An anecdote of these two rhetoricians further indicates the slipperiness of the ground on which they walked.[31] Tisias took lessons from Corax on condition that he should pay the fee only if he won his first case in court. After some lapse of time Corax grew impatient for his money, and finally brought an action—the first case, as it happened, on which Tisias was ever engaged. Corax asserted, ‘If I win the case, I get my money by the verdict; if I lose it, I claim payment by our contract.’ ‘No,’ said Tisias, ‘if I win, I don’t pay, and if I lose I don’t pay.’ The court dismissed the case with the remark, ‘A bad _crow_ lays bad eggs’;[32] and this was obviously to the advantage of the younger man, who had nine points of the law on his side. Though no writings of either are preserved, we can form an idea of their methods. They were wholly immoral or non-moral, and perversely sophistical. The plausible was preferred to the true, and the one object was to win the case. Their method of teaching was, according to Aristotle, ‘quick but unscientific,’[33] and consisted of making the pupil learn by heart a large number of ‘commonplace’ topics and standard arguments suitable to all kinds of legal processes. They do not appear to have paid any attention to style on the literary side. § 6 Gorgias of Leontini, a contemporary of Protagoras, started out, like the Sophist, from the position that nothing can be known, and the pursuit of philosophy is a ploughing of the sand. He is said to have been a pupil of Tisias, and occupies a place between the early rhetoricians and the Sophists usually so-called. Like the former, he studied and taught oratory, but whereas they were only concerned with the struggle for mastery in debate, he entertained, like Protagoras, a broad view of education, and, while continuing to regard rhetoric as the art of persuasion,[34] attached more attention to the artistic side than any other educator had done. He became the first conscious artist in prose style. Like the other Sophists he travelled from town to town giving displays of his art, and gained riches which he spent freely.[35] In 427 B.C. he came to Athens as an ambassador from his native city,[36] and produced a remarkable impression on his hearers, not only the multitude before whom he spoke, but the highly educated class who could appreciate his technique. Thucydides owed something to him, and the poet Antiphon showed traces of his influence.[37] We hear of his sojourn at Larissa, where the Thessalians, in admiration, coined from his name the word which Philostratus uses to express his exuberant style.[38]