At the centre of the circle we are trying to describe with our idea of play there stands the figure of the Greek sophist. He may be regarded as an extension of the central figure in archaic cultural life who appeared before us successively as the prophet, medicine man, seer, thaumaturge, and poet and whose best designation is vates. The sophist has two important functions in common with the more ancient type of cultural rector: his business is to exhibit his amazing knowledge, the mysteries of his craft, and at the same time to defeat his rival in public contest. Thus the two main factors of social play in archaic society are present in him: glorious exhibitionism and agonistic aspiration.
The sophist’s performance is called ‘epideixis’ – an exhibition. He has, as we hinted above, a regular repertoire and charges a fee for his disquisitions. Some of his pieces have a fixed price like the fifty drachma lectures of Prodicus….. It was an event when a famous sophist visited a town. He was gaped at like a miraculous being, likened to the heroes of athletics; in short, the profession of sophist was quite on a par with sport. The spectators applauded and laughed at every well-aimed crack. It was pure play, catching your opponent in a net of argument or giving him a knock-out blow. It was a point of honour to put nothing but twisters, to which every answer must be wrong. When Protagoras calls sophistry ‘an ancient art’ (Technen Palladian) he goes to the hart of the matter. It is indeed the ancient game of wits which, starting in the remotest cultures, vacillates between solemn ritual and mere amusement, sometimes touching the heights of wisdom, sometimes sinking to playful rivalry. Werner Jaeger speaks depreciatingly of ‘the modern fashion of describing Pythagoras as a sort of medicine-man‘, deeming so base an opinion unworthy of contradiction. He forgets, however, that the medicine-man or whatever you might choose to call him is, both by nature and from the historical point of view, in very truth the elder brother of all philosophers and sophists, and that they all retain traces of this ancient kinship……