Teaching in Athens
Became the most sought-after teacher in Athens, charging high fees for instruction in rhetoric and civic virtue. He was a friend of Pericles.
Protagoras was the most famous of the Sophists, traveling from city to city teaching rhetoric, argument, and civic virtue for a fee. His claim that 'man is the measure of all things' made truth relative to the perceiver. He wrote a book on the gods that began 'About the gods I cannot know either that they exist or that they do not.' Athens burned his books and banished him. Plato named a dialogue after him and treated him with surprising respect.
Became the most sought-after teacher in Athens, charging high fees for instruction in rhetoric and civic virtue. He was a friend of Pericles.