---
title: "Hipparchus Lexicon"
subtitle: "A Philological and Philosophical Reading Companion"
author: []
lang: en-GB
date: "October 2026"
---

# Contents {#contents}

[Introduction and argument map](#introduction) · [Full articles](#lexicon) · [Defined vocabulary register](#defined-register) · [Contextual phrase glosses](#contextual-glosses) · [Lexical index](#lexical-index) · [Passage index](#passage-index) · [Thematic index](#thematic-index) · [Source guide](#source-guide)

- [Action and undergoing](#entry-action-and-undergoing) (p. 15)
- [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17)
- [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19)
- [All some and none](#entry-all-some-and-none) (p. 22)
- [Anacreon and the fifty oared ship](#entry-anacreon-and-the-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 24)
- [Archer and bow](#entry-archer-and-bow) (p. 26)
- [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28)
- [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30)
- [Auspicious speech](#entry-auspicious-speech) (p. 33)
- [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35)
- [Basket bearing and the sister](#entry-basket-bearing-and-the-sister) (p. 37)
- [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39)
- [Body](#entry-body) (p. 42)
- [Courage and courteous addresses](#entry-courage-and-courteous-addresses) (p. 44)
- [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46)
- [Cronus and the golden age](#entry-cronus-and-the-golden-age) (p. 49)
- [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51)
- [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53)
- [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56)
- [Delphi and its maxims](#entry-delphi-and-its-maxims) (p. 58)
- [Discovery and learning](#entry-discovery-and-learning) (p. 60)
- [Drink and wetness](#entry-drink-and-wetness) (p. 62)
- [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65)
- [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67)
- [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69)
- [Error and correctness](#entry-error-and-correctness) (p. 71)
- [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74)
- [Feast and hospitality](#entry-feast-and-hospitality) (p. 76)
- [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78)
- [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80)
- [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83)
- [Gainful and without gain](#entry-gainful-and-without-gain) (p. 85)
- [General and arms](#entry-general-and-arms) (p. 87)
- [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90)
- [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92)
- [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94)
- [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97)
- [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99)
- [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101)
- [Hippias and tyranny](#entry-hippias-and-tyranny) (p. 103)
- [Homer and rhapsodes](#entry-homer-and-rhapsodes) (p. 106)
- [Honour dishonour and rivalry](#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry) (p. 108)
- [Horseman and horse](#entry-horseman-and-horse) (p. 110)
- [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112)
- [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115)
- [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117)
- [Inscriptions and memorials](#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials) (p. 119)
- [Justice and just thoughts](#entry-justice-and-just-thoughts) (p. 121)
- [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123)
- [Lawsuits and fine speaking](#entry-lawsuits-and-fine-speaking) (p. 126)
- [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128)
- [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130)
- [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133)
- [Memory and reminders](#entry-memory-and-reminders) (p. 135)
- [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138)
- [Musicians and instruments](#entry-musicians-and-instruments) (p. 140)
- [Necessity and impossibility](#entry-necessity-and-impossibility) (p. 143)
- [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145)
- [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147)
- [Panathenaea](#entry-panathenaea) (p. 150)
- [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152)
- [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154)
- [Pilot and ship](#entry-pilot-and-ship) (p. 156)
- [Pisistratus and Philaidae](#entry-pisistratus-and-philaidae) (p. 159)
- [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161)
- [Quantity and quality](#entry-quantity-and-quality) (p. 163)
- [Reproach and the ending](#entry-reproach-and-the-ending) (p. 166)
- [Roads and Steiria](#entry-roads-and-steiria) (p. 168)
- [Sameness and difference](#entry-sameness-and-difference) (p. 170)
- [Senselessness and intelligence](#entry-senselessness-and-intelligence) (p. 172)
- [Shamelessness and daring](#entry-shamelessness-and-daring) (p. 175)
- [Simonides fees and gifts](#entry-simonides-fees-and-gifts) (p. 177)
- [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179)
- [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181)
- [Spending and receiving](#entry-spending-and-receiving) (p. 183)
- [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186)
- [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188)
- [The cultivated and the many](#entry-the-cultivated-and-the-many) (p. 191)
- [The unnamed companion](#entry-unnamed-companion) (p. 193)
- [The unnamed young man](#entry-unnamed-young-man) (p. 195)
- [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198)
- [Time and place](#entry-time-and-place) (p. 200)
- [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202)
- [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204)
- [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207)
- [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209)
- [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212)
- [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)
- [Worth possessing](#entry-worth-possessing) (p. 217)

