Before Plato, the concept of justice was explored by several thinkers and schools of thought, each offering distinct perspectives shaped by their understanding of society, human nature, and morality. One of the earliest systematic treatments of justice can be traced to the pre-Socratic philosophers and the Sophists. The pre-Socratics, though primarily concerned with cosmology and the nature of reality, indirectly influenced ideas about justice by emphasizing order and harmony in the universe. For instance, Heraclitus viewed the cosmos as governed by a rational principle, the Logos, suggesting that justice could be understood as aligning human conduct with a natural and rational order. In this view, justice is closely connected to balance, proportion, and adherence to the universal law that governs all things. Another major strand comes from the Sophists, who were itinerant teachers in 5th-century BCE Greece. They focused on practical ethics and social conventions rather than universal truths. Sophists such as Protagoras famously claimed that "man is the measure of all things," implying a relativistic view of justice. For the Sophists, justice was largely a social construct, defined by laws and customs specific to a city-state or polis. Their perspective emphasized the pragmatic and instrumental role of justice in