## 1. Life and Works


### 1.1 Life



We do not know much about Protagoras' life, and even less about
his death: as the most famous sophist, he became the object of many,
often unreliable, anecdotes. He was born in Abdera in Thrace, in the
north coast of the Aegean Sea. In Plato's *Protagoras*
(317c) he says that he is old enough to be the father of anyone
present, including Hippias and Prodicus. This confirms that he was one
of the earliest sophists and suggests the 490s BCE as his birth year.
According to an anecdote in Diogenes Laertius (IX.53) he was a porter
until Democritus taught him. Democritus was also from Abdera, but was
younger by about thirty years and criticised Protagoras' thesis
of the "Man measure" (see below) on the charge of being
self-refuting. It is therefore highly improbable that Protagoras was
one of his pupils. The anecdote, probably derived from some comic
poets (such as Eupolis or Hermippus) due to possible connections
between their epistemological theories, also served to point to
Protagoras' humble origins; an alternative testimony from
Philostratus (*Lives of the Sophist* I.10.1-2) about his
family hosting Xerxes at the time of the Persian wars goes in the
opposite direction. This testimony also reports that Xerxes granted
Protagoras' family the rare privilege of having their son
Protagoras educated by the Magi (this anecdote was also used to
explain his agnosticism, as if it was impossible for a Greek to
endorse similar ideas, see below). Even if we regard this story as
spurious, it still seems to confirm the contacts between Protagoras
and the culture of the Ionian colonies and of the Near East. As Plato
repeatedly reports, he later travelled around Greece as a teacher and
a "sophist" (most importantly, again according to Plato,
he was the first to explicitly present himself as such,
*Protagoras* 316c-317b), earning great fame and amassing
considerable riches. It is equally certain that Protagoras sojourned
at least twice in Athens in Pericles' time, establishing with
him personal ties. It is more difficult to tell whether these contacts
also led to a direct involvement in the democratic politics of the
great statesman. Evidence in this direction is apparently provided not
just by some of the sophist's surviving fragments, but also by
the fact that in 444 BCE, Pericles entrusted him with drafting the
constitution of the new pan-Hellenic colony of Thurii in South Italy
(clearly, an appointment of this sort implies that the two men shared
the same political outlook). This connection with Pericles can also be
confirmed by the upheavals that marked the last years of
Protagoras' life: the crisis of Periclean politics seems to find
a counterpart in the downfall of Protagoras, who--like other
personalities close to the statesman--was put on trial. By the
same account, the sophist died in a shipwreck during his flight.
However, this is very questionable. First, that he had a trial seems
to be confirmed also by other sources; but these sources (in
particular Aristotle, see Diogenes Laertius IX.54) do not seem to
relate the trial to political issues (Diogenes actually relates the
trial to the charge of impiety, which would justify the story about
the shipwreck as divine punishment); at stake was rather a controversy
with a pupil. Moreover, it cannot be excluded that the trial with the
student was also a fiction. Second, the story of the trial and flight
from Athens differs from what Plato writes in his dialogues, where he
speaks of Protagoras as though he had died as a universally esteemed
figure in old age. From Plato we know that Protagoras lived
approximately 70 years (*Meno* 91e; other sources state 90
years), which would place his death at around 420 BCE. Protagoras'
pupils include Antimoerus of Mende, Carmidas and Euathlus of Athens,
and Theodore of Cyrene. Protagoras' influence has also been
posited in relation to Prodicus and the *Dissoi Logoi*,
although it is difficult to measure its extent.


### 1.2 Works



Diogenes Laertius (IX 55 = 80A1 DK) attributes many works to
Protagoras, but a comparison with other sources reveals that his list
is incomplete. Still worse, what is missing from Diogenes' list
are precisely the most important and controversial works, such as
*Truth* and *On the Gods*. One possible explanation is
that these two texts constituted individual sections of the
*Antilogiae* (*Opposing Arguments*, mentioned by
Diogenes), which were possibly known also as *Kataballontes
logoi* (*The Overthrower Arguments* or, better, *The
Knockdown Arguments*; in *M* VII 60 Sextus Empiricus
attributes to this text the "Man measure" sentence, which
other sources refer to *Truth*; see Decleva Caizzi 1999: 317;
Lee 2005: 24-29). Intriguing as it is, the hypothesis is
difficult to prove. The title suggests that the *Antilogiai*
were structured upon some sort of oppositions (an interesting parallel
are the *Dissoi logoi*); but there is no indication of
oppositions in the surviving fragments from *Truth* and *On
the Gods*. Again, any attempt at reconstruction is destined to
remain speculative, given the dearth of available fragments. Other
titles such as *The Art of Eristic*, *On Wrestling*,
*On Sciences*, *On Love of Honours*, *On the
Constitution* show the breadth of Protagoras' interests.



Apart from these titles, unfortunately, all we have are a few (less
than ten in Diels-Kranz's edition) authentic fragments and many
interpretations. Ever since Antiquity, his provocative theses have
elicited interest and criticism from his readers. As a result,
different reconstructions of his thought are available, which are not
always reliable and are often clearly shaped by disparaging
intentions. The first and most important tradition stretches back to
Plato, who devoted two dialogues to the theses of the sophist of
Abdera, the *Protagoras* and the *Theaetetus*. Many of
the later testimonies, starting with Aristotle's, would appear
to depend on Plato's discussions, and this must be taken into
account when examining the information from our sources. Alongside the
Platonic, another tradition proved rather influential in Antiquity,
namely the one that highlighted the sceptical implications of
Protagoras' thought (the most interesting testimony, not in DK,
comes from the *Commentary on the Psalms* by Didymus the Blind,
see PToura V 222.18-29; this testimony, absent in DK, can be read in
the recent edition by Laks and Most 2016, vol. VIII.1, 109-111).
However, little is known about this interpretation because sceptics
such as Sextus Empiricus explicitly refused to be associated with
Protagoras, whom they regarded as a dogmatist. This kind of reading
certainly served polemical purposes. Another tradition that was
hostile to Protagoras, and which was possibly connected to the
sceptical interpretation, was the Epicurean one, which is responsible
for the emphasis on the link between Protagoras and Democritus, on the
ground of their epistemologies--in all likelihood, an unfounded
idea. All in all, we must note that many--if not all--the
testimonies we have about Protagoras are vitiated by underlying
polemical attitudes of some sort, which in some cases lead to actual
distortions of his thought.