# Introduction {#introduction}

## What counts as gain

The *Hipparchus* begins with a familiar moral reproach and makes it difficult to explain. A lover of gain seems to be someone who takes a profit wherever he can, even where decent people would refuse it. Socrates asks what such a person knows, what the supposed gain consists in, and whether something harmful deserves to be called gain at all. The conversation reaches the disturbing conclusion that everyone is a lover of gain. The companion agrees under pressure but expressly distinguishes that agreement from persuasion.

This lexicon accompanies Diotimos Editions' *Hipparchus*, second edition, supplied in Greek and English. It covers the complete dialogue, 225a–232c, with the edition's introduction, Key Words, twenty-six explanatory notes, outline, glossary, apparatus and editorial discussion. The Greek quotations follow the supplied reproduction of Burnet's text. The four supplied formats are treated as versions of that edition, not as independent ancient witnesses. The English headwords follow the translation where possible, while grouped articles explain distinctions which one English label can conceal.

The traditional attribution to Plato identifies the dialogue's position in the transmitted corpus, not a settled conclusion about authorship. The edition records ancient doubt and modern disagreement. The narrative about Hipparchus is spoken by Socrates within the work; it must not be treated as an unqualified historical report or as Plato's personal endorsement. The only other speaker is an unnamed companion. Hipparchus is not the interlocutor.[^intro-authorship]

## Reading the articles and register

The full articles proceed alphabetically by English headword. Each supplies Greek lemmas or explicitly identified forms, transliterations, ordinary meanings, the word's work in this dialogue, annotated exact Greek attestations, and the supplied edition's translation or textual choices. The same family can recur in more than one article when its role changes. A Greek lemma is a dictionary headword; it need not occur in that exact grammatical form in the dialogue. The separate attestations show words actually printed in the source.

The defined vocabulary register gives shorter explanations of ordinary words, objects, particles, idioms and lexical families. Every record provides a definition and contextual use as well as an attested form and reference. These records remain useful when the reader does not want to consult a full article. They are not a list of bare directions to other entries. Contextual phrase glosses then follow the dialogue's order to clarify compact constructions and transitions that are difficult to find through a single word.

The lexical index supplies English headword and Greek-form routes; the passage index follows the Stephanus sections; the thematic index groups the principal arguments and examples. Printed page locators refer to the PDF and its matching DOCX layout. The EPUB and Markdown links point to the same entries, though their displayed pagination depends on the reading software. The contents and cross-references are navigation aids, not additional definitions counted as independent entries.

References such as 228b are Stephanus page and section, independent of this volume's page numbers. A range may be needed when a sentence or word crosses a section boundary in Burnet's lineation. A quoted phrase establishes the exact local wording; the accompanying annotation may discuss the wider exchange. Apparatus alternatives are identified as alternatives, not silently quoted as the dialogue's adopted text. Angle brackets mark supplied words; square brackets mark words the editor rejects.[^intro-text]

## The movement of the argument

### The first definition and the crafts 225a to 226d

The companion describes people who think fit to gain from things worth nothing. The Greek makes a verbal play between thinking fit and worth. Asked whether they know the worthlessness, he insists that they do: his target is knowing unscrupulousness and shamelessness, not simple ignorance. Socrates tests this against the farmer, horseman, pilot, general, musicians, archer and other intelligent practitioners. A competent person who knows his means are useless does not expect gain through them. This interpretation leaves nobody who meets the proposed definition.

The unresolved question is whether the practical analogies answer the moral charge. A farmer expecting productive yield from a useless plant differs from a dishonest seller expecting payment from an unsuspecting buyer. The text does not offer that seller example; it is a way of seeing what the argument's chosen examples may leave untested. Expertise in means and willingness to pursue a disreputable profit are not self-evidently identical questions.

