Encomium of Helen
Helenes Enkomion
Speech (logos) is a powerful force capable of overriding reason and will entirely, so Helen of Troy should be excused for eloping with Paris, since she was compelled by persuasion, fate, force, or love rather than acting through free choice.
- speech (logos) as a psychologically compelling force
- a display speech in Helen's defense
- denial of free choice under persuasion
- logos compared to a drug on the soul
- a rare complete surviving sophistic text
Gorgias of Leontini, a Sicilian sophist and celebrated orator, left Sicily in 427 BC as an ambassador to Athens and toured mainland Greece thereafter; where he composed the Encomium of Helen is unrecorded, so this entry places it in Athens, his best-attested base, as convention rather than evidence. The speech defends the notoriously blamed Helen of Troy: whatever caused her to leave with Paris, divine will, force, persuasive speech, or love, absolves her, since none leave room for free choice. Its real interest lies less in Helen's guilt than in Gorgias's meditation on the psychological power of logos, compared to a drug working on the soul as physical drugs work on the body. One of the few complete sophistic texts to survive, it is a foundational document for Greek rhetoric.
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