Callicles (late 5th century BC)

Callicles, although known only as a character in Plato’s Gorgias (the dramatic date of which is somewhere between 430 and 405 bc), was probably an actual historical person. Employing a distinction between nature (physis) and convention (nomos), he argues eloquently that the naturally superior should seize both political power and a greater share of material goods: it is only a convention of the weak majority which labels such behaviour unjust. In private life the superior should indulge their desires freely: excess and licence are true virtue and happiness.