Gorgias treated language as a drug (phármakon) acting on the psyche, and his disciple Alcidamas pushed the argument further: writing is a subsidiary, inferior mode of language compared to live speech — the improvising speaker reads the room and rides its desires, while the writer, locked into a text prepared in advance, mistimes the moment, because no human foresight can predict exactly how an audience's mind will move.

— In our words · Source: Raízes Sofísticas – Sobre a escrita como phármakon para a fala (ou Da tradição gorgiana até Alcidamante de Eleia) (Lucio Lauro Barrozo Massafferri Salles)