第19页 Protagoras: Socrates and the Greek Enlightenment

Historical research plus an act of imagination is now necessary for Plato’s 
Protagoras to have its proper shock: Protagoras, widely held by his contem-
poraries to be the wisest man in Greece, honored and trusted enough to 
have been invited by Pericles himself to draft the laws of the pan-Hellenic 
colony of Thurii, old enough now to be father of anyone present at Plato’s 
Protagoras, appealing enough to be the main attraction to ambitious young 
Athenians drawn that day to the house of the richest man in Athens to 
hear him—that fabled man is defeated in argument by a relatively young 
Athenian and defeated so soundly that he is reduced at the end to pro-
claiming his victor his proper successor.