The arrival of the Sophists in Athens in the middle of the fifth century BC was an intellectual event of great importance. They brought a new method of teaching founded on rhetoric, and offered bold new doctrines which broke away from tradition. They have often been misunderstood - only fragments of their own work survive, and we have to rely on the testimony of Plato, who was an opponent. Athenians used their teaching to defend an amoralism which they did not themselves advocate.

Through an original interpretation of the works of their disciples such as Thucydides, Euripides, and Isocrates, Professor de Romilly investigates the reasons for the initial success of the Sophists and the reaction against them, in the context of the culture and civilization of classical Athens.