Gorgias was born around 380 BCE, in the Greek city state of Leontini, on the East coast of Sicily Northeast of Syracuse, the storied site of the first rhetoric. He emigrated to Athens with a Sicilian delegation in 427 BCE. He may have been a student of Empedocles. He was known for his high style and for importing poetic figures from the drama into oratory. His extant texts are demonstrations from his Technai, and include The Encomium of Helen, On the Nonexistent, Defense of Palamedes, and Epitaphs.
Texts
Sources
Adkins, A. W. H. "Form and Content in Gorgias' Helen and Palamedes: Rhetoric, Philosophy, Inconsistency and Invalid Argument in Some Greek Thinkers." Essays in ancient Greek philosophy, II.Ed. J. P. Anton and J. Preus. Albany: SUNY P, 1983.
Braarvig, Jens. "Magic : Reconsidering the Grand Dichotomy." The World of Ancient Magic : Papers from the First International Samson Eitrem Seminar at the Norwegian Institute at Athens, 4-8 May 1997. Ed. David R. Jordan, Hugo Montgomery, and Einar Thomassen. Athens: Norwegian Institute, 1999. 21-54.
Cascardi, A. J. "The Place of Language in Philosophy." Philosophy and Rhetoric 16 (1983): 217-227.
Consigny, Scott. Gorgias: Sophist and Artist. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001.
—-. "Gorgias's Use of the Epideictic." Philosophy and Rhetoric 22 (1992): .
—-. "The Styles of Gorgias." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 22 (1992): 43-53.
Crockett, Andy. "Gorgias' Encomium of Helen: Violent Rhetoric or Radical Feminism?" Rhetoric Review 13 (1994): 71-90.
Crowley, Sharon. "Of Gorgias and Grammatology." College Composition and Communication 30 (1979): 279-283.
Davis, Janet B. "Translating Gorgias in [Aristotle] 980 A 10." Philosophy & Rhetoric 30 (1997): 31-37.
Engnell, Richard A. "Implications for Communication of the Rhetorical Epistemology of Gorgias of Leontini." Western Speech 37 (1973): .
Enos, Richard Leo. "The Epistomology of Gorgias' Rhetoric: A Re-Examination." Southern Communication Journal 42 (1976): 35-51.
—-. "Why Gorgias of Leontini Traveled to Athens: A Study of Recent Epigraphical Evidence." Rhetoric Review. 2 (1992) 1-14.
Gagarin, Michael. "Did the Sophists Aim to Persuade ?" Rhetorica 19 (2001): 275-291.
—-. "On the Not-Being of Gorgias's On Not-Being (ONB)." Philosophy and Rhetoric 30 (1997): 38-40.
Gaines, Robert N. "Knowledge and discourse in Gorgias's On the Non-Existent or On Nature." Philosophy and Rhetoric 30 (1997): 1-12.
Gronbeck, Bruce E. "Gorgias on Rhetoric and Poetic: A Rehabilitation." Southern Speech Communication Journal 38 (1972):
Hays, Steve. "On the Skeptical Influence of Gorgias's 'On Non-Being.'" Journal of the History of Philosophy 28 (1990): 327-337.
Kerferd, George B. "Gorgias and Empedocles." Siculorum Gymnasium 38 (1985): 595-605.
—-. "The Interpretation of Gorgias' Treatise peri tou mh ontos h peri fusews." Deucalion 9 (1981): 319-327.
Kinoshita, Masami. "The Method of the Interpretation of Gorgias' Rhetorical Works." Journal of Classical Studies 45 (1997): 61-71.
MacDowell, D. M., trans. Encomium of Helen. Bristol: Bristol Classics P, 1982.
Mansfield, J. "Historical and Philosophical Aspects of Gorgias' On What Is Not." Siculorum Gymnasium 36 (1985): 243-271.
