Gorgias

Gorgias, a celebrated Greek rhetorician and sophist, of the time of Socrates, was born at Leontini, in Sicily, and came to Athens as ambassador from his native city in 427 B.C. He subsequently settled in Greece, and, becoming famous as a teacher of eloquence, travelled from place to place, acquiring wealth as well as fame. He died at Larissa about 380, more than a hundred years old. He seems to have drawn the extremest consequences of the sophistic negativism; teaching that nothing is, and if it were, it would be unknowable, and if there were such a thing as knowledge, it would be uncommunicable (see SOPHISTS). Plato's Dialogue Gorgias is written against him. Of a large work by him on Nature nothing remains. Two works attributed to him are extant, the Apology of Palamedes, and the Encomium on Helena, but their genuineness is disputed. The best edition is by Blass (Leip. 1871).