## 2. The "Man Measure" Thesis



In Plato's *Protagoras* Protagoras claims that he teaches
*euboulia*, good deliberation: 



> 
> 
> The object of my instruction is good deliberation about household
> matters, to know how to manage one's own household in the best
> way possible, and about those of the city, so as to be most capable of
> acting and speaking in the city's interest. (318e-319a = 80A5
> DK) 
> 
> 
> 



Protagoras' teaching had a practical and concrete goal, and many
of the surviving testimonies and fragments suggest that it was mainly
devoted to the development of argumentative techniques (which were
probably investigated in texts such as the already mentioned
*Antilogiai* and *The Art of Eristics*). Unfortunately,
we have little evidence of what these actually were. In all
probability, assertions such as that on every matter there are two
*logoi* opposed to one another (80A1, B6a DK) or that it is
impossible to contradict (80A19 DK), along with the claim to make the
weaker *logos* (the) stronger (80B6b DK), belong to this
context. Part of his teaching was also devoted to grammatical or
linguistic issues and poetry analysis. More in general, it is also
unclear the relation between his teachings and the apparent relativism
of his famous thesis that the man is the measure of all things.
Ancient sources report that this sentence opened *Truth*, a
public declamation (*epideixis*) with which he presented
himself to the public to potential pupils.


### 2.1 "Of all things the measure is man": the epistemological interpretation



*Truth* is one of Protagoras' most famous books. Ancient
books were not necessarily given their titles by their authors; but
Plato and Aristotle continuously refer to Protagoras' text as
*Aletheia* and also make puns, confirming that Protagoras
himself gave this title. The notion of "truth" played a
prominent role among the Presocratics: in choosing this title,
Protagoras clearly wanted to present himself as an heir to this
long-established tradition; and by questioning the existence of one
single truth, as we will see, he sought to challenge it. The first
sentence of the treatise fully confirms its author's provocative
intentions: "Of all things the measure is man: of those that
are, that they are; and of those that are not, that they are
not" (80B1 DK; for the sake of convenience, this sentence will
be abbreviated as MM). MM is one of the few authentic Protagoras
fragments to have been preserved and many ancient sources confirm that
the statement was originally formulated precisely in these terms. The
problem, however, is its opacity: ancient readers debated what
Protagoras really meant, and modern interpretations have only
increased doubt. As a matter of fact, it cannot be ruled out that a
certain degree of ambiguity was intentional. *Truth* was not a
scientific treatise but an *epideixis*, the text of public
performance, which was meant "to demonstrate one's
virtuoso skill in argumentation" (Lee 2005: 27, after Lloyd
1987: 96). In opening his speech, Protagoras sought to capture the
attention of his audience (or reader) by making a striking and
allusive claim. There is nothing odd in all of this, since a desire to
capture the audience's attention was quite typical of the
sophists, and is confirmed by many other sources (the sentence
introducing the treatise on the gods was just as provocative, see
 SS4).



This is not to say that MM had no specific meaning. Simply, it is a
matter of dealing with potentially ambiguous elements. In particular,
it is necessary to clarify the notion of man, i.e., whether
"man" refers to each individual or to humanity in general:
in discussing this issue, the meaning of the other terms that make up
the sentence will also become clearer. In turn, this will help us
assess the underlying meaning of Protagoras' thesis and its
field of applicability, so as to determine whether it is only an
epistemological thesis or whether it also carries practical or
political implications. As it will turn out, the sentence can be read
on different levels, in accordance with the archaic logic which says
there is no need to clearly distinguish the different meanings
possessed by a term.



There are three main sources for MM: Plato, our most important source,
Aristotle, and Sextus Empiricus. All three understand the
phrase--at any rate at a first level--as though
"man" referred to "each individual". In the
*Theaetetus* MM is equated with the claim that "knowledge
is sensation" and paraphrased as follows: "just as each
thing appears to me, so too it is for me, and just as it appears to
you, so too again for you" (*Theaetetus* 152a). Thus, if
the wind appears warm to me, it is warm for me; and if it appears cold
to another person, it is cold for her. In other words, MM means that
each person is the measure of her own sensations, and Protagoras
emerges as a supporter of an empiricist theory that bases knowledge on
sensory data.



Plato's testimony is crucial and his reconstruction is also
taken up by other authors (see 80A16 DK and 80B1 DK). It is, however,
a reductive interpretation that potentially misleads. The underlying
aim of *Theaetetus* is not to accurately report the theses of
Plato's opponent, but to show their philosophical limits:
according to Plato, the MM thesis is a muddled one; the only way to
make it clear is by assuming that Protagoras was only speaking of
sensations; and since (according to Plato) it is impossible to base
knowledge on sensations alone, it follows that the thesis is
fallacious. This strict empiricist reading is philosophically
interesting but not historically reliable, because Protagoras was not
speaking of sensations alone. Remarkably, Plato himself suggests that
Protagoras' phrase had a broader meaning by remarking that MM
also concerned all opinions and judgements (157d, 170a-171a).
Aristotle and Sextus Empiricus further confirm the need for a broader
interpretation: what are at play are not just sensations but more
generally all opinions and judgements (and especially value
judgements). On this interpretation, MM means that each individual is
the ultimate arbiter of all her own judgements--not only that the
wind is warm or cold, but also that performing a given action is right
or
 wrong.[1]



The point just made is crucial for a correct reconstruction of the
overall meaning of Protagoras' position. The transition to a
broader conception of human activities (not only sense-perceptions but
human judgements as a whole) brings out one aspect of the thesis that
scholars have all too often overlooked. From the example of wind it
seems that Protagoras was addressing the problem of human knowledge in
abstract terms, by examining the general ways in which the process of
knowledge-acquisition unfolds--in other words, by investigating
what happens to a subject *X* who at a given moment *t*
experiences sensation *f* (let us think of the example of the
wind). This is not correct. It is certainly true that
Protagoras' thesis was concerned with human knowledge. However,
it is not true that it focused on it in an "abstract" way,
as though men could be stimulated from the outside so as to study
their reactions at given moments and in specific circumstances. This
approach might work in the case of the wind, but not in that of
judgements concerning what is good or bad. "Man" refers to
the individual, yet not to a generic, impersonal, subject: Protagoras
has concrete, historically well-defined people in mind, with their
ideas and prejudices. What is meant by "man", therefore,
is each person with his or her own personal history, experiences, and
expectations with a past and a future, i.e., people whose judgements
largely reflect their individual experience. When I claim that a
certain thing or action is good (or beautiful or unjust), I do so on
the basis of a series of ideas and opinions that I have acquired over
the course of my life and that I have continued to put to test through
my engagement with facts--in other words, on the basis of my
experience, which is different from that of other people. The true
measure, then, is not man in the abstract sense but rather each
individual's experience (Mansfeld 1981: 44-46). Clearly
this claim also carries a polemical undertone with respect to the
so-called "masters of truth", that is, philosophers like
Parmenides (see also 80B2 DK), for whom terms such as
"man" and "opinion" were synonymous with
error, and the poets who claimed to be divinely inspired. There is no
privileged access to any divine or higher reality. The ultimate
purpose of Protagoras' statement is to re-evaluate human
experiences.



