Prodĭcus
（
Πρόδικος). A Greek Sophist of Ceos, contemporary with
Socrates. He repeatedly visited Athens as an ambassador from his native country. The applause
which his speeches gained there induced him to come forward as a rhetorician. In his lectures
on literary style he laid chief stress on the right use of words and the accurate
discrimination between synonyms, and thereby paved the way for the dialectic discussions of
Socrates (Plato,
Euthyd. 277;
Cratyl. 384;
Charmid. 163).
None of his lectures has come down to us in its original form. We have the substance
only of his celebrated fable of the
Choice of Heracles preserved by Xenophon
(
Mem. ii. 21-34).
