Cephalus, the patriarch of house, has been appropriately engaged in
offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old man who has almost
done with life, and is at peace with himself and with all mankind.
He feels that he is drawing nearer to the world below, and seems
to linger around the memory of the past. He is eager that Socrates
should come to visit him, fond of the poetry of the last generation,
happy in the consciousness of a well-spent life, glad at having
escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts. His love of conversation,
his affection, his indifference to riches, even his garrulity,
are interesting traits of character. He is not one of those who have
nothing to say, because their whole mind has been absorbed in making money.
Yet he acknowledges that riches have the advantage of placing men
above the temptation to dishonesty or falsehood. The respectful
attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of conversation,
no less than the mission imposed upon him by the Oracle, leads him
to ask questions of all men, young and old alike, should also be noted.
Who better suited to raise the question of justice than Cephalus,
whose life might seem to be the expression of it? The moderation
with which old age is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable
portion of existence is characteristic, not only of him, but of Greek
feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of Cicero
in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described by Plato
in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest possible touches.
As Cicero remarks (Ep. ad Attic. iv. 16), the aged Cephalus would
have been out of place in the discussion which follows, and which he
could neither have understood nor taken part in without a violation of
dramatic propriety.

His "son and heir" Polemarchus has the frankness and impetuousness
of youth; he is for detaining Socrates by force in the opening scene,