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GORGIAS (c. 483–375 B.C.)

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 257 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GORGIAS (c. 483–375 B.C.) , See also:Greek sophist and rhetorician, was a native of See also:Leontini in See also:Sicily. In 427 he was sent by his See also:fellow-citizens at the See also:head of an See also:embassy to ask Athenian See also:protection against the aggression of the Syracusans. He subsequently settled in See also:Athens, and supported himself by the practice of See also:oratory and by teaching See also:rhetoric. He died at See also:Larissa in See also:Thessaly. His See also:chief claim to recognition consists in the fact that he transplanted rhetoric to See also:Greece, and contributed to the See also:diffusion of the See also:Attic See also:dialect as the See also:language of See also:literary See also:prose. He was the author of a lost See also:work On Nature or the Non-existent (IIepi TOO pi ovros crept vo-ews, fragments edited by M. C. Valeton, 1876), the substance of which may be gathered from the writings of Sextus Empiricus, and also from the See also:treatise (ascribed to See also:Theophrastus) De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia. Gorgias is the central figure in the Platonic See also:dialogue Gorgias. The genuineness of two rhetorical exercises (The Encomium of See also:Helen and The See also:Defence of See also:Palamedes, edited with See also:Antiphon by F. See also:Blass in the Teubner See also:series, 1881), which have come down under his name, is disputed.

For his philosophical opinions see See also:

SOPHISTS and See also:SCEPTICISM. See also See also:Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, Eng. trans. vol. i. bk. iii. See also:chap. vii.; See also:Jebb's Attic Orators, introd. to vol. i. (1893) ; F. Blass, See also:Die attische Beredsamkeit, i. (1887); and See also:article RHETORIC.

End of Article: GORGIAS (c. 483–375 B.C.)

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