Having clarified the meaning of "man", we can now turn to
consider the second part of the phrase, "of those that are, that
they are; and of those that are not, that they are not".
Essentially, it is a matter of clarifying what "things"
means and in what sense man "measures" them. Based on what
has been noted so far, we can reasonably claim that what Protagoras
meant by "things" was not just material objects and
entities with their specific properties (things that can be perceived
by the senses, such as wind): "things" are to be
understood in their broadest possible sense as facts or
events--e.g., the temperature of the wind, but also an event such
as performing a certain action and all that happens to man. In this
respect, the choice of the term is probably revealing. *Chrema*
derives from the verb *chraomai*, meaning "to
treat", "to use", "to entertain a relation
with": according to its original meaning, the term describes not
so much "things" in themselves (in this case Protagoras
could have used *onta* or *pragmata*), as in relation to
us; the emphasis is on the way in which we relate to things, use them,
judge them, and so on. As far as the notion of measure is concerned,
it is clear that man is the measure not of the existence of these
things and facts, but rather of the way in which they present
themselves (e.g., warm/cold or good/bad). The verb "is"
must be understood not in an existential sense (in which case it would
be difficult to understand what it means for man to be the measure of
the non-existence of the things that are not), but rather in a
modal-predicative sense: Protagoras is not denying the existence of
the external world, but only limiting the possibility of knowing it to
the way in which it presents itself to our experience: hence, if I
judge the wind to be warm, I am the measure of the fact that it is
warm and not of the fact that it exists; and if I judge the wind not
to be warm, I am measure of the fact that it is not warm and not of
the fact that it does not exist (but this does not exclude some
specific cases where I can also be the measure of existence or lack
there of, for instance the Gods: interestingly, the opening sentence
of fr. 4 on the Gods appears to have existential implications, see
below
 SS4).
 Things in themselves do not possess any predetermined truth or any
intrinsic value: they simply exist, they are what surrounds man, what
happens to him. But what matters is the way in which we relate to
them: each individual, according to his or her experience, is the
judge of these facts, insofar as he or she assigns them a degree of
consistency or value.


### 2.2 Objections and the practical interpretation



MM faces two serious objections: the charge that it is self-refuting
and the charge of solipsism. The charge of being self-refuting (or
*peritrope*, as the ancients called it: literally, the charge
of turning oneself upside down) was apparently formulated for the
first time by Democritus (80A15 DK) and then further developed by
Plato (in *Theaetetus* and *Euthydemus*) and Aristotle
(in the fourth book of *Metaphysics*). In brief, this
accusation states that if all judgements are true (this being the
implicit meaning of MM), then the judgement that MM is false is also
true; hence, MM is false. Protagoras had reportedly further claimed
that "it is not possible to contradict" (80A19 DK) and
this had led Plato and especially Aristotle (*Met.* IV 5,
1009a6-16) to add that the sophist denied the principle of
non-contradiction, suggesting another version of the
*peritrope* charge: Protagoras claims that all judgements are
true (let us call this thesis *P*) and his opponent that
Protagoras' claim is false (non-*P*); but according to Protagoras
contradiction is impossible and therefore non-*P* is compatible with P;
but in this case, non-*P* is true; hence, *P* is false (Barnes 1979:
548).



The soundness of this criticism has been the object of a heated
scholarly debate, yet no shared solution has been reached (see now
Castagnoli 2010). An infallibilist interpretation, according to which
all beliefs are true *simpliciter* (see *Theaetetus*
161d6-7, 167a7-8; Aristotle, *Metaphysics* IV 5, 1009a7-8),
clearly leads to Protagoras' confutation for the above reasons.
But Protagoras could nonetheless defend himself by endorsing some kind
of relativism, according to which nothing is true
*simpliciter*, but always relative to some framework. As a
matter of fact, the criticism omits the qualifiers "for
me" and "for you", which are crucial to his thesis
(*Theaetetus* 161d2-3; Aristotle, *Met.* IV 6,
1011a19-20; Sextus Empiricus, *M* VII 60). By introducing these
qualifiers, Protagoras could reformulate the *peritrope* charge
in such a way as to neutralise it: if what I judge is true and I judge
that Protagoras' thesis is false, it does not follow from this
that Protagoras' thesis is false in an absolute sense, but only
that it is false "for me". And the fact that it is false
"for me" does not prevent it from being true for other
people: it remains true, for instance, for Protagoras, who can thus
avoid the charge that he is turning himself upside down (as well as
denying the principle of non-contradiction; it may be argued however
that this latter principle is denied when Protagoras' adversary
judges that Protagoras' thesis is false: in this case she would
be relying on Protagoras' thesis and at the same time denying
it).



This defensive strategy, however, is potentially open to the more
serious charge of solipsism. This risk is clearly present in the
aforementioned thesis that it is "impossible to
contradict" (80A19 DK). The thesis in question is fully
compatible with MM. If each individual is the measure of his or her
own world of sensations and judgements, contradiction can only be
apparent: each individual entertains a relationship with things whose
truth-reality cannot be contradicted or disputed by others. But how
can we deal with these divergences and oppositions if everyone is
right? If this is how things stand, what follows is a radical (and
intolerable) form or solipsism, whereby the fact that each person is
his or her own judge makes it impossible to discuss things with others
(and, in addition, makes also Protagoras' teaching useless). The
price that Protagoras must pay in order to defend the consistency of
his doctrines seems far too high (Woodruff 1999: 303).



In this case too Protagoras has some arguments on his side. Up until
this point, the discussion has centred on the problem of
"truth", a concept the importance of which can hardly be
disputed. However, no matter how central it may be, truth is not the
only criterion that governs human thoughts and actions. Alongside
truth there are other, equally important criteria, as the sophist
argues in the so-called "Protagoras' Apology"
(166a-168c = 80A21a DK; the *Theaetetus* takes place in 399 BCE,
the year of Socrates' trial, by which time Protagoras had
already passed away; this is the answer Protagoras would have given to
Socrates, had he been present at the dialogue: it is not a fragment
but it probably conveys some of his views). In his fictional reply,
Protagoras distinguishes between knowledge and wisdom
(*sophia*). Unlike knowledge and truth, wisdom varies. From the
point of view of knowledge and truth, every individual is a measure,
and the fact that each person is a measure depends on his relationship
with reality he or she is experiencing--this is a fact. But from
the point of view of the value of the contents (of wisdom), it cannot
be ruled out that some people are capable of allowing the individual
to establish a more expedient relationship with reality. 