### Insatiability and the universal result 226d to 227c

The companion tries again: the lover of gain craves even small things worth little or nothing, out of insatiability. Socrates returns to the issue of knowledge. If such people do not know the objects are worthless, they must think them valuable. He then treats lovers of gain as people who love gain, identifies gain as the opposite of harmful loss, and concludes that gain is good. Since everyone loves good things, everyone is now a lover of gain.

The contrast between nobody and everybody is a diagnostic problem, not a harmless change of vocabulary. The initial term singled out a blamed disposition; the conclusion applies to a supposedly universal and good object of desire. The argument from the opposite of bad loss to good gain also needs a premise about the relation of these oppositions. The text secures assent to the inference rather than explaining a general rule that every opposite of a bad thing must be good.

### The decent person and the deceptive argument 227c to 228b

The third attempt defines the lover of gain through sources that decent men will not use. Socrates recalls an agreement that gaining is being benefited and that everyone always wishes for good things. Neither proposition was previously agreed in those words. The earlier exchange made gain good and made people love good things; the recap strengthens the relation and the scope.

The companion insists that some gains cause harm and loss. Socrates instead treats good gain and base gain as inconsistent descriptions and accuses him of deliberate deception. The companion reverses the accusation: Socrates is twisting things up and down in the arguments. The issue is now both logical and interpersonal. Can one rely on a partner whose recollections and transitions one cannot comfortably follow?

### Hipparchus and the authority of a maxim 228b to 229e

Socrates says he obeys a good and wise man, Hipparchus. The central story describes poetic patronage, ordered rhapsodic performance, civic education, roadside Herms and maxims designed to draw admiration away from Delphi. One maxim commands just thoughts on one's journey; another forbids deceiving a friend. The latter is offered as reassurance to the companion.

The praise includes an idealised account of political life and an explanation of Hipparchus' death through erotic and educational rivalry. Ancient historians tell materially different stories. In reading the lexicon's persons and places, separate what Socrates says, what the edition explains, and what the external source actually supports. The companion is not persuaded by the story: either Socrates does not regard him as a friend or he fails to obey Hipparchus.

### A move taken back and a common definition 229e to 231a

Socrates offers to take a move back as in a game of counters. The companion retains the desire for good things, the badness of loss and the opposition of gain and loss, but withdraws the claim that all gain is good. Good and bad gain must now both count as gain. Food, drink and human beings illustrate how one kind can contain better and worse instances.

The comparison properly distinguishes membership in a kind from quality. It does not by itself show that people with different gains gain equal amounts or undergo equal effects. The passage at 230c–d moves toward that stronger claim. The ensuing useful question is what the two supposed kinds of gain share: what makes them both gain at all?

### Acquiring without cost and receiving more 231a to 231e

Socrates proposes any possession obtained without spending, or by spending less and receiving more. A free feast can produce disease, which the companion refuses to count as gain; health, by contrast, does count. The criterion cannot therefore be acquisition at no monetary cost alone.

The companion narrows the answer to gold and silver, but receiving a greater weight of silver in exchange for a smaller weight of gold can still be a loss. The relevant comparison is worth. The printed wording and the edition's numerical explanation must be distinguished when reconstructing the example's implicit units. Every plausible reconstruction that respects the stated valuation leaves the same argumentative point: more material need not be more value.[^intro-ratio]

### Worth possessing and compelled agreement 231e to 232c

What is of worth is gainful; what is of worth is explained as worth possessing; what is worth possessing is beneficial; what is beneficial is good. This sequence returns to the conclusion that gain is good, but the meaning of worth has moved from an exchange comparison toward beneficial possession. The companion says the argument has compelled him rather than persuaded him.

Socrates recalls the earlier dispute and concludes that both decent and base people love gains, so all are lovers of gain and the reproacher is one too. The recap now attributes love of gains both small and great to the base, where the earlier description stressed tiny things worth little or nothing. The ending leaves the reader to decide whether a moral confusion has been corrected or a significant moral distinction has been obscured. Shared participation in a category alone does not normally make every reproach invalid; what matters is which property the argument has actually universalised.[^intro-ending]

## Some distinctions to keep in view

Gain can mean an acquisition, a surplus, a beneficial result or the thing obtained. Good can mean beneficial, effective or morally commendable. Worth can be relative to a price, a task, a possession or a person's well-being. The arguments move among these uses; a careful reading asks where a move is justified rather than declaring every recurrence either perfectly identical or wholly equivocal.

