Lycophron

Who is Lycophron?

Lycophron was a sophist of Ancient Greece.

The details of his life remain obscure, other than a number of references in the works of Aristotle. Lycophron was probably among the students of Gorgias, and is mentioned as a sophist by Aristotle. He rejected the supposed value of an aristocratic birth, claiming that

Now the nobility of good birth is obscure, and its grandeur a matter of words.

Meaning that there is no factual difference between those well-born and those low-born; Only words and opinion assign value to these different circumstances of birth. This statement may indicate that Lycophron shared the beliefs of Antiphon, that both Greeks and barbarians are born with the same capacities: An egalitarian belief that was a minority view in the 5th century BC. He is also known for his statement, that "law is only a convention, a surety to another of justice". Also translated as "a guarantor of men's rights against one another". He thus believed that law is a matter of agreement, a social convention and not a natural or universal standard. In this respect his views on law are similar to those of Protagoras. This means that he treats law as a mere means, in the context of a social contract theory, without considering it as something special, in contradistinction to, e.g., Plato but similar to both Thrasymachus and Callicles, albeit that their theories have – as far as can be ascertained from the information available about them – more specific characteristics.