Preface

0.0. I have set down for you, in two books, an account of those who, though they pursued philosophy, were reputed to be sophists, together with those who were sophists properly so called. I do this knowing that you yourself are connected by descent with the art, since your lineage goes back to Herodes the sophist; and I remember, too, the discussions we once held together at Antioch, in the temple of Apollo at Daphne, concerning the sophists. As for their fathers, I have not, by Zeus, recorded them in every case, but only the fathers of men sprung from distinguished families. For I know that even Critias the sophist was mentioned with reference to his father only in the single case of Homer, since there was a marvel to be revealed in the fact that Homer was the son of a river. And in any case it is no profit to a man who wishes to know much that he should have at his fingertips the father and mother of this man or that, while remaining ignorant of the man's own virtues and vices, and of what he achieved and where he failed, whether through fortune or through his own judgement. This composition of mine, best of proconsuls, will lighten the burdens of your mind as well, just as the bowl of Helen, with its Egyptian drugs, lightened sorrow. Farewell, leader of the Muses.