Knowing, thinking, agreeing and being persuaded are also distinct. A speaker may know how to perform a task yet pursue a questionable end; think an object valuable without knowing it; agree to a premise without feeling persuaded by the conclusion; or remember a conversation in words stronger than those previously used. These differences make the companion's resistance philosophically useful even when he cannot formulate a stable alternative definition.

The ordinary vocabulary is not incidental decoration. Sails and rudders make loss concrete. Fees and gifts bring gain into the story of wisdom. The taste of an inscription leads toward further education; a feast later leads toward a test of benefit. Walking up and down provides a literal counterpart to the charge of twisting arguments. Such recurrences can enrich interpretation, but they should not be promoted into a hidden system that the dialogue itself never states.

## Sources and editorial method

The principal source is the supplied Diotimos Editions *Hipparchus*, second edition, translated in 2026, including its reproduction of John Burnet's Oxford Greek text and apparatus. Its notes identify textual conjectures and primary historical comparisons. The lexicon cites those choices as the edition's choices. The historical articles additionally distinguish direct checks of accessible ancient texts from contextual material reported in the edition. A full list of the principal ancient witnesses appears in the source guide.

Greek attestations, cross-references and the coverage inventory have been checked against the complete supplied text. This is a reading companion rather than a new critical edition: it does not collate manuscripts or claim to settle authorship, chronology, the dialogue's intention or every contested inference. It offers the reader enough lexical and argumentative detail to recognise those questions and return to the relevant words.

[^intro-authorship]: The ancient doubt reported by the edition is Aelian, *Historical Miscellany* 8.2, who retells the story as Plato's with a qualification about whether the *Hipparchus* is really his. Such a conditional attribution establishes a history of doubt, not a modern consensus or a precise date of composition.

[^intro-text]: Burnet's printed additions and deletions belong to the adopted edited text, while the apparatus records alternatives and proposals. At 226d the addition ⟨ἀλλ’⟩ changes the relation of clauses; at 230e the bracketed [ἃ] is not translated. Neither operation should be concealed when a definition depends on the wording.

[^intro-ratio]: Edition note 22 explains the half-weight of gold as worth six corresponding weights of silver and the received amount as one weight of silver, using a twelve-to-one ratio. The English 'twice that weight' and the subsequent 'double ... half' comparison compress their implicit units. The lexicon therefore states the note's model as an interpretation rather than pretending the printed exchange is a fully specified modern equation.

[^intro-ending]: At 232c the final 'by your argument' locates the conclusion within the companion's accepted commitments. It does not itself settle whether the conventional reproach has been fairly represented throughout. An argument can expose a problem in an interlocutor's definitions while leaving the underlying ethical concern alive.


This volume contains 89 full articles, 259 separately defined register records and 32 contextual phrase glosses. The three indexes and repeated cross-references provide routes into this material; they are not counted as additional definitions.

# Lexicon {#lexicon}

## Action and undergoing {#entry-action-and-undergoing}

*ποιεῖν (poiein), πάσχειν (paschein), πρᾶγμα (pragma), προσεῖναι (proseinai)*

**The word.** Ποιεῖν means to do or make; πάσχειν means to undergo, be affected or experience something. Πρᾶγμα is a thing, affair or matter under discussion, not necessarily a physical object. Προσεῖναι means to belong to or be present in something. Together they form the general claim at 230d about acting or undergoing with a thing to which neither more nor less belongs.

The forms πέπονθεν at 230b and πάσχοι at 230d belong to the same verb. The former describes things as so affected that they are good or bad; the latter stands beside doing. “Undergo” need not mean to suffer harm. Good conditions can also be undergone, so the verb must not be equated with the dialogue’s specific vocabulary of loss.

**In Hipparchus.** At 230b Socrates generalizes from food to things that, while the same in one respect, differ as good and bad. The perfect πέπονθεν presents goodness or badness as a condition in which examples stand. This supports the separation between kind and quality: an object’s condition need not alter the description under which it is classed.

At 230c–d the vocabulary becomes more ambitious. If neither of two gains has more or less belonging to it, Socrates asks, how could anyone do or undergo anything more or less with such a thing? The companion answers “Impossible.” The broadness of “anything” matters. The claim would be harmless if it meant only that two equal quantities produce no difference in the very respect in which they are equal. But the premises have established equality as gain, not equal quantity or equal causal effects.