> 
> 
> As for wisdom (*sophia*) and the wise man (*sophos*), I
> am very far from saying that they do not exist; but I also call the
> man clever who, by transforming things makes them appear to be good
> and be good for someone to whom they appeared to be bad and were bad.
> (*Theaetetus* 166d = 80A21a DK) 
> 
> 
> 



Protagoras' aim is not merely to abolish the idea of truth which
is shattered into an endless number of private truths; his aim is to
replace this criterion with another, more effective criterion, that of
the useful. It is by reflecting on the issue of the useful that the
sophist, while respecting everybody's opinion, shows his wisdom.
The useful varies from one situation to the next, and the problem is
to identify what is truly expedient in each case.



All in all, it is difficult to articulate a comprehensive and
consistent interpretation of MM. The testimonies are scarce, and they
basically depend on Plato, who, though considering Protagoras a worthy
interlocutor, is not so much interested in presenting his thought as
to criticise it. Whereas in the first part of the dialogue Protagoras
is presented as endorsing some sort of relativism, in the
"Apology" the emphasis is on some kind of pluralism, which
is further confirmed by a passage from *Protagoras*, where it
is argued that the variety of the useful does not so much depend on
what one subjectively believes to be good or bad as on the fact that
reality is manifold (Guthrie 1971: 164-175; Apfel 2011). The
problem of relativism has stimulated a huge discussion among modern
scholars (after the seminal Burnyeat 1976); but it has been correctly
questioned that the strict adoption of this category can really
contribute to a better understanding of the sophist (Bett 1989). A
pluralist interpretation, on the contrary, enables us to underline the
practical dimension of Protagoras' teaching which was certainly
important, and explains how MM can be combined with his activity of
teacher. As already remarked, MM was the opening sentence of an
*epideixis*: on the one side, it challenged traditional wisdom
and epistemic authority by revaluating personal opinions and
experiences; on the other side it also argued for the importance of
practical and concrete expertise. Indeed, it was an excellent
presentation and advertisement for his activity.


## 3. Protagoras on Language


### 3.1 Protagoras' grammatical interests



Several testimonies report Protagoras' interest on
morphological, syntactic, and stylistic issues. Apparently, he was the
first to distinguish the gender of nouns (male, female, and neuter)
while also proposing many corrections for names in use in his day.
Thus he suggested that the female nouns *menis*
(menis, "wrath", "frenzy")
and *pelex* (pelex,
"helmet"), two terms familiar to Homer's audience,
should be regarded as masculine--either on the basis of
morphological criteria (because names ending in sigma [s] or xi
[x] are usually masculine) or because of their meaning (insofar as
war is an eminently masculine pursuit: see 80A27-8 DK). Protagoras
also distinguished four verbal modes (indicative, conjunctive,
optative, and imperative), which he linked to four types of speech
(prayer, question, reply, and command), once again taking the occasion
to mention Homer, who had addressed the goddess with a command
("Sing, Goddess, the wrath") rather than a prayer (80A29
DK). Finally, Diogenes Laertius (IX 52 = 80A1 DK) seems to inform us
of Protagoras' interest in verb tenses (but this is more
controversial). All in all, these grammatical reflections presuppose a
"rudimentary" (Rademaker 2013: 86) theory of language,
which is not limited to names but is rather investigated from the
point of view of its underlying structure and connections in relation
to the different functions of terms.



This interest on language did not depend on exclusively erudite or
grammatical interests, as though Protagoras simply sought to codify or
standardise the linguistic usages of the Greek world. On the contrary,
practical and philosophical interests were in play. On the one hand,
it was a matter of increasing the potential of words in view of the
practical aim of teaching pupils to exploit language to further their
goals: it is by mastering a language that one can use it more
effectively. This is what happens in the *Clouds*; as Aristophanes
was to note, these are the tools that help "make the weaker
argument the stronger" (80B6b DK): in order to learn the
"unjust argument" (Aristophanes' version of
Protagoras' "weaker argument"), one must first learn
the rules of grammar (*Clouds*, 658-691 = 80C3 DK).
Besides, criticism of Homer is also a way to challenge the
poet's authority. From the surviving testimonies it appears that
an important part of Protagoras' teaching was devoted to the
interpretation of poets such as Homer, Simonides (see Plato's
*Protagoras* 339a-e) and Hesiod (see below
 SS5).
 Clearly, the purpose is not to provide a mere exegesis. Rather, it is
to critically discuss the text and fulfil an educational goal:
literary criticism is a useful intellectual exercise which enables the
individual to grow familiar with and eventually criticise traditional
values which were conveyed by the poets (Morgan 2000: 89-94).
The sophist's strategy is one of appropriation, where an
engagement with traditional knowledge represents the starting point of
their attempt to acquire a dominant position in the Athenian cultural
scene. In such a way, Protagoras could reinforce his claim to be a new
teacher, an educator capable of imparting teachings suited to the
needs of the new world of the
 *polis*.[2]


### 3.2 Protagoras on correctness (*orthotes*)



From a philosophical perspective of special importance is the
recurrent focus on the issue of correctness of names (*orthotes
onomaton*, *orthoepeia*), which is to say the capacity of
language to faithfully portray reality. This was the object of many
discussions in fifth-century BCE Athens; Plato's
*Phaedrus* reports that one of Protagoras' works was
entitled *Orthoepeia* (*The Correctness of Language*;
*Phdr.* 267c = 80A26 DK). Regrettably, the content of this book
is completely unknown; but different sources confirm that Protagoras
had an interest in the problem of correctness of language at different
levels (Gagarin 2008: 28-30). We already mentioned
Protagoras' grammatical interests, which implied the thesis of
linguistic correctness. On another level, the notion of
*orthos* is used as a criterion for analysing poetry:
correctness in this case concerns not points of grammar, but the
consistency of a composition, its statements, and its moral teaching
(80A25 DK). Finally, the same notion could also be applied in an even
more general sense, as in the following testimony: 



> 
> 
> When a competitor in the pentathlon unintentionally struck Epitimus of
> Pharsalus with a javelin and killed him, he [i.e., Pericles] spent a
> whole day with Protagoras examining the difficulty whether, according
> to the most correct reasoning, it was the javelin, or the man who
> throw it, or the umpires, that should be considered responsible for
> this unfortunate event. (80A10 DK) 
> 
> 
> 



