Gorgias (Oxford University Press academic monograph reprints) - Tapa dura

Taking the form of a dialogue between Socrates, Gorgias, Polus and Callicles, the Gorgias debates crucial questions about the nature of government. While the aspiring politician Callicles propounds the view that might is right, and the rhetorician Gorgias argues that oratory and the power to persuade represent 'the greatest good', Socrates insists on the duty of politicians to consider the welfare of their citizens - a duty he believed had been dishonoured in the Athens of his time. The dialogue offers insights into how classical Athens was governed, as well as creating a theoretical framework that has been highly influential on subsequent political debate.

Based on a fresh survey of the work, this revised edition of the late E.R. Dodds's standard edition of Plato's Gorgias includes two major manuscripts, collated here for the first time, and examines new papyri. A full introduction by E.R. Dodds, who was for many years Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, supplements the text, explaining the subject and structure of the dialogue, its characters and historical setting, the real date of composition, and background to Plato and Athens at the time of composition.