Deceit plays a major role in Sophocles’ Electra, the subject of Chapter 3. As I will argue, the messenger scene at the core of this play blends together deception and aesthetic illusion – the lie of the paedagogus about Orestes’ death relies on a highly immersive narration to be analysed from an embodied and enactive perspective. It would be more than bold to envisage Electra as inspired by Gorgias fr. 23 DK; what Sophocles’ play does is show that the association of deception and aesthetic illusion pinpointed by Gorgias was somehow in the air and could be exploited to great dramatic effect. I will also suggest that Electra features reflections on aesthetic illusion that contain the seeds of the later rhetorical category of enargeia.