This study explores the first debates around the concept of rhetoric in ancient Greece and links them to contemporary thought. In On What Is Not and Encomium of Helen Gorgias suggested the terrifying and exhilarating possibility that persuasion is nothing but power, and that no human contact is innocent of its manipulative presence. This understanding of rhetoric is subsequently taken up and attacked by Plato and Socrates in their discussions of Gorgias. Robert Wardy reads these texts and later ones in a sophisticated and philosophic yet very lucid manner.