Defense of Palamedes
Leontini
G
Gorgias of Leontini
Gorgias of Leontini
c. 483 BCE–c. 376 BCE · Leontini
Gorgias was a Greek rhetorician and one of the leading Sophists, born in the Sicilian city of Leontini and active in the 5th and early 4th centuries BCE. Famous for his dazzling, ornate prose style and for skeptical arguments about being and knowledge, he traveled widely as a teacher of persuasion and lends his name to one of Plato's dialogues. He is traditionally said to have lived to a very great age.
“Gorgias argues three theses: first, that nothing exists; second, that even if it exists it is incomprehensible to man; and third, that even if it is comprehensible, still it is incommunicable and inexplicable to one's neighbor.”
Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→
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Stop 1 of 5485 BCEBorn
LeontiniSicily
What they did here
Born in Leontini, Sicily, c.485 BCE; ancient sources make him a pupil of Empedocles of Acragas. Birth year is approximate, inferred from his reputed extreme longevity (reportedly over 100).
About Leontini
Leontini, modern Lentini in southeastern Sicily, was a Greek colony founded by settlers from Naxos. It was the birthplace of the sophist and rhetorician Gorgias, who as an envoy to Athens in 427 BC introduced his ornate rhetorical style to the Greek mainland.
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Gorgias of Leontini’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Sophocles, Herodotus, Euripides, Antiphon, Socrates, Prodicus, Democritus, Thucydides, Critias, Antisthenes, Aristophanes, Lysias, Andocides, Isocrates, Alcidamas, Xenophon, Plato, Isaeus
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Gorgias of Leontini’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works(2)
Encomium of Helen
Leontini