The formulation thus risks importing a general relation between a thing’s degree and the degree of activity or experience involving it. Food that is equally food can be eaten in unequal amounts or nourish differently. People who are equally human can act differently. The earlier examples do not supply the stronger principle required to rule those differences out. This is the local logical issue, not a need to accuse Socrates of teaching that all actions are identical.

Later the verb of belonging returns when worth must “belong to” gain (231d). The change is instructive: the deficiency in the quantitative account is repaired by adding a relevant property. What belongs to a thing must be specified, and belonging in one respect cannot settle every question about its use or consequences. The dialogue’s ordinary verbs carry much of this work without a separate technical vocabulary of properties.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **230b.** τὰ μὲν πέπονθεν ἀγαθὰ εἶναι — Goodness and badness are described as conditions.
- **230d.** ὁτιοῦν ἂν ποιοῖ ἢ πάσχοι — Doing and undergoing are generalized beyond gaining.
- **230d.** ᾧ μηδέτερον τούτων προσείη — The premise denies the presence of either more or less.
- **231d.** τῷ κέρδει τοῦτο προσεῖναι — Worth is subsequently required to belong to gain.

**In this edition.** The edition gives “are so affected” at 230b and “do or undergo” at 230d. Its Note on this Edition says a proposed “be in a condition” at the earlier place was rejected because it would obscure the later verbal connection. The two renderings preserve an ordinary semantic family without making πάσχειν a synonym of being harmed.

**See also.** [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · [Quantity and quality](#entry-quantity-and-quality) (p. 163) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)

## Admiration and contempt {#entry-admiration-and-contempt}

*θαυμάζειν (thaumazein); καταφρονεῖν (kataphronein)*

**The word.** Θαυμάζειν means to wonder at or admire; in the educational narrative it expresses admiring evaluation of someone’s wisdom. Καταφρονεῖν means to look down on or despise, with the object commonly expressed in the genitive. The contrast concerns judgments of standing, not merely the physical actions of looking upward and downward. The aorist καταφρονῆσαι marks the young man’s changed evaluation of Harmodius and Aristogeiton.

**In Hipparchus.** Admiration supplies a recurring measure of educational success in the Hipparchus story. The citizens around the town have been educated and admire Hipparchus for his wisdom. The Herms then seek to redirect the wider citizen body’s admiration away from Delphi toward his own sayings. Finally, the unnamed young man ceases to admire two private educators and comes to despise them after associating with Hipparchus. These are linked uses of esteem, not three unrelated emotional details.

The evaluations should not be mistaken for proofs of knowledge. To admire a man “as wise” is to recognise or regard him under that description. It does not independently establish that he is wise. Likewise, the young man’s contempt may represent recognition of pretension, but the text gives no report of the lesson or argument that caused it. The cause supplied is association with Hipparchus, whose wisdom the surrounding story has praised.

The change of esteem has consequences that exceed the initial intellectual judgment. Harmodius and Aristogeiton experience it as dishonour and kill the person they regard as their rival. The story makes reputation dependent on an audience whose judgment can move. Hipparchus seeks precisely such shifts in recognition when he challenges Delphi’s standing, although the account does not make him responsible for his rivals’ violent reaction.

This pattern offers a useful caution for reading the philosophical conversation. The companion need not admire Socrates’ argumentative skill in order to be persuaded of a conclusion, and admiration alone would not answer his charge of deception. His willingness to challenge the story’s application therefore differs from simply accepting an impressive teacher’s reputation. The dialogue places intellectual evaluation within relationships of trust, pride and injury rather than treating it as socially neutral.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228c–d.** ἐθαύμαζον αὐτὸν ἐπὶ σοφίᾳ — The educated urban citizens admire Hipparchus for wisdom.
- **228e.** μὴ θαυμάζοιεν οἱ πολῖται αὐτοῦ — The educational scheme also seeks to redirect admiration from Delphi.
- **229d.** τέως μὲν θαυμάζειν — The young man’s earlier admiration is marked as temporary.
- **229d.** καταφρονῆσαι ἐκείνων — His later contempt becomes the injury to the rival educators.

