Sophistic works of Antiphon

The name Antiphon the Sophist (/ˈæntəˌfɒn, -ən/; Greek: Ἀντιφῶν) is used to refer to the writer of several Sophistic treatises. He probably lived in Athens in the last two decades of the 5th century BC, but almost nothing is known of his life.^[1]

It has been debated since antiquity whether the writer of these Sophistic treatises was in fact none other than Antiphon the Orator, or whether Antiphon the Sophist was indeed a separate person. This remains an active scholarly controversy; of recent editors, Gagarin, and Laks and Most, believe there to be only one Antiphon, whereas G. J. Pendrick argues for the existence of two separate individuals.^[2]

The most important of these treatises was On Truth, whose surviving fragments cover many different subjects, from astronomy and mathematics to morality and ethics.^[3] Fragments have also been preserved of the treatises On Concord and Politicus; these fragments have sometimes been attributed to the Orator rather than to the Sophist.^[4]

It is also not known for certain whether the treatise on the Interpretation of Dreams under the name of Antiphon was written by Antiphon the Sophist, or whether this was written by yet another different Antiphon. The editions of Pendrick and of Laks and Most proceed on the basis that this treatise was written by the same Antiphon as the Sophistic works.^[5]