ABSTRACT
Few intellectuals ever have enjoyed the reputation and influence of Protagoras in his prime. He was the first and most successful sophist, he was an intimate acquaintance of Pericles (the leader of Athenian democracy in its golden age). Even Plato, who seems to have taken issue with Protagoras on virtually every front, had to acknowledge the sophist’s fame and accomplishments. Philostratus reports that Protagoras’ father was one of the wealthiest men in Thrace, whose connections were so powerful that Protagoras was permitted to study with the Zoroastrian priests by special order of Xerxes, the Persian king. On scientific matters, Protagoras maintained that all things are in flux, and that the nature of any phenomenon is nothing other than the sum of its appearances. The wealth Protagoras amassed from teaching was extraordinary, and his method of charging students seems to have been calculated to demonstrate how highly they valued his instruction.
