This piece analyses chapter 16 of Gorgia’s Encomium of Helen, perhaps the most complex passage of his work, and written (it is argued) close to the fall of Athens (405-404). The article illustrates textual (and therefore interpretative) novelties in the passage from Donadi’s first critical edition of the work (1982) to his recent edition (Donadi 2016), considering them from a textually conservative point of view.