Colin Brown's description of the sophists was a little bit brief, and I think the subject needs a little bit more discussion.  Understanding them helps us understand the importance of Socrates.  The Greek word for sophist is the root of some English words like 'sophistry' and 'sophisticated'. Sophistry is a form of reasoning that sounds plausible, but is totally fallacious.  I've heard Rush Limbaugh use the word to describe some political hacks before.  The sophists were basically intellectual guns for hire in the ancient world.  They could take any position and argue it convincingly.  The better their rhetorical skill and power of persuasion the more they got paid.  The problem was that they had no concept of truth.  There was no gold standard by which to judge what they said.  They essentially made up their own truth. 

    This relativism is what Socrates argued against.  He understood that there some things are true and some things false, independently of what we think about them.  Evaluating ideas in terms of this truth, in terms of some standard outside ourselves, was the starting place from which Plato, Aristotle, etc carried on.  That is a lot different than "man is the measure of all things." 

    Here is a description of what the culture was like before Socrates:

1.  there is no master story that underlies humanity (for a Christian this would involve the fall and the process of redemption)

2.  no standard by which to judge another person's reasoning

3.  there is no such thing as objectivity

4.  no moral absolutes

5.  deep suspicion of all ideas, because ideas are always manipulated for personal reasons

   This is just a partial list, but does it look familiar?  It isn't that much different than the postmodern, relativistic culture we live in.   Once again, there is nothing new under the sun, but Christ.