"Il logos è un potente signore"

Abstract

Gorgia’s Encomium of Helen is analyzed using a semiotic methodology. The comparison between the narrator’s statements in the beginning and at the end of the text and Gorgia’s known theoretical positions, together with other textual clues, shows that the Encomium is neither a serious nor a fictional defense, but a fiction of a fiction. The structure of the text, ruled by many converging isotopic chains, exhibits as its theoretical center and practical main goal the idea of the omnipotence of logos within the social life.