**In this edition.** The edition uses “admired” and “despised,” keeping the evaluative opposition plain. “Wondered at” would understate the social esteem relevant here. “Lost interest in” would understate the contempt that the men experience as dishonour. The temporal contrast, for a while and then, is part of the causal narrative and should not be omitted.

**See also.** [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209) · [The unnamed young man](#entry-unnamed-young-man) (p. 195) · [Honour dishonour and rivalry](#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry) (p. 108) · [Delphi and its maxims](#entry-delphi-and-its-maxims) (p. 58)

## Agreement and recollection {#entry-agreement-and-recollection}

*ὁμολογεῖν (homologein); προσομολογεῖν (prosomologein); συμφάναι (symphanai); μνημονεύειν (mnēmoneuein); ὑπομιμνῄσκειν (hypomimnēiskein)*

**The word.** Homologein means to agree or acknowledge a proposition. Prosomologein means to agree additionally or join a further agreement to an earlier one. Symphanai means to concur or say yes with someone. Mnēmoneuein means to remember; hypomimnēiskein means to remind or bring something back to mind. Agreement records a conversational commitment; recollection represents what that commitment was.

These are related but distinct operations. A present assent may ratify a newly stated proposition without proving that the proposition was previously accepted in the same form. The dialogue makes this distinction especially important by repeatedly returning to what the speakers supposedly agreed “just now”.

**In Hipparchus.** The companion’s short agreements accumulate through the craft examples and the first argument about gain’s goodness. Socrates asks for explicit acknowledgement that the lover of gain is knowledgeable about worth, then cites the goodness of gain after the universal love of good things has been accepted. Those recapitulations turn scattered replies into premises of a single argument.

At 227d the recollection is stronger than its source. Socrates says that they agreed to gain is to be benefited, and additionally that everyone wishes for good things always. The earlier text had agreed that gain is good, as opposite to harmful loss, and that all people love good things. The identity with benefit and the “always” formulation are not verbatim prior agreements. A reader may infer that Socrates treats them as consequences or acceptable paraphrases, but should not present that inference as textual fact. The companion’s present acceptance also does not make the earlier wording retroactively identical.

At 228a Socrates charges him with deliberately saying the opposite of what was agreed. The historical defence fails to persuade, and the offer to take back a move makes the commitments revisable. The companion retains three premises and retracts the universal goodness of gain. Agreement here is not sacred immobility; it is governed by an explicit opportunity to reconsider.

At 232a Socrates asks whether the companion remembers where the argument began and offers to remind him. He recalls the dispute about good people wishing for good gains rather than base ones. This summarises the third definition at 227c–e rather than reproducing the dialogue’s first words at 225a. The narrower point of departure suits the final proof. At 232b the companion distinguishes having been compelled from having been persuaded, while continuing to agree. Socrates’ “concur” registers the surviving formal concession without pretending to have secured conviction.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **227c.** Τὸ δὲ κέρδος ἀγαθὸν ὡμολογήσαμεν; — A prior conclusion is explicitly recalled as shared.
- **227d.** καὶ τόδε αὐτῷ προσωμολογήσαμεν — The additional agreement is presented as already made.
- **232a.** Μνημονεύεις οὖν ὅθεν — Socrates asks the companion to remember the argument’s beginning.
- **232b.** σύμφῃς γοῦν ἡμῖν — Concurrence is claimed even after persuasion has been denied.

**In this edition.** Note 8 is decisive for 227d, and note 25 locates the final recollection at 227e, in the third attempt rather than the initial question. The apparatus also reports an omission in the first state of B across part of 227d; that is a report from the supplied apparatus, not independent manuscript inspection. The edition renders homologein “agree” and symphanai “concur”, preserving the modest distinction at the end.

**See also.** [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212) · [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147) · [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145)

## All some and none {#entry-all-some-and-none}

*πᾶς (pas), ἅπας (hapas), τις (tis), οὐδείς (oudeis), μηδείς (mēdeis)*

**The word.** Πᾶς means all or every; ἅπας is an inclusive or emphatic all, frequently “every one” in this edition. Τις is an indefinite someone or some, with neuter τι used of a thing. Οὐδείς and μηδείς mean no one or nothing, distributed according to their constructions. Their inflected forms must be read with the noun or action over which they range.

