Note 575 — Chapter LXVII · THE DRAMA. — RHETORIC AND DIALECTICS. — THE SOPHISTS.

Plato, Protagoras, c. 16, p. 328, B. Diogenes Laërtius (ix, 58) says that Protagoras demanded one hundred minæ as pay: little stress is to be laid upon such a statement, nor is it possible that he could have had one fixed rate of pay. The story told by Aulus Gellius (v, 10) about the suit at law between Protagoras and his disciple Euathlus, is at least amusing and ingenious. Compare the story of the rhetor Skopelianus, in Philostratus, Vit. Sophist. i, 21, 4.

Isokratês (Or. xv, de Perm. sect. 166) affirms that the gains made by Gorgias, or by any of the eminent sophists, had never been very high; that they had been greatly and maliciously exaggerated; that they were very inferior to those of the great dramatic actors (sect. 168).