The Intellectual Revolution Selections from Euripides, Thucydides and Plato

Introduction

Protagoras (c. 490–420 BC) was born at Abdera on the North coast of the Aegean. He was the first, and in many ways the greatest, of the sophists. He had a long and successful career, travelling widely throughout the Greek world and made a considerable amount of money from the fees that he charged for his instruction. He claimed to teach his pupils how to attain personal and political success, and in his teaching emphasized the importance for such success of skill in clear expression and argument.

In this dialogue, in which Socrates is the speaker, the youthful Hippokrates asks to be taken to the famous teacher Protagoras, who has just arrived in town. Socrates’ aim is to ensure that the young man knows what he is letting himself in for, but it is quickly apparent that Hippokrates has not considered sufficiently closely what he expects to learn from Protagoras and what effect the knowledge will have on him. When Protagoras has defined his teaching in terms of the personal and political success it will bring, Socrates seriously wonders whether such a thing can be taught at all, drawing an example from the practice of the Athenian Assembly in session.