A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

284 GORGIAS. GORGIAS.
argument of Zeno, inasnmch as he conceives the metry of its parts and similar artifices (Diod. xii.
unit as having no magnitude, and hence as incor- 53; Cic. Orat. 49, 52; Dionys. Hal. passim), and
poreal, that is, according to the materialistic views, to dazzle by metaphors, hypallagae, allegories, reas not existing at all, although with regard to petitions, apostrophes, and the like (Suidas; Diovariety, he observes that it presupposes the exist- nys. Hal. passim); by novel images, poetical
ence of units. The second section concludes that, circumlocutions, and high-sounding expressions,
if existence were ascertainable or cognizable, every- and sometimes also by a strain of irony. (Aristot.
thing which is ascertained or thought must be real; Rhet. iii. 17, 8; Xenoph. Symnp. 2; Aristot. Rht.
but, he continues, things which are ascertainable iii. 1, 3, 14; Philostr. p. 492; Dionys. de Lys. 3.)
through the medium of our senses do not exist, He lastly tried to charm his hearers by a symbecause they are conceived, but exist even when metrical arrangement of his periods. (Demetr. de
they are not conceived. The third section urges Eleocut. 15.) But as these artifices, in the applicathe fact, that it is not existence which is communi- tion of which he is said to have often shown real
cated, but only words, and that words are intelli- grandeur, earnestness, and elegance (pEsyahorp'gible only by their reference to corresponding per- i7reav ial o-evJoT?1pa Kal tcaAAhhhoyav, Dionys. de
ceptions; but even then intelligible only approxi- Admir. vi Demosth. 4), were made use of too promatively, since no two persons ever perfectly fusely, and, for the purpose of giving undue proagreed in their perceptions or sentiments, nay, minence to poor thoughts, his orations did not
not even one and the same person agreed with excite the feelings of his hearers (Aristot. Rhet. iii.
himself at different times. (Comp. Fobs, pp. 107 3, 17; Longin. de Sublim. iii. 12; Hermog. de
-185.) Ideis, i. 6, ii. 9; Dionys. passim), and at all events'However little such a mode of arguing might could produce only a momentary impression. This
stand the test of a sound dialectical examination, was the case with his oration addressed to the
yet it could not but direct attention to the insuffi- assembled Greeks at Olympia, exhorting them to
ciency of the abstractions of the Eleatics, and call union against their common enemy (Aristot. Rhet.
forth more careful investigations concerning the iii. ]4; Philostr. p. 493), and with the funeral
nature and forms of our knowledge and cognition, oration which he wrote at Athens, though he proand thus contribute towards the removal of the bably did not deliver it in public. (Philostr. p.493;
later scepticism, the germs of which were contained and the fragment preserved by the Schol. on Herin the views entertained by Gorgias himself. He mogenes, in Geel, p. 60, &c., and Foss, p. 69, &c.)
himself seems soon to have renounced this sophis- Besides these and similar show-speeches of which
tical schematism, and to have turned his attention we know no more than the titles (Geel, p. 33;
entirely to rhetorical and practical pursuits. Plato Foss, p. 76, &c.), Gorgias wrote loci communes proat least notices only one of those argumentations, bably as rhetorical exercises, to show how subjects
and does not even speak of that one in the ani- might be looked at from opposite points of view.
mated description which he gives of t]le peculiari- (Cic. Brut. 12.) The same work seems to be reties of Gorgias in the dialogue bearing his name, ferred to under the title Onomasticon. (Pollux, ix. 1.)
but in the Euthydemus (p. 284, 86, &c.). Isocrates We have besides mention of a work on dissimilar
(Helen. Laudat.), however, mentions the book and homogeneous words (Dionys. de Comp. Verb. p.
itself. 67, ed. Reiske), and another on rhetoric (Apollod.
Gorgias, as described by Plato, avoids general ap. Diog. Lacrt. viii. 58, Cic. Brut. 12; Quintil.
definitions, even of virtue and morality, and con- iii. 1. ~ 3; Suidas), unless one of the before-menfines himself to enumerating and characterising the tioned works is to be understood by this title.
particular modes in which they appear, according Respecting the genuineness of the two declama-'to the differences, of age, sex, &c., and that not tions which have come down to us under the name
without a due appreciation of real facts, as is clear of Gorgias, viz. the Apology of Palamedes, and the
from an expression of Aristotle, in which he recog- Encomium on Helena, which is maintained by
nises this merit. (Plat. Meno, p. 71, &c.; comp. Reiske, Geel (p. 48, &c.), and Schinborn (DisAristot. Polit. i. 9. ~ 13.) Gorgias further expressly sertat. de Authentia Declamationum, quae Gorgiae
declared, that he did not profess to impart virtue- Leontini nomine extant, Breslau, 1826), and doubted
as Protagoras and other sophists did-but only the by Foss (p. 80, &c.) and -others, it is difficult to
power of speaking or eloquence (Plat. Meno, -p. 95, give any decisive opinion, since the characteristic
Gorg. p. 452, Phileb. p. 58), and he preferred the peculiarities of the oratory of Gorgias, which appear
name of a rhetorician to that of a sophist (Plat. in these declamations, especially in the former,
Gorg. p. 520 a, 449, 452); but on the supposition might very well have been imitated by a skilful
that oratory comprehended and was the master of rhetorician of later times.
all our other powers and faculties. (Ib. p. 456, The works of Gorgias did not even contain the
454.) The ancients themselves were uncertain elements of a scientific theory of oratory, any more
whether they should call him an orator or a sophist. than his oral instructions; he confined himself to
(Cic. de Invent, i. 5; Lucian, Macrob. 23.) teaching his pupils a variety of rhetorical artifices,
In his explanations of the phaenomena of nature, and made them learn by heart certain formulas rethough without attaching any importance to phy- lative to them (Aristot. Elench. Soph. ii. 9), alsics, Gorgias seems to have followed in the foot- though there is no doubt that his lectures here and
steps of Empedocles, whose disciple he is called, there contained remarks which were very much to
though in all probability not correctly. (Diog. the point. (Aristot. Rhet. iii. 18; comp. Cic. de
Lairt. viii. 58; Plat. Meno, p. 76, Gorg. p. 453; Orat. ii. 59.) [A. Ch. B.]
comp. Dionys. de Isocrat. 1.) GO'RGIAS (ropytas), of Athens, a rhetorician
The eloquence of Gorgias, and probably that of of the time of Cicero. Young M. Cicero, when at
his Sicilian contemporary Tisias also, was chiefly Athens, received instructions from Gorgias in decalculated to tickle the ear by antitheses, by com- clamation, but his father desired him to dismiss
binations of words of similar sound, by the sym- him. (Cic. ad Farm. xvi. 21.) It appears from