Listed 6 sub titles with search on: Biographies for destination: "LEONTINI Ancient city SICILY".
485 - 380
Son of Charmantides, a Leontinian, famous rhetorician, his statue at Olympia, his statue at Delphi.
Gorgias, of Leontini, a Chalcidian colony in Sicily, was somewhat older than the
orator Antiphon (born in B. C. 480 or 479), and lived to such an advanced age
(some say 105, and others 109 years), that he survived Socrates, though probably
only a short time. (Quintil. iii.9; comp. Xenoph. Anab. ii. 6.16; H. Ed. Foss,
de Gorgia Leontino, Halle, 1828; J. Geel, Histor. Crit. Sophistarum, in the Nova
Acta Literaria Societatis Rheno-Trajeetinae, ii.) The accounts which we have of
personal collisions between Gorgias and Plato, and of the opinion which Gorgias
is said to have expressed respecting Plato's dialogue Gorgias (Athen. xi.), are
doubtful. We have no particular information respecting the early life and circumstances
of Gorgias, but we are told that at an advanced age, in B. C. 427, he was sent
by his fellow-citizens as ambassador to Athens, for the purpose of soliciting
its protection against the threatening power of Syracuse. (Diod. xii. 53; Plat.
Hipp. Maj.; Timaeus, ap. Dionys. Hal. Jud. Lys. 3.) He seems to have returned
to Leontini only for a short time, and to have spent the remaining years of his
vigorous old age in the towns of Greece Proper, especially at Athens and the Thessalian
Larissa, enjoying honour everywhere as an orator and teacher of rhetoric. (Diod.
l. c.; Plut. de Socrat. Daem. 8 ; Dionys. l. c.; Plut. Hipp. Maj., Gorg., Meno,
Protag.; comp. Foss) Suvern (Ueber Aristoph. Vogel, in the Memoirs of the Royal
Acad. of Berlin) endeavored to prove that Gorgias and his brother Herodicus, a
physician of some note, settled at Athens, but there is not sufficient evidence
for this opinion. As Gorgias did not go as ambassador to Athens till after the
death of Pericles, and as we have no trace of an earlier journey, we must reiect
the statement that the great Athenian statesman and the historian Thucydides were
among his disciples. (Philostr. Vit. Soph., Epist. 13; comp. Dionys. Hal. Epist.
ad Pomp. 2, Jud. de Thuc. 24.) But his Sicilian oratory, in which he is said to
have excelled Tisias, who was at Athens at the same time with him, perhaps as
ambassador from Syracuse (Paus. vi. 7.8; Plat. Phaedr.), must have exercised a
considerable influence even upon eminent men of the time, such as Agathon, the
tragic poet, and the rhetorician Isocrates. (Plat. Symp.; Dionys. Hal. de Isocrat.
1, de Compos. Verb. 23; Isocrat. Panath. i., ed. Lange.) Besides Polus, who is
described in such lively colours in the Gorgias of Plato, Alcibiades, Critias,
Alcidamas, Aeschines, and Antisthenes, are called either pupils or imitators of
Gorgias. (Philostr.; Dionys. de Isaeo, 19; Diog. Laert. ii. 63, vi. 1.)
In his earlier years Gorgias was attracted, though not convinced,
by the conclusions to which the Eleatics had come: but he neither attempted to
refute them, nor did he endeavour to reconcile the reality of the various and
varying phaenomena of the world with the supposition of a simple, eternal, and
unchangeable existence, as Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the atomists had done.
On the contrary, he made use of the conclusions of the Eleatics, for the purpose
of proving that there was nothing which had any existence or reality; and in doing
this he paid so much attention to externals, and kept so evidently appearance
alone in view, instead of truth, that he was justly reckoned among the sophists.
