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The Gorgias is frequently read as a dialogue in which Socrates fails to convince especially his last interlocutor Callicles to adopt a philosophical way of life. Instead, Callicles becomes increasingly indignant about the repeated refutation of his personal convictions and eventually refuses to participate in the conversation any longer. In general scholars explain this result by Callicles' recalcitrance. It is supposed that the dialogue illustrates the impossibility of persuasion if an interlocutor refuses to cooperate - which would imply certain limitations of the Socratic elenchus. In contrast, this paper demonstrates that Socrates indeed achieves his aim of shaking Callicles' faith. By decoding the medicine and court imagery, ubiquitous throughout the whole dialogue, it will be argued that, far from being an illustration of failure, the text instead indicates that Socrates' conversation with Callicles is successful - and thus proves the efficacy of the elenctic method even on reluctant opponents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the presented contribution there are discussed some aspects of ancient medicine, especially those which are associated with slaves as patients and slaves as doctors. There are mentioned several facts about slavery in ancient Greece and Rome as well as the facts about medical profession and status of doctors in the society. Partial focus is paid to slaves as a social class and the existence of slave-doctors in Greece is under discussion. The particular group of physicians in Rome - servi medici - as specific phenomenon of Roman is described in detail. The ancient medical works and also some documents and papers in history of medicine were used as sources. We would like to note that epigraphic evidence and archeological artifacts have not been taken into consideration when writing the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]