This paper examines the appearance of theôria as metaphor in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus. Once Oedipus arrives in Colonus, the local site on the outskirts of Athens becomes, in effect, theoric space, as travelers converge upon the site, drawn there to visit the old man, whose narrative is known to all Greeks. Oedipus, as panhellenic figure, serves simultaneously as spectacle and theôros, attaining inner vision as he goes to his death at the end of the play. Oedipus offers salvation to (...) Athens within the logic of the play, but in order to confer benefits upon Athens, he requires the travel and vision of his daughters, Antigone and Ismene, who serve as supplementary theôroi. The essay concludes with a glance at outsiders-as-saviors in Oedipus at Colonus and beyond, with an emphasis on the contribution of female travelers to sôtêria in classical Athenian drama. (shrink)

The Helen of Gorgias is designed to provoke the aspiring speaker to consider his relationship with society as a whole. The speech's extreme claims regarding the power of logos reflect simplistic ideas about speaker-audience relations current among Gorgias' target audience, ideas reflected in an interpretive stance towards model speeches that privileges method over truth. The Helen pretends to encourage this conception of logos and interpretive stance in order to expose the intense desire and naïve credulity that drive a coolly technical (...) appraisal of model speeches. The Helen thus manifests, with a playfulness suited to its liminal position, a concern for the ethical and social formation of those who might accept the invitation to study logos. (shrink)

It is often assumed that the concept of alētheia, or ‘truth’, in Gorgias of Leontini belongs to the art of rhetoric. Along these lines, it is usually understood as an aesthetic concept or even a mere ‘adornment’ of speech. In this paper, it is argued, by contrast, that Gorgianic alētheia is a definable criterion of speech figuring in the practice of moral educa­tion. While the ‘truth’ of a logos indeed has to be assessed on aesthetic grounds, the underlying concept of (...) alētheia is predominantly ethical. For Gorgias, speech is ‘true’ when it promotes virtue (aretē) by being expressive of virtue. The principle stated in the opening passage of the Encomium of Helen, that a speaker has ‘to praise what is praiseworthy and to blame what is blameworthy’, explains precisely this understand­ing of alētheia. (shrink)