His work, On Nature, or On that which is not, in which he developed his views,
and which is said to have been written in B. C. 444 (Olympiod. in Plat. Gorg.,
ed. Routh.), seems to have been lost at an early time (it is doubtful whether
Galen, who quotes it, Opera, vol. i., ed. Gesner, actually read it); but we possess
sufficient extracts from it, to form a definite idea of its nature. The work de
Xenoph. Gorgia et Melisso, ascribed to Aristotle or Theophrastus, contains a faithful
and accurate account of it, though the text is unfortunately very corrupt: Sextus
Empiricus (adv. Math. vii. 65, &c.) is more superficial, but clearer. The book
of Gorgias was divided into three sections: in the first he endeavoured to show
that nothing had any real existence ; in the second, that if there was a real
existence, it was beyond man's power to ascertain it; and in the third, that existence
could not be communicated, even supposing that it was real and ascertainable.
The first section, of which we have a much more precise and accurate account in
the Aristotelian work than in Sextus Empiricus, shows on the one hand that things
neither are nor are not, because otherwise being and not being would be identical;
and on the other hand, that if there were existence, it could neither have come
to be nor not come to be, and neither be one nor many. The first of these inferences
arises from an ambiguity in the use of the term of existence; the second from
the fact of Gorgias adopting the conclusion of Melissus, which is manifestly wrong,
and according to which existence not having come to be is infinite, and--applying
Zeno's argument against the reality of space--as an infinite has no existence.
Gorgias further makes bad use of another argument of Zeno, inasmuch as he conceives
the unit as having no magnitude, and hence as incorporeal, that is, according
to the materialistic views, as not existing at all, although with regard to variety,
he observes that it presupposes the existence of units. The second section concludes
that, if existence were ascertainable or cognizable, everything which is ascertained
or thought must be real ; but, he continues, things which are ascertainable through
the medium of our senses do not exist, because they are conceived, but exist even
when they are not conceived. The third section urges the fact, that it is not
existence which is communicated, butt only words, and that words are intelligible
only by their reference to corresponding perceptions ; but even then intelligible
only approximatively, since no two persons ever perfectly agreed in their perceptions
or sentiments, nay, not even one and the same person agreed with himself at different
times. (Comp. Foss)
However little such a mode of arguing might stand the test of a sound
dialectical examination, yet it could not but direct attention to the insufficiency
of the abstractions of the Eleatics, and call forth more careful investigations
concerning the nature and forms of our knowledge and cognition, and thus contribute
towards the removal of the later scepticism, the germs of which were contained
in the views entertained by Gorgias himself. He himself seems soon to have renounced
this sophistical schematism, and to have turned his attention entirely to rhetorical
and practical pursuits. Plato at least notices only one of those argumentations,
and does not even speak of that one in the animated description which he gives
of the peculiarities of Gorgias in the dialogue bearing his name, but in the Eathydemus.
Isocrates (Helen. Laudat.), however, mentions the book itself.
Gorgias, as described by Plato, avoids general definitions, even of
virtue and morality, and confines himself to enumerating and characterising the
particular modes in which they appear, according to the differences of age, sex,
&c., and that not without a due appreciation of real facts, as is clear from an
expression of Aristotle, in which he recognises this merit. (Plat. Meno; comp.
Aristot. Polit. i. 9.13.) Gorgias further expressly declared, that he did not
profess to impart virtue--as Protagoras and other sophists did--but only the power
of speaking or eloquence (Plat. Meno, Gorg., Phileb.), and he preferred the name
of a rhetorician to that of a sophist (Plat. Gorg.); but on the supposition that
oratory comprehended and was the master of all our other powers and faculties.
The ancients themselves were uncertain whether they should call him an orator
or a sophist. (Cic. de Invent, i. 5; Lucian, Macrob. 23.)
In his explanations of the phaenomena of nature, though without attaching
any importance to physics, Gorgias seems to have followed in the footsteps of
Empedocles, whose disciple he is called, though in all probability not correctly.
(Diog. Laert. viii. 58; Plat. Meno, Gorg.; comp. Dionys. de Isocrat. 1.)
The eloquence of Gorgias, and probably that of his Sicilian contemporary
Tisias also, was chiefly calculated to tickle the ear by antitheses, by combinations
of words of similar sound, by the Symmetry of its parts and similar artifices
(Diod. xii. 53; Cic. Orat. 49, 52; Dionys. Hal. passim), and to dazzle by metaphors,
hypallagae, allegories, repetitions, apostrophes, and the like (Suidas; Dionys.
