Prodĭcus in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

（Πρόδικος). A Greek Sophist of Ceos, contemporary with Socrates. He repeatedly visited Athens as an ambassador from his native country. The applause which his speeches gained there induced him to come forward as a rhetorician. In his lectures on literary style he laid chief stress on the right use of words and the accurate discrimination between synonyms, and thereby paved the way for the dialectic discussions of Socrates (Plato, Euthyd. 277; Cratyl. 384; Charmid. 163). None of his lectures has come down to us in its original form. We have the substance only of his celebrated fable of the Choice of Heracles preserved by Xenophon ( Mem. ii. 21-34).

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