<b>Gorgias by Plato</b>&nbsp;<b>Gorgias</b>&nbsp;(/'g??rd?i?s/;[1]&nbsp;Greek:&nbsp;&Gamma;&omicron;&rho;&gamma;?&alpha;&sigmaf;; 483&ndash;375 BC)[2]&nbsp;was an&nbsp;ancient Greek&nbsp;sophist,&nbsp;pre-Socratic&nbsp;philosopher, and&nbsp;rhetorician&nbsp;who was a native of&nbsp;Leontinoi&nbsp;in&nbsp;Sicily. Along with&nbsp;Protagoras, he forms the first generation of&nbsp;Sophists. Several&nbsp;doxographers&nbsp;report that he was a pupil of&nbsp;Empedocles, although he would only have been a few years younger.<br /><br />&quot;Like other Sophists, he was an itinerant that practiced in various cities and giving public exhibitions of his skill at the great pan-Hellenic centers of Olympia and Delphi, and charged fees for his instruction and performances. A special feature of his displays was to ask miscellaneous questions from the audience and give impromptu replies.&quot; He has been called &quot;Gorgias the&nbsp;Nihilist&quot; although the degree to which this epithet adequately describes his philosophy is controversial.<br /><br />Gorgias was born circa 483 BC in&nbsp;Leontinoi, a&nbsp;Chalcidian&nbsp;colony in eastern&nbsp;Sicily&nbsp;that was allied with&nbsp;Athens. His father&#39;s name was Charmantides. He had a brother named Herodicus, who was a physician, and sometimes accompanied him during his travels. He also had a sister, whose name is not known, but whose grandson dedicated a golden statue to his great uncle at&nbsp;Delphi.