This testimony is a fine example of Protagoras' way of
reasoning. The facts are indisputable: a man has unintentionally
killed another man. However, everything remains to be said as regards
the issues of moral responsibility, legal guilt, and how to judge the
whole incident. One and the same indisputable fact may be viewed from
many different perspectives: for the physician, the javelin will be
responsible for the man's death; for the umpire, it will be the
javelin-thrower; for the person who has organised the competition, it
will be the umpire. This contrast gives the sophist some room for
action: he will attempt to create some agreement, lending meaning and
order to the event (Untersteiner 1949 [1954: 56-57]). The notion
of correctness is the criterion which enables him to overcome the
above difficulties: given that there is some validity to all the above
points of view, the problem will be to find the one most suited to the
situation, while foregoing any claim to come up with a single,
independently valid in all cases, answer. No doubt, the notion of
"correctness" finds a prominent place in Protagoras'
thought and allows us to grasp some of its strands of continuity. At
the basis of this notion lies the awareness of the problematic
relationship between reality and human beings which was discussed in connection
with MM, and which finds another expression in the statement that
"concerning every subject, there are two arguments opposed to
one another" (80B6a DK). With regard to each thing there are two
opposite *logoi* (speeches, arguments, points of view)--*A*
and non-*A*--precisely because each experience is open to
contrasting readings and interpretations (thus, in the case of the
above example, each of the three elements can be reduced to this
binary logic by arguing whether it has been or not the umpire, or the
javelin, or the javelin-thrower). *Logos*, which expresses our
capacity to think and speak, thus cannot exhaust the complexity of
reality. However, as already noted with regard to MM, contradictory
points of view do not imply confusion or the failure of human
possibilities. Rather, the challenge that Protagoras takes up and the
promise he makes is to be able to (and teach others to) unravel this
complexity by identifying which of any two opposite *logoi* is
the better, or rather the more correct, which is to say the one better
suited to the circumstance at hand: this is probably the meaning of
his well-known claim to "to make the weaker argument the
stronger" (80B6b DK). It is easy to discern the structural
analysis that links this notion of correctness to that of the type of
usefulness we have discussed in relation to the MM fragment: in both
cases the problem is to find the best, most expedient relationship
with things in each circumstance, and this can be obtained by using
correctly our *logos*, both in the sense of judging correctly
the case and convincing the others.



We here get a better idea of Protagoras' teaching, which centres
on the concept of *logos*, understood both as the ability to
reason and the ability to express oneself (i.e., as both thought and
language). "Correctness", in other words, is to be
understood on two levels, a conceptual and a linguistic one: correct
reasoning, which expresses the best possible solution, must find a
counterpart in formal correctness, which makes one's speech
persuasive and hence allows one to gain the upper hand in each
particular situation (Classen 1976: 222-225). The best speech,
therefore, is not the speech that is true but the speech that is correct, the speech best
suited to the situation at hand and most capable of outdoing others
from a formal and logical perspective: an irrefutable *logos*
(Brancacci 2002: 183-190).


## 4. Protagoras on the Gods



Protagoras' penchant for sensational statements, capable of
seizing the public's attention, is further confirmed by the
opening of the *On the Gods*: 



> 
> 
> About the gods I am able to know neither that they exist nor that they
> do not exist nor of what kind they are in form: for many things
> prevent me for knowing this, its obscurity and the brevity of
> man's life. (80B4 DK; on the text, see Benedetto 2001 and
> Corradi 2017: 445-448) 
> 
> 
> 



According to some ancient sources, this statement had a
disproportionate effect: his books were burned in public, while he was
convicted in Athens on a charge of atheism and sentenced to death; he
then escaped and lost his life in a shipwreck. As already remarked,
all these anecdotes are probably fictitious, but it is true that the
sophist was made the object of unanimous and enduring condemnation, to
the point of bringing together traditionally antithetical schools of
thought, such as the Christians and the Epicureans, both concord in
condemning his thesis as atheistic (see Diogenes of Oenoanda, 80A23
DK, and Epiphanius, *Against Heresies* III 16). As a matter of
fact, there is no reason to assume a profession of atheism on his
part, because these hostile sources conflate a confession of ignorance
("I do not know that *P*") with a profession of
knowledge ("I know that not-*P*"). "To the
believer, agnostics may be as bad as atheists; but to the atheists
agnostics are not much better than believers" (Barnes 1979:
449-450). Protagoras is the first thinker to take an agnostic
stance, which can hardly be understood as an expression of atheism; at
stake, in the fragment, is not so much an ontological thesis (on the
existence of the gods) but an epistemological one (on our knowledge of
them; Drozdek 2005: 41). Like in the case of MM, also in this fragment
the emphasis seems to fall on the absence of a universal and
incontrovertible truth.



While it is evident that Protagoras' statement is not a
profession of atheism, its overall meaning is less clear. Some
interpreters have denied that Protagoras is doubting the existence of
the gods in this passage on the ground of a parallel with the use of
*hos* in this statement and in the MM: in the latter case, as
we have seen, the preposition clearly has a modal meaning; if we
assume that it was used in the same sense in the former passage, we
must conclude that, according to this line of interpretation,
Protagoras was chiefly interested in the way in which the gods are and
present themselves, rather than in their presumed existence or
non-existence. Protagoras would thus be claiming that we do not know
"how" the gods are or are not, and the words that follow
("nor of what kind they are in form") would have an almost
epexegetic function (or would more concretely refer to the problem of
their visible appearance: see Kerferd 1981a: 165-168). This
would imply, then, that Protagoras never raised any doubts as to the
existence of the gods (and a different translation of the first clause
would follow: "I am able to know neither how they exist nor how
they do not exist"). The merit of this reading is that it
explains the otherwise inappropriate order of the two clauses: since
the first statement argues for agnosticism, it makes no sense to
discuss the problem of the gods' form. Against it, however, it
must be noted that all the ancient sources, from Plato onwards (see
*Theaetetus*, 162d), unanimously present Protagoras'
thesis as though it concerned the existence of the gods. As there are
no reasons to go against such a solid tradition, it is better to
interpret the text as discussing both the existence of the gods
("neither that they exist nor that they do not exist") and
their form ("nor of what kind they are in form"). As for
the order of the two clauses, the most reasonable explanation is that,
like in the MM fragment, these opening statements, whose primary aim
was to attract the attention of the audience, were not meant to be too
rigorous. To be sure, to begin by professing one's own ignorance
is an unconventional choice. Incidentally, it is worth noting that the
statement possibly presents the first recorded use of the verb
"to be" in an existential sense (Kahn 1973: 302).