“All people wish for good things” and “all people wish for every good thing” are not identical claims. Nor is denying that all gain is good the same as denying that any gain is good. Much of the dialogue’s movement depends on these small differences of scope rather than on the introduction of new large concepts.

**In Hipparchus.** The first account appears to eliminate all instances of the lover of gain: no knowledgeable person expects advantage from resources known to be worthless, so no one fits the description (226d). The second account yields the reverse: all people love good things, gain is good, therefore everyone appears to love gain (227b–c). Socrates explicitly sets the all-result beside the none-result and asks which account can be used without error.

The companion’s request to take back a move is a carefully limited denial. At 230a he says “Not all of it, at any rate.” Socrates restates the position as some gain good and some gain bad. The indefinite τι appears on both sides. This is a division within the category gain, not a proposal that every gain is bad. The analogies of food, drink and persons then explore whether such a division is coherent.

The proposed acquisition definition is again universal: “every possession” satisfying either condition counts as gain. A single disease acquisition suffices to defeat that unrestricted description. Socrates subsequently denies that acquiring “any possession whatever” is gain. The force of the counterexample depends on the universality of the proposal; it does not require showing that most free acquisitions are bad.

At the close, the language intensifies. All gains, small and great, are agreed good, and decent persons “every one” wish for good things “every one” (232b). This moves beyond saying that each person has some good as an object of desire. Alongside the companion’s account of the base, it yields all humans as lovers of gain. Readers should retain that maximal scope rather than paraphrase the premise as merely “good people want what is good.”

Yet scope does not settle sense. Even a formally universal conclusion can change its significance if “gain” shifts from financial profit to genuine benefit or if “love” names both ordinary desire and grasping attachment. Quantifier precision and lexical precision must therefore be kept together.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226d.** οὐκ ἔστ’ ἀνθρώπων οὐδεὶς — The first proposed account leaves no instance.
- **230a.** Οὔτι πᾶν γε — The retraction denies all, not every possible instance.
- **230a.** τὸ μέν τι — Some gain is provisionally assigned to the good side.
- **231a.** πᾶν κτῆμα — The proposed definition has unrestricted scope over acquisitions meeting its conditions.
- **232b.** ἅπαντα ἅπαντας — The final wish-premise is universal over both goods and decent persons.

**In this edition.** The edition’s “every one” preserves the doubled universality of 232b10. The apparatus records πάντες in B against ἅπαντες in T at 232c4; Burnet prints πάντες. The lexical distinction can be explained without claiming that the variant changes the extension of the final universal class.

**See also.** [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186) · [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112) · [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56) · [Reproach and the ending](#entry-reproach-and-the-ending) (p. 166)

## Anacreon and the fifty oared ship {#entry-anacreon-and-the-fifty-oared-ship}

*Ἀνακρέων (Anakreōn); Τήιος (Tēios); πεντηκόντορος (pentēkontoros)*

**The word.** Ἀνακρέων is Anacreon, the lyric poet named in Hipparchus’ programme. Τήιος means Teian, from Teos; it identifies the poet’s origin. Πεντηκόντορος is a fifty-oared vessel, often called a penteconter; the accusative πεντηκόντορον names the ship Hipparchus sent for him. The term specifies a vessel by its oar complement, not a payment of fifty units or a crew of precisely fifty people in total.

**In Hipparchus.** Anacreon’s arrival follows Homeric recitation and precedes the account of Simonides’ retention by fees and gifts. These are distinct forms of cultural acquisition. Homer’s epics are brought into the country, a ship is sent to bring Anacreon into the city, and Simonides is kept in the ruler’s company. The series presents Hipparchus as someone able to gather both poetic material and living poets around Athens.

The unusual precision about the vessel makes the effort tangible. Sending a substantial oared ship for one poet dramatizes the resources devoted to culture. It need not mean that the poet was forcibly abducted: the clause says that the ship was sent and he was brought, but supplies no resistance, negotiation or agreement. Nor does the text explain who owned the ship, how the voyage was financed or where Anacreon embarked.

