Introduction

Socrates takes on in turn the famous teacher of rhetoric Gorgias, his pupil Polus and the ambitious politician Callicles. The question begins with what rhetoric is and deepens into the most basic choice of a life: is it worse to do injustice or to suffer it? Do the strong have a natural right to rule the weak? Callicles' defence of 'natural justice' still startles readers, while Socrates holds that it is better to be wronged than to do wrong. The dialogue ends with a myth of the soul's judgement after death.