The reasons which Protagoras reportedly adduced in support of his
thesis--the obscurity of the problem and the brevity of human
life--have been regarded as too banal, or at any rate not
particularly relevant. However, they acquire greater significance when
viewed in relation to a concept the importance of which has already
been stressed in relation to the MM, namely personal experience: this
is the only legitimate criterion to verify our knowledge (Mansfeld
1981). Therefore it seems that also in this case by highlighting the
limits of human experience, Protagoras was engaging in a polemic with
those Presocratic thinkers, such as Parmenides and Heraclitus, who had
repeatedly claimed to be able to transcend the limits of human
knowledge, as well as the poets, who had based their authority on a
privileged contact with the divine world. In this respect, some
interesting similarities are to be found between Protagoras and
Xenophanes of Elea (21B34 DK), who also reportedly criticised human
claims to know the truth about the gods (significantly, for Xenophanes
too, obscurity is an obstacle to knowledge). The analogies with
Xenophanes become even more striking when we consider the second
segment of the first statement, concerning the presumed appearance of
the gods. In raising this problem, Protagoras was in all likelihood
referring to the anthropomorphic conception, which Xenophanes had
already repeatedly censured (see also Herodotus *Histories* II
53,1; Sassi 2013).



One intriguing problem for scholars has been to reconstruct the
follow-up to this text. It is difficult to imagine that, after a
statement of this sort, Protagoras continued to speak at length about
the gods. The structure of the sentence (and in particular the
presence of the particle *men*, which implies a contrasting
*de*) suggests that the author shifted his attention onto man:
for the Greeks, the notions of god and man were mutually defining. It
is likely, therefore, that in the continuation of the text, Protagoras
discussed not the problem of the gods in itself, but rather the issue
of what they represent for man, thereby inaugurating an
anthropological and sociological approach that considers religion in
terms of its function for human civilisation and society (Jaeger 1947:
176). This hypothesis is no doubt more persuasive than the alternative
hypothesis that the text was then devoted to a critique of religious
beliefs or, on the contrary, that the acknowledgement of human
weakness was intended to pave the way to an expression of piety and
reverence for the unknowable nature of the gods. What is less
convincing is the way in which this hypothesis has been developed.
From Jaeger onwards, scholars have believed that, while leaving the
problem of the actual existence of the gods open, Protagoras
celebrated their importance for human civilisation in the sense that
religious beliefs and sentiments played a decisive role in the
development of human civilisation. Given the silence of this fragment,
this hypothesis is based on the myth that Protagoras relates in the
dialogue named after him, where mention is made of these beliefs. Yet
what may be inferred from the myth is rather the very opposite (see
 SS5,
 for a detailed analysis of this testimony). In the myth, Protagoras
acknowledges the importance of belief in the gods as something
specifically and universally human; but the very moment he
acknowledges the presence of the religious dimension, he *de
facto* limits its importance by implying that this belief (or
fear) is not enough to provide a foundation for human society. What
ensures that men can live together in cities is rather politics.
Protagoras' agnosticism is therefore instrumental towards his
radical humanism, which is also attested in the MM fragment and in the
myth of Prometheus.


## 5. Protagoras' Political Thought


### 5.1 The myth of the "Protagoras"



The last important testimony on Protagoras comes from the first part
of Plato's *Protagoras*, where the sophist tells Socrates
and the rest of the audience his own version of the myth of Prometheus
(*Protagoras* 320c-322d = 80C1 DK). In the dialogue, this myth
is meant to defend both the Athenian democratic practice of allowing
every citizen to express his own ideas in public contexts and
Protagoras' claim to teach the "political art". The
myth is told in three phases: 


1. When the time had come to generate mortal animals (including
humans), the gods entrusted Prometheus with assigning each species
qualities that would allow it to survive and prosper. Prometheus
(literally, "he who understands first", "who
foresees") left the task up to his brother Epimetheus ("he
who understands afterwards"), but the latter forgot humans.
2. To make up for his brother's mistake, Prometheus stole fire
and technical expertise from the gods, allowing humans to approach the
world of the gods, learn how to speak, and master the technologies
required to solve practical life problems--the provision of food,
clothing, and housing. However, despite this progress, humanity risked
becoming extinct as it lacked political wisdom, and


> 
> 
> when they gathered together, they committed injustice against one
> another...so that they scattered once again and were destroyed.
> (322b). 
> 
> 
>
3. Fearing that the human race would meet extinction, Zeus
dispatched Hermes to distribute justice (*dike*) and shame
(*aidos*), not in the same way as with the other forms of arts
(whereby, for instance, one physician is enough for many patients),
but to everyone indiscriminately.



As Protagoras will make clear in the rest of his speech (322d-328d)
the possession of these two virtues, which is clearly one major topic
of the sophist's political teaching, constitutes the basis of
the social life.



This is not a fragment, but it is a reasonable and widely shared
assumption that it conveys some Protagorean ideas. The problem is how
to interpret it. There are at least two possibilities: (1) According
to several scholars, this myth reflects Protagoras' views on the
development of human civilisation, a highly debated topic in
fifth-century Athens (Kahn 1981: 98). Such a reading, however, has
several limitations, both if you read it literally or metaphorically.
Taken literally, the myth is full of inconsistencies. Just to give
some examples: there does seem to be a pre-existing human kind, which
is virtually defined by the possession of qualities which will be
introduced later; since first humans were living scattered, it is not
clear how they developed and used the different specialised arts; if
language is distributed like the other *technai*, the absurd
conclusion is that it does not belong to all human beings; the only
possible solution to account for the passage from the second to the
third phase seems to depend on Zeus' direct intervention, a
belief which is hard to reconcile with Protagoras' agnosticism
(see
 SS4).
 Taken metaphorically, as a mythical (Platonic?) reshaping of an
historical account, it results in a rather banal summary of some
popular and widespread views on human progress (Cole 1967: 51) and
does not explain the overall structure of Protagoras' speech in
its entirety. As a matter of fact, in the *logos* which follows
the myth there is no interest at all for any sort of chronological
reconstruction. To be sure, many parallels with the dossier of texts
on the origins of human civilisation can be underlined; there is no
need to deny a common ground between Protagoras' myth and these
texts. But there is no need either to read into the myth an historical
narrative that either Protagoras or Plato would have reshaped into a
myth. (2) An alternative, and more promising, option is to take the
myth for what it is, that is, a myth--as a story and not history
(Farrar 1988; Sihvola 1989; Bonazzi 2011; Beresdorf 2013). It is not a
matter of denying that the story is clearly articulated in three
phases, but of remarking that the myth need not be interpreted in a
chronological sense as if it were offering a naturalistic
reconstruction of how our civilisation developed. It is rather meant
to account for how our society is organised and identify some
essential features of humankind itself. When read in this way,
analytically and not genetically, the myth gains in clarity and
originality (interestingly, Plato often uses aetiological mythical
narratives about the origins of certain phenomena, see for instance
Betegh 2009 on the Aesopean myth on pleasure and pain in
*Phaedo* 60b-c; these parallels could be tentatively used in
favour of the attribution to Plato of the mythological format also in
the case of the *Protagoras*). If the goal is to explain who we
are, the myth does not need to be divided in three or five steps (as
it is possible, of course), but rather in two parts, between the
pre-political state of nature and the political world of the city, the
first envisaging an impossible world, a counterfactual example which
shows *e contrario*, what is really distinctive of the human
world--what really allows men to live the way they live: not
technical skills (or the belief in the gods), but the political
attitude, which consists in the possess of *aidos* and
*dike*--*aidos* corresponding to the component that
enables each to govern himself in his conduct towards other human
beings and *dike* to the norms which regulate the social
intercourse among human beings (Segvic 2004 [2009: 9-11]). In
this myth we find a first defence of the idea, which Aristotle will
make famous, that we are political animals. Human beings are political
animals: and political society is not so much the final accomplishment
of mankind's long journey but the condition of possibility for
human life, which is always associated life.


