Note 1 — Chapter XIII · HIPPIAS MAJOR — HIPPIAS MINOR.

Stallbaum, Prolegg. in Hipp. Maj. p. 149-150; also Steinhart (Einleitung, p. 42-43), who says, after an outpouring of his usual invective against the Sophist: “Nevertheless the coarse jesting of the dialogue seems almost to exceed the admissible limit of comic effect,” &c. Again, p. 50, Steinhart talks of the banter which Sokrates carries on with Hippias, in a way not less cruel (grausam) than purposeless, tormenting him with a string of successive new propositions about the definition of the Beautiful, which propositions, as fast as Hippias catches at them, he again withdraws of his own accord, and thus at last dismisses him (as he had dismissed Ion) uninstructed and unimproved, without even leaving behind in him the sting of anger, &c.

It requires a powerful hatred against the persons called Sophists, to make a critic take pleasure in a comedy wherein silly and ridiculous speeches are fastened upon the name of one of them, in his own day not merely honoured but acknowledged as deserving honour by remarkable and varied accomplishments — and to make the critic describe the historical Hippias (whom we only know from Plato and Xenophon — see Steinhart, note 7, p. 89; Socher, p. 221) as if he had really delivered these speeches, or something equally absurd.

How this comedy may be appreciated is doubtless a matter of individual taste. For my part, I agree with Ast in thinking it misplaced and unbecoming: and I am not surprised that he wishes to remove the dialogue from the Platonic canon, though I do not concur either in this inference, or in the general principle on which it proceeds, viz., that all objections against the composition of a dialogue are to be held as being also objections against its genuineness as a work of Plato. The Nubes of Aristophanes, greatly superior as a comedy to the Hippias of Plato, is turned to an abusive purpose when critics put it into court as evidence about the character of the real Sokrates.

K. F. Hermann, in my judgment, takes a more rational view of the Hippias Major (Gesch. und Syst. der Plat. Phil. p. 487-647). Instead of expatiating on the glory of Plato in deriding an accomplished contemporary, he dwells upon the logical mistakes and confusion which the dialogue brings to view; and he reminds us justly of the intellectual condition of the age, when even elementary distinctions in logic and grammar had been scarcely attended to.

Both K. F. Hermann and Socher consider the Hippias to be not a juvenile production of Plato, but to belong to his middle age.