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[3] For how could one surpass Gorgias1, who dared to assert that nothing exists of the things that are, or Zeno2, who ventured to prove the same things as possible and again as impossible, or Melissus who, although things in nature are infinite in number, made it his task to find proofs that the whole is one!

1 Cf. Isoc. 15.268. Gorgias of Leontini in Sicily, pupil of Teisias, came to Athens on an embassy in 427 B.C.

2 This is Zeno of Elea, in Italy, and not the founder of the Stoic School of philosophy. Zeno and Melissus were disciples of Parmenides.

Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.

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