The term sophist (Greek sophistes) had earlier applications. It is

sometimes said to have meant originally simply "clever" or "skilled man," but the list of those to whom Greek authors applied the term in its earlier sense makes it probable that it was rather more restricted in meaning. Seers, diviners, and poets pred ominate, and the earliest

Sophists probably were the "sages" in early Greek societies. This would

explain the subsequent application of the term to the Seven Wise Men (7th-6th century BC), who typified the highest early practical wisdom, and to Pre-Socratic philosophers generally. When Protagoras, in one of Plato's dialogues (Protagoras, 317 a- b) is made to say that, unlike others, he is willing to call himself a Sophist, he is using the term in its new sense of "professional teacher," but he wishes also to claim continuity with earlier sages as a teacher of wisdom. Plato and

Aristotle altered the meaning again, however, when they claimed

that professional teachers such as Protagoras were not seeking the truth but only victory in debate and were prepared to use dishonest means to achieve it. This produced the sense "captious or fallacious reasoner or quibbler," which has remained domina nt to the present day.

Finally, under the Roman Empire the term was applied to professors of

rhetoric, to orators, and to prose writers generally, all of whom are sometimes regarded as constituting what is now called the Second Sophistic movement.

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