Defining Dissoi Logoi

The chapter examines the apparently obscure nature of Dissoi Logoi, analysing its language and style, its date and place of composition, its purpose, the identity of its author, its sources and its reception in antiquity. Contrary to the standard view of the work as the collection of lecture-notes made by a Doric-speaking sophist around 403–395 BCE, Dissoi Logoi appears to have been written between 355 and 338, in an Eastern form of Doric κοινή, by a sophist who aimed to promote his course. The author was also imbued with a literary and philosophical culture of the past to a higher degree than as usually maintained. Among Pyrrhonists, Dissoi Logoi is likely to have been studied by Aenesidemus, to have been commented on by Zeuxis, and to have worked as a source for Sextus Empiricus, which contributes to explaining the collocation of this text at the end of Sextus’ codices.