Gorgias

Born around 483 BC in Leontinoi, Sicily, Gorgias likely studied under Empedocles before setting out as an itinerant teacher. He made his living traveling Greek cities, charging for instruction and staging exhibitions where audiences could throw him any question and watch him improvise replies. His displays at Olympia and Delphi built his reputation across the Hellenic world. He's credited with transplanting rhetoric from Sicily to Attica and helping establish the Attic dialect as the standard for literary prose. Later writers tagged him "Gorgias the Nihilist" for his philosophical stance, thou…