Joint event: Two Perspectives on Gorgias’s Encomium of Helen

Gorgias of Leontini (c. 485–c. 380 BCE), orator, thinker and ambassador, was one of the greatest representatives of the 5th century sophistic movement. Two of his speeches – the Encomium of Helen and the Defence of Palamedes – have been preserved in their entirety. In these speeches, Gorgias formulated the beginnings of a poetics and a theory of language. F. Renaud and L. Jakola propose to clarify key difficulties in the Encomium of Helen and to present, in dialogue, new interpretations of this writing.