Major, Wilfred E., and Edward Schiappa. "Gorgias' "Undeclared" Theory of Arrangement: a Postscript to Smeltzer." Southern Communication Journal 62 (1997): 149-152.
McComiskey, Bruce. Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2002.
Mourelatos, A. P. D. "Gorgias on the Function of Language." Siculorum Gymnasium 36 (1985): 6-7-638.
Noelle, Marie Pierre. "Gorgias et linvention' des gorgieia skhemata." Revue des etudes Grecques 112 (1999): 193-211.
Porter, James I. "The Seductions of Gorgias." Classical Antiquity 12 (1993): 267-299.
Poulakos, John. "Gorgias' and Isocrates' Use of the Encomium." Southern Communication Journal 51 (1986): 300-307.
—-. "Gorgias' Encomium to Helen and the Defense of Rhetoric." Rhetorica 1 (1983): 1-16.
—-. "The Letter and the Spirit of the Text : Two Translations of Gorgias's On Non-being or On Nature." Philosophy and Rhetoric 30 (1997): 41-44.
Rossetti, Livio. "The Rhetoric of Zeno's Paradoxes." Philosophy & Rhetoric 21 (1988): 145-152.
Schiappa, Edward. "Gorgias' 'Helen' Revisited." Quarterly Journal of Speech 81 (1995): 319-324.
—-. "Interpreting Gorgias's « Being » in On Not-Being or On Nature." Philosophy and Rhetoric 30 (1997): 13-30.
—-. "Toward a Pre-Disciplinary Analysis of Gorgias' Helen." Ed. Christopher Lyle Johnstone. Theory, Text, Context: Issues in Greek Rhetoric and Oratory. Albany : State U of New York P, 1996. 87-96.
Schiappa, Edward, and Stacey Hoffmann. "Intertextual Argument in Gorgias's On What is Not: A Formalization of Sextus, Adv Math 7.77-80." Philosophy and Rhetoric 27 (1994): .
Segal, Charles P. "Gorgias and the Psychology of the Logos." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 66 (1962): 99-155.
Shaffer, Diana. "The Shadow of Helen : the Status of the Visual Image in Gorgias's Encomium to Helen." Rhetorica 16 (1998): 243-257.
Smeltzer, Mark A. "Gorgias on Arrangement: a Search for Pragmatism amidst the Art and Epistemology of Gorgias of Leontini." Southern Communication Journal 61 (1996): 156-165.
Solmsen, Friedrich. "Restoring an antithesis to Gorgias (82B 16 Diels-Kranz)." Classical Quarterly 37 (1987): 500-502.
Spatharas, Dimos G. "Gorgias' « Encomium of Helen » and Euripides' « Troades »." Eranos 100 (2002): 166-174.
—-. "Patterns of Argumentation in Gorgias." Mnemosyne 54 (2001): 393-408.
Tuszynska-Maciejewska, Krystyna. "Gorgias' and Isocrates' Different Encomia of Helen." Eos 75 (1987): 279-289.
Verdenius, W. J. "Gorgias' Doctrine of Deception." The Sophists and Their Legacy: Proceedings of the Fourth International Colloquium on Ancient Philosophy Held in Cooperation with Projektgruppe Altertumswissenschaften der Thyssenstiftung at Bad Homburg, 29th August - 1st September 1979. Ed. G. B. Kerferd. Hermes Einzelschriften 44. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1981. 116-128.
Walters, Frank D. "Gorgias as Philosopher of Being: Epistemic Foundationalism in Sophistic Thought." Philosophy & Rhetoric 27 (1994): 143-155. Wardy, Robert. The Birth of Rhetoric: Gorgias, Plato, and their Successors. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Wesolowska, Elzbietka. "Gorgias : An Inventor of Logical Rule ?" Euphrosyne 20 (1992): 255-260.
Worman, Nancy. "The Body as Argument: Helen in Four Greek texts." Classical Antiquity 16 (1997): 151-203.