in fighting against each other, and thus they were reduced either to subjects or humble allies of the more civilized nations to the southward. ”

“ AMONG the birds that inhabit the dense forests of western Washington in the summer season, none is probably so abundant as the russet-backed thrush ( Turdiis nstulatus) ; and certainly none? save the rusty song sparrow, and possi- bly the dwarf hermit thrush, is so fine a songster. Though the artful music of the varied thrush, the tinkling falsetto of the tiny winter wren, the briefer, quaint notes of warblers, or the fresh, accentuated songs of vireos, may often, too, be heard by the listener, the song of the russet-backed thrush stands out distinct from all these. ”

“ Then all the thrushes hopped for joy, and that very day was begun the celebrated Building of the Boat. All their ordinary business fell into arrears. It was the time of year when they should have been pairing, but not a thrush’s nest was built except this big one, and so Solomon soon ran short of thrushes with which to supply the demand from the mainland. The stout, rather greedy children, who look so well in perambulators but get puffed easily when they walk, were all young thrushes once, and ladies often ask specially for them. ”

“ People who are not very well acquainted with the birds about them usually mistake the {42} long-tailed brown thrasher for a thrush because he has a rusty back and a speckled white breast, which they seem to think is an exclusive thrush characteristic, which it certainly is not. The oven-bird and several members of the sparrow tribe, among other birds, have speckled and streaked breasts, too. The brown thrasher is considerably larger than a thrush and his habits are quite different. ”

“ One of the shatterings of childish impressions that age too often brings is when we learn by the books that our "merry brown thrush" is no thrush at all, but a thrasher—first cousin to the wrens, in spite of his speckled breast, large size, and certain thrush-like instincts, such as never singing near the nest and shunning mankind in the nesting season, to mention only two. ”

“ Perinthus and the cities on the northern shore of the Propontis were reduced and punished, and then Darius gave orders, according to Herodotus, for the reduction of Thrace. "And Megabyzus marched through Thrace, and reduced every nation and every city into submission to the king. The nation of the Thracians is the greatest after the Indians, and if it were united or governed by one man, it would be invincible, and in my opinion the strongest of all nations. But as this [Pg 309] is impossible, and can never be brought about, they are weak. ”

“ Perinthus being taken, Megabazus marched his army through Thrace, subduing to the king’s will every city and every people of that region. For this was the charge given him by Darius, even the conquest of Thrace.
3. The Thracians are the biggest nation in the world, next to the Indians; were they under one ruler, or united, they would in my judgment be invincible and the strongest nation on earth ”

“ Warning, Ihelos! There is an Earthman among you at work as a spy for Thrayx! I am a captive.
Over and over, the same words, the same thought images which they formed; of Cain, of this hell-planetoid itself.
The orange glow pulsated as though itself alive with the desperation of her signal. And she heard the guard barely in time. ”

“ In the way of music, neither bird is equal to the brown thrasher of the East. In fact, if I am to be judge, one Massachusetts thrasher, in his cinnamon-colored suit (and in the top of a gray birch) , could outsing any half-dozen of the birds in this Arizona desert. It is to be said, however, that there is a third species here (not on the face of the desert itself, but in the thickets along the Rillito River) , the crissal thrasher so called, whose song I have yet to make sure of. He is larger even than the Palmer, and to look at him should have a fuller voice. ”