Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias

ὅπερ: after τίνα by an easy transfer to the actual idea,—‘name.’ Aristophon's brother was thecelebrated painter Polygnotus of Thasus. Polus speaks as from a book— perhaps from his own book (462 b). He overdoes the use of those figures, with which Gorgias also was accustomed to amuse himself, i.e. ‘paronomasia’ (κατὰ τέχνην . . . κατὰ τύχην) and other phonetic figures in regard to the names of which theorists themselves were not at one. He uses the poetic αἰῶνα instead of βίον. His statements are indefinite and cloudy, and finally he brings forward a wholly general attribute—as Socrates proves in e by the distinction between ποία and τίς—of the matter in question, instead of its name. To speak of rhetoric as καλλίστη τῶν τεχνῶν is furthermore dialectically inappropriate, although it well agrees with the artistic design by drawing attention thus early to this idea. For other examples of similar mannerisms, see the speeches which go under the name of Gorgias (i.e. in the appendix to Blass' edition of Antiphon), and which, whether genuine or not, show admirably the peculiarities of the Gorgianic school.