ABSTRACT
One of the distinctive features of intellectual life in the Early Roman Empire is the continued co-existence, peaceful or otherwise, of rhetoric and philosophy as the main pillars of the educational system.1 What interests us here is the middle ground which both sides could claim and attempt to fortify against their rivals. Sophists could not ignore philosophy, or the fact that they had now to all intents parted company from it; and they had to protect themselves with arguments to enable them to come to terms with it all the same.
