Gorgias

whereas Hippias and Polus and Gorgias, each of whom most admired and was astonished at himself, you would consider wise and blessed.

One might have much to say that Gorgias the sophist ought not to stand in Delphi, and that too aloft and golden.

Nor, then, did he make Gorgias or Polus or Thrasymachus or Prodicus or Meno or Euthyphro or Anytus or Alcibiades or Laches speak in vain, when he might have removed the names;

and our contest, according to Gorgias of Leontini, needs two virtues, boldness and wisdom:

For Gorgias of Leontini and Eudemus of Naxos, the historians, stole from Melesagoras;

and Gorgias, of none at all.

The man who in our recollection laid up the most was Gorgias of Leontini.

and yet, although he had so great an advantage toward laying up more wealth than any other man, he left at his death only a thousand staters.

That was the practice of those who were then called sophists, of whose number Gorgias of Leontini first dared, in an assembly, to call for a question — that is, to bid someone state on what subject he wished to hear him speak.

For how could one surpass Gorgias, who dared to assert that nothing exists of the things that are, or Zeno, who ventured to prove the same things as possible and again as impossible, or Melissus who, although things in nature are infinite in number, made it his task to find proofs that the whole is one!

Nevertheless, even he committed a slight inadvertence—for although he asserts that he has written an encomium of Helen, it turns out that he has actually spoken a defense of her conduct!

But the composition in defense does not draw upon the same topics as the encomium, nor indeed does it deal with actions of the same kind, but quite the contrary;

Although this also seems to me to be a fine thing, if one might be able to teach people, as Gorgias of Leontini and Prodicus of Ceos and Hippias of Elis are.

I feared that Agathon in his final phrases would confront me with the eloquent Gorgias’ head, and by opposing his speech to mine would turn me thus dumbfounded into stone.

Proxenus the Boeotian cherished from his earliest youth an eager desire to become a man capable of dealing with great affairs, and because of this desire he paid money to Gorgias of Leontini.

After having studied under him and reaching the conclusion that he had now become competent to rule and, through friendship with the foremost men of his day, to hold his own in conferring benefits, he embarked upon this enterprise with Cyrus, expecting to gain therefrom a famous name, great power, and abundant wealth;

for you have yourself paid a good deal of money for wisdom to Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, and many others, while you see that we are what you might call amateurs in philosophy;

but if the servants frequently besprinkle us—if I too may use a Gorgian expression—with small cups, we shall thus not be driven on by the wine to a state of intoxication, but instead shall be brought by its gentle persuasion to a more sportive mood.