Hal. passim); by novel images, poetical circumlocutions, and high-sounding expressions,
and sometimes also by a strain of irony. (Aristot. Rhet. iii. 17, 8; Xenoph. Symp.
2; Aristot. Rhet. iii. 1, 3, 14; Philostr.; Dionys. de Lys. 3.) He lastly tried
to charm his hearers by a symmetrical arrangement of his periods. (Demetr. de
Elocut. 15.) But as these artifices, in the application of which he is said to
have often shown real grandeur, earnestness, and elegance (megaluprepeian kai
semnoteta kai kallilogian, Dionys. de Admir. vi Demosth. 4), were made use of
too profusely, and, for the purpose of giving undue prominence to poor thoughts,
his orations did not excite the feelings of his hearers (Aristot. Rhet. iii. 3,
17; Longin. de Sublim. iii. 12; Hermog. de Ideis, i. 6, ii. 9; Dionys. passim),
and at all events could produce only a momentary impression. This was the case
with his oration addressed to the assembled Greeks at Olympia, exhorting them
to union against their common enemy (Aristot. Rhlet. iii. 14; Philostr.), and
with the funeral oration which he wrote at Athens, though he probably did not
deliver it in public. (Philostr.; and the fragment preserved by the Schol. on
Hermogenes, in Geel and Foss) Besides these and similar show-speeches of which
we know no more than the titles, Gorgias wrote loci communes probably as rhetorical
exercises, to show how subjects might be looked at from opposite points of view.
(Cic. Brut. 12.) The same work seems to be referred to under the title Onomasticon.
(Pollux,ix. 1.) We have besides mention of a work on dissimilar and homogeneous
words (Dionys. de Comp. Verb., ed. Reiske), and another on rhetoric (Apollod.
ap. Diog. Laert. viii. 58, Cic. Brut. 12; Quintil. iii. 1.3; Suidas), unless one
of the beforementioned works is to be understood by this title.
Respecting the genuineness of the two declamations which have come
down to us under the name of Gorgias, viz. the Apology of Palamedes, and the Encomium
on Helena, which is maintained by Reiske, Geel, and Schonborn (Dissertat. de Authentia
Declamationum, quae Gorgiae Leontini nomine extant, Breslau, 1826), and doubted
by Foss and others, it is difficult to give any decisive opinion, since the characteristic
peculiarities of the oratory of Gorgias, which appear in these declamations, especially
in the former, might very well have been imitated by a skilful rhetorician of
later times.
The works of Gorgias did not even contain the elements of a scientific
theory of oratory, any more than his oral instructions; he confined himself to
teaching his pupils a variety of rhetorical artifices, and made them learn by
heart certain formulas relative to them (Aristot. Elench. Soph. ii. 9), although
there is no doubt that his lectures here and there contained remarks which were
very much to the point. (Aristot. Rhet. iii. 18; comp. Cic. de Orat. ii. 59.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Gorgias. Rhetorician and Sophist from Leontini, Sicily,
Gorgias was ambassador in Athens
for a short period of time, and later settled in Athens
to teach rhetorics.
He played an important part in the development of the Attic prose,
and Plato used him in his dialogue by the name Gorgias. Socrates there says that
Gorgias beautiful speaking only is flattery, but treated him with respect nevertheless.
Gorgias introduced cadence into prose and uses commonplaces in arguments. Plato
uses him as title character in Gorgias.
Gorgias was a nihilist and expressed his philosophy in the following
way: nothing exists, if anything does exists it cannot be known, if anything exists
and can be known, it cannot be communicated.
He was very productive, but only part of a funerary speech has survived
to this day. He wrote The Encomium of Helen and The Apology of Palamedes.
He died in Thessaly
at the age of 105.
This text is cited Sept 2003 from the In2Greece URL below.
Tyrant of Leontini.
Heracleides. Tyrant or ruler of Leontini at the time when Pyrrhus landed in Sicily, B. C. 278. He was one of the first to offer submission to that monarch. (Diod. Exc. Hoeschel. xxii. p. 296.)
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