### 5.2 Protagoras on *technai*



The comparison with the testimonies at our disposal on human
civilisation shows what is distinctive, and remarkable, of
Protagoras' myth. Scholars insist on the parallels between the
myth and these other texts. The differences, however, are even more
interesting than the affinities. These texts all share a similar
account of the history of human civilisation, underlining the
importance of technical skills as the key condition for human
progress. From Aeschylus and the other tragic poets to the *corpus
hippocraticum* and Diodorus/Democritus, the history of human
progress depends on *technai*, which are praised for enabling
human beings to overcome natural needs and the perils of an hostile
environment and thus to live a prosperous life (for a collection of
these texts see Cole 1967 or Guthrie 1971: 79-84; the only
remarkable exception is the *Sisyphus* fragment, 88B25 DK,
which is later and clearly reminiscent of sophistical ideas).
*Techne* is what marks the distinction between civilisation and
savagery, and between human beings and animals. In Protagoras'
myth, on the contrary, *technai* do not play a decisive
role--they do not suffice to warrant human survival and
prosperity. Protagoras rather insists on the fact that
*technai*, alone, are not able to warrant human progress, nor
human survival, for the problem is not external, natural necessities,
but internal, the human tendency to prevaricate and commit injustice:




> 
> 
> when they gathered together, they committed injustice against one
> another...so that they scattered once again and were destroyed.
> (*Protagoras* 322b) 
> 
> 
> 



This is a remarkable difference, which changes the terms of the
problem. Technical skills can help with natural necessities, but are
not useful with human relations, which is by far a much more
complicated problem. The emphasis on *technai* turns out to be
excessive. What warrant human prosperity is the enactment of norms and
laws (the problem of *dike*, justice), along with ethical and
moral values (*aidos*, shame). These ideas are only sketched in
the myth, but will be extensively developed in the second part of his
speech, where Protagoras repeatedly underlines the political nature of
human beings (see *Protagoras* 323a, 323b-c, 324c-325a).
Protagoras' myth, by underlining this point, presents a very
subtle attack against *technai* and forcefully defends the
importance of political art, which is the object of his teaching.



Interestingly, Protagoras' critical attitude towards
*technai* is also confirmed by other Platonic and, even more
important, non-Platonic testimonies. In *Protagoras* 318e-319a
Protagoras attacks Prodicus and Hippias because by only teaching
*technai* such as "arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and
music" they do not teach the pupils what is really important for
the *polis* (that is, political art). Protagoras'
argument seems to be that these specialised kinds of expertise are not
really useful to the life of the *polis*, contrary to what is
claimed by its supporters. Analogously, Aristotle
(*Metaphysics* 998a2-4 = 80B7 DK) and Philodemus (*On
Poems*, fr. 11 = 80B7a DK; but the reconstruction of this text is
controversial, see Romeo 1992) inform us that Protagoras attacked
geometry and perhaps astronomy and geodesics by arguing that their
abstract investigations are hardly compatible with the results of
empirical observation ("a hoop does not touch a straight edge at
a point", Protagoras argued according to Aristotle,
*Metaphysics* 998a2-4 = 80B7 DK); therefore they amount to an
insignificant verbal game of no utility. These are probably the
arguments to which Plato himself was alluding to in the
*Sophist* (232d-e = 80B8 DK) when he reports that Protagoras
was teaching how "to contradict each of the artisans" in
*On Wrestling and the Other Arts*. In Protagoras we therefore
find two lines of attack against the *technai*. The first goes
against the widespread view that the *technai* played a decisive
role in achieving civilised society by arguing that they are necessary
but not sufficient. Secondly, he attacked some specific
*technai* such as geometry or astronomy as useless. These are
admittedly different arguments and criticisms. But combined together,
they seem to confirm the importance of politics and the political art,
which are the objects of Protagoras' teaching.


### 5.3 Protagoras on justice and law



The emphasis on the political dimension can be paralleled with the
so-called Protagoras' "Apology" in the
*Theaetetus*--the problem of the compatibility between
this dialogue and the *Protagoras* is one of the most urgent
problems in Protagoras' scholarship. In the myth, it is only
stated that human beings, insofar as they are human beings, have a
predisposition towards justice (*dike*). In the
"Apology" (and partly in the second part of
Protagoras' speech in the *Protagoras*), there are not
only individual decisions at stake but also collective ones. In the
latter case the discussion is about the law (*nomos*), which
depends on human decisions and can be modified according to the
circumstances 



> 
> 
> whatever seems [or: is decreed to be, *dokein*] just and fine
> to each city also *is* that for it, so long as it thinks [or:
> adopt this law, *nomizein*]. (80A21a DK) 
> 
> 
> 



These two claims can be easily recombined by arguing that the law is
the concrete actualisation of the human predisposition towards
justice.



