Antiphon the Sophist: The Fragments

Description

This edition collects all the surviving evidence for the fifth-century BCE Athenian sophist Antiphon and presents it together with a translation and a full commentary, which assesses its reliability and significance. Although Antiphon is not as familiar a figure as sophists such as Protagoras and Gorgias, substantial fragments have survived from his major works, On Truth and On Concord, including extensive remains preserved on papyrus. In addition, information about his doctrines is preserved by ancient writers ranging in time from Aristotle to Simplicius and beyond. The introduction provides a brief sketch of Antiphon, his works, and his place in the fifth-century BCE sophistic movement, including his important contribution to the contemporary debate over the relation of law (nomos) and nature (physis). It also deals with the controversial question of the identity of Antiphon the sophist in relation to Antiphon of Rhamnus and other men of the same name.

Gerard Pendrick received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Columbia University. He specializes in ancient Greek and Latin and has taught at Columbia, Emory, and Oglethorpe Universities as well as at Georgia State. His research interests include ancient philosophy, rhetoric and medicine. He has published numerous articles on these topics in American and European periodicals, and his edition of the fragments of the sophist Antiphon appeared in the Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries series published by Cambridge University Press in 2002. He is currently at work on a short article on Virgil's Aeneid as well as on a monograph about the origins of natural law theory in ancient Greece.

Review of the hardback: '... a worthy addition to a famous series. The book is designed and destined to become the standard text ... a foundational text which is unlikely to be superseded for many decades ... we needed this book to give us a firm basis for future work.' The Heythrop Journal