Editing Protagoras (section)

==Biography==
Protagoras was born in [[Abdera, Thrace]], opposite the island of [[Thasos]], around 490 BC.<ref name="Guthriedate" /><ref name="Protagoras">{{cite book |last1=Silvermintz |first1=Daniel |title=Protagoras |date=2016 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing Plc |isbn=9781472510921}}</ref> According to [[Aulus Gellius]], he originally made his living as a [[porter (carrier)|porter]], but one day he was seen by the philosopher [[Democritus]] carrying a load of small pieces of wood he had tied with a short cord. Democritus realized that Protagoras had tied the load together with such perfect [[geometric]] accuracy that he must be a mathematical [[Child prodigy|prodigy]]. Democritus promptly took him into his own household and taught him [[philosophy]].<ref>Aulus Gellius, ''[[Noctes Atticae]]'' 5.3.</ref> Protagoras became well known in Athens and even became a friend of [[Pericles]].<ref>O'Sullivan, Neil. (1995) "Pericles and Protagoras". ''Greece & Rome'', Vol. 42 (1): 15–23</ref>

The dates of his life are not recorded but extrapolated from writings that have survived the ages. In ''Protagoras'' Plato wrote that, before a gathering of [[Socrates]], [[Prodicus]], and [[Hippias]], Protagoras stated that he was old enough to be the father of any of them. This suggests a birth date of not later than 490 BC. In the ''[[Meno]]'' he is said to have died at approximately the age of 70, after 40 years as a practising Sophist.<ref>Plato, ''Meno'', 91e</ref><ref name="Protagoras2">{{cite book |last1=Silvermintz |first1=Daniel |title=Protagoras |date=2016 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing Plc |isbn=9781472510921}}</ref> His death, then, may be presumed to have occurred circa 420 BC, but is not known for certain, since assumptions about it are based on an apparently fake story about his trial for [[asebeia]] (impiety) in Athens.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Filonik |first=Jakub |date=2013 |title=Athenian impiety trials: a reappraisal |url= https://zenodo.org/record/896899|journal=Dike |volume=16 |issue=16 |pages=36–39 |doi=10.13130/1128-8221/4290 }}</ref>

[[Plutarch]] wrote that Pericles and Protagoras spent a whole day discussing an interesting point of [[Law of obligations|legal responsibility]], that probably involved a more philosophical question of [[Causation (law)|causation]]:<ref>Guthrie, p. 263.</ref> "In an athletic contest, a man had been accidentally hit and killed with a javelin. Was his death to be attributed to the javelin,<!--reflexive is not in the original, 'itself' is a translation error--> to the man who threw it, or to the authorities responsible for the conduct of the games?"<ref>Plutarch, ''Life of Pericles''</ref>