Medea in the air

Abstract

This paper reconsiders the so called antisophistic polemic in the light of the intern critic of the new figures of the wise in Euripides’ «Medea». The opposition of the two protagonists is related to the sophistic motto «to make the weaker argument the stronger». I defend that, although the act of Medea puts the weaker
argument in its proper place, i. e. in its dependent and secondary condition, the ruin and dissolution –attached to the pretension of the sophistes as well as to the polis itself– turns out to be unstoppable.