What is more controversial is how the apparent relativism of the
"Apology" can be read into the myth and how it can be
reconciled with its emphasis on the "naturalistic" notion
of justice in the myth. But the tension is probably more apparent than
real, for in the myth it is not said that justice can be developed in
one sense only, and the notion of "useful", which plays an
important role in both dialogues, paves the way for a consistent
reading of the two testimonies. Indeed, *nomos* is not the
result of arbitrary decisions but depends on objective situations. But
since situations and contexts are different and what is useful varies
from context to context (cf. *Protagoras* 333e-334c), thus
*nomos* also varies. Once again, more than
"relativism" it is "pluralism" (according to
which the variety of human laws depends on the complexity of reality)
that seems to better describe Protagoras' view. The joint
reading of the two texts produces therefore something like the
following: human beings have a predisposition towards justice, which
is what will enable them to live a prosperous life (the alternative,
without justice, would be conflict and use of force like in the animal
world, see below,
 SS5.4,
 the reference to Hesiod in the myth); justice, insofar as it is the
condition for social life, is in the interest of human beings.
Concretely speaking, this predisposition towards justice will find its
actualisation in specific laws, which promote an advantageous
relationship with reality. But since reality is complex and unstable,
laws can be accordingly modified. The task of the politician (and the
sophist) is therefore to promote the interest of the political
community (*polis*) in any given situation by establishing the
right (that is, advantageous) laws 



> 
> 
> the clever and competent orators [i.e., those who publicly discuss
> political matters, hence politicians and sophists] make good things
> seem to be just to cities instead of bad ones. (80A21a DK) 
> 
> 
> 



Remarkably, this conclusion perfectly fits with what Protagoras argues
in both dialogues by insisting on the importance of competent and
expert teachers.



All in all, Protagoras appears as one of the first supporters of a
conventionalist notion of justice (Neschke-Hentschke 1995:
56-59; Bonazzi 2020: 67-68). Law and justice coincide: the
just is what is established by law, which is the result of human
decisions, a set of rules that men establish together. Interestingly,
it is precisely this kind of conventionalist account of justice and
the relation between *nomos* and the useful that will be
objects of heated debates in the second half of the fifth century BCE,
most notably among the sophists (see Antiphon 87B44 DK, significantly
from a treatise entitled *Truth*,
Xenophon, *Memorabilia* Book I, Ch. 40-46, Callicles in
Plato's *Gorgias* 483b-484b, Thrasymachus in
Plato's *Republic* 338c-339a,
Thucydides *History* V 84-105).


### 5.4 Protagoras on democracy



From an historical-political perspective it is worth noticing the
parallel between Protagoras' thesis and Athenian democracy.
Awareness of the importance of *nomos* was of course widely
spread in the Greek world from an early time. It is not a coincidence,
therefore, that in the myth the mention of Zeus' law clearly
alludes to some very famous Hesiodic verses (Hesiod is also explicitly
mentioned among many other authoritative figures earlier in the
dialogue, at 316d-317c):



> 
> 
> Perses, lay these things in your heart
>   
> 
> And give heed to Justice, and put violence entirely out of your mind.
>   
> 
> This is the law (*nomon*) that Cronus' son [i.e., Zeus]
> has established for human beings:
>   
> 
> That fish and beasts and winged birds
>   
> 
> eat one another, since Justice is not among them;
>   
> 
> but to human beings he has given Justice, which is the best by far.
> (Hesiod, *Works and Days* 274-280)
> 
> 
> 



This quotation is not a display of erudition, but aims to indicate the
real subtext of the myth, with Protagoras adopting a subtle strategy
of appropriation of the poet. Hesiod's basic idea is that
*nomos* (law, justice, politics) is what distinguishes humans
from animals, insofar as it allows them to transcend the world of
brute force and violence by creating an order based on shared values.
As a matter of fact, as we have seen, this is also Protagoras'
thesis: what is typical of human beings is the common possession of
justice, which is to say their political and social capacity.
Protagoras' myth, by alluding to Hesiod's story,
emphasises such a convergence. But also in this case the divergences
are as interesting than the affinities. Borrowings are never neutral,
and the appropriation is also a transformation. In Hesiod, Justice is
divine, a deity, the daughter of Zeus, who intervened when he saw that
men fail to respect her (*Works and Days* 257, 265;
*Theogony* 901-903). All mythological imagery aside, this
means the belief in the existence of absolute justice; human justice
is not independent of this order of divine values, but must rather
conform to it. The situation radically changes with Protagoras whose
innovation consists in his emphasis on the human rather than divine.
There is no place for divinity; justice is something human; it is
determined by laws, which can vary--it is not what brings us
close to the gods but what makes it possible to fulfil our natural
potential. This emphasis on law as the result of collective human
decisions was particularly well-suited to one of the key motives of
the Athenian democratic propaganda, which insists on the idea of
democracy as everyone's government, as the government of the
people as a whole and not just of a part of it (see Thucydides
*History* VI 39: "democracy (*demos*) is the name
for all, oligarchy for only a part"). Secondly, also in the
Athenian political discourse the emphasis on the community is used to
justify another cornerstone of the democratic ideology, arguably the
most important one, namely the very close bond that must hold together
the city's interest and the individual's, where the former
is the precondition for the latter (for some interesting parallels,
see Pericles in Thucydides *History*, II 40, 2 and 60,
2-4 and Herodotus *Histories* V 78). Thirdly, the
parallel between the vindication of opinions implied by MM and another
key motive of Athenian democracy, *isegoria* (everyone's
right to express their idea in the assembly), need to be taken into
account: the right for everyone to express their ideas seems to rely
on the assumption that all opinions are legitimate, as indeed
Protagoras argued. All in all, without having to posit that
Protagoras' doctrines were developed precisely for this purpose,
it is possible to note that they were far from irrelevant or foreign
to the new political phase that Athens was experiencing.
Protagoras' views provide a theoretical basis for participatory
democracy (Kerferd 1981a: 144; particularly important is Farrar
1988). Protagoras emerges as a democratic political thinker: he is a
political thinker because he has shown that the social (or
political--from *polis*) dimension is fundamental; he is
democratic insofar as he suggests that political action is a
collective and shared kind of action. It is hardly a coincidence that
the main ancient reflections on democracy have often been set in
relation to his ideas (see, e.g., Herodotus *Histories* III
80-82 or *Dissoi logoi* 7; Anonymous of Iamblichus, 90, 7
DK).



Indeed, presenting democracy, the form of government of the new times,
as the heir and culmination of the Greek political tradition is
certainly a brilliant outcome which legitimises Protagoras'
aspirations and ambitions. By claiming a direct link with the great
poets and thinkers of the past but also by appropriating and
transforming their tenets, Protagoras can present himself as an heir
to Greek *paideia*, as one of the great masters, or, rather, as
*the* great master, the only one who is capable of imparting a
teaching that drew upon tradition but also meet the needs of the new
times. In such a way, Protagoras could reinforce his claim to be the
new teacher, the educator capable of imparting teachings suited to the
needs of the new world of the *polis*. Plato's goal, in the
*Protagoras* and in the *Theaetetus*, was to show that this
was not correct--if in the myth the sophist was implicitly
identifying himself to Zeus, at the end he will turn out as
Epimetheus. But for the time being, until this has been proven, one
can well understand the enthusiasm of the Athenians when they heard
that the great thinker had arrived in Athens (*Protagoras*
310b-e).