This article examines the speeches of Cleon and Diodotus in Thucydides’ Book III of the Peloponnesian War. In these declamations, the presence of two different rhetoric and political strategies can be seen: Cleon's inspired by lack of moderation (ὕβρις), and Diodotus’, by prudence (σωφροσύνη). Through a discourse analysis of this antilogy, some expressive features of sophist rhetoric and tragic diegesis are observed that insinuate an articulation between the discourses of history, sophistic doctrines and tragedy. On this basis, the article proposes some questions about the idea of “tragic time”, enabling a dialogue with certain philosophical-political readings on the tragic character of history in Thucydides.