Socrates gathers this action under the wish to educate the citizens. He does not quote Anacreon or describe the content of his poetry. The educational value is asserted through the gathering of an eminent poet rather than demonstrated in a surviving lesson. Consequently the reader should not infer that the dialogue endorses a specific Anacreontic doctrine or that every song performed at court was a civic curriculum.

The Aristotelian Constitution also associates Hipparchus with inviting Anacreon and Simonides to Athens. That parallel supports the broad reputation for poetic patronage, while the fifty-oared ship remains the vivid detail furnished by this narrative and its dependent retelling. An overlap in patronage does not confirm the account of Hipparchus’ seniority or the intellectual motive for his murder.[^culture-anacreon]

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228c.** Ἀνακρέοντα τὸν Τήιον — Anacreon is identified by his Teian origin.
- **228c.** πεντηκόντορον — The ship is specified as fifty-oared.
- **228c.** στείλας ἐκόμισεν εἰς τὴν πόλιν — Sending the vessel is followed by bringing the poet to the city.

**In this edition.** “Fifty-oared ship” makes the object immediately intelligible without requiring the technical transliteration “penteconter.” The edition records a damaged second omicron in the printed πεντηκόντορον and reads the intended type. That printing issue does not indicate uncertainty over what kind of vessel the Greek word denotes.

**See also.** [Simonides fees and gifts](#entry-simonides-fees-and-gifts) (p. 177) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Homer and rhapsodes](#entry-homer-and-rhapsodes) (p. 106) · [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101)

## Archer and bow {#entry-archer-and-bow}

*τοξότης (toxotēs); τόξον (toxon)*

**The word.** Toxotēs is an archer, someone who shoots with a bow; toxon is the bow itself. The text has toxotēs in the nominative and toxon in the accusative at 226c. The pairing names an agent and the equipment his activity requires. It does not contain a word for target, arrow, accuracy or hitting the mark.

**In Hipparchus.** The archer is the last individually named practitioner in the opening series. He appears after the two musicians and immediately before “anyone at all, in sum, of the craftsmen or of the other intelligent men.” His compressed phrase, “or an archer a bow,” depends on the fuller construction of the preceding flute-player. The reader supplies the possession of an object worth nothing and the question whether its possessor thinks he gains from it.

That position gives the example a specific structural role. It is the point at which enumeration turns into generalisation. The argument no longer offers a separate exchange for each occupation, as it did for the farmer, horseman and pilot. An additional familiar practitioner is enough to carry the companion toward assent about the whole class. His answer is nevertheless qualified: “It does not appear so, at any rate.” Socrates then asks who remains to satisfy the original definition.

The bow exemplifies a means whose value depends on practical use. Knowing that it is worthless for that use undermines an expectation of gain through it. The example does not claim that archery is itself a moral good, and no person to be shot is named. It also does not identify the archer with a soldier or with the general’s army. Although those associations are possible, the sequence needs only a recognisable skill and its instrument.

An attractive but unsupported extension would make the bow a direct metaphor for correct argument. Later, at 227c, Socrates asks which argument one could use without making a mistake, but the text does not there name a target or return to the archer. The connection between practical competence and argumentative correctness is worth considering; it should not be presented as an explicit archery image supplied by the dialogue.

The archer and bow do not recur after 226c. Their continued relevance lies in the limit of the first argument: a knowledgeable user of useless means is an easy case, whereas a person gaining by another’s mistake remains unexamined. The later discussion must therefore move beyond listing practitioners and ask what gain itself is. At 231e the requirement that something be worth possessing supplies a more general criterion than the bow’s particular use.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226c.** τοξότης τόξον — The elliptical pair takes its governing construction from the musicians.
- **226c.** ἄλλος ὁστισοῦν συλλήβδην — The list immediately opens into its generalising conclusion.
- **227c.** οὐκ ἂν ἐξαμαρτάνοι — Later argumentative error is not explicitly described as a failed bowshot.

**In this edition.** The translation preserves the abrupt “or an archer a bow” rather than expanding every missing word. Read within the whole sentence, this does not leave the bow’s quality undecided. The economical wording also preserves the accelerating pace of the catalogue before its universal claim.

**See also.** [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46) · [Musicians and instruments](#entry-musicians-and-instruments) (p. 140) · [Error and correctness](#entry-error-and-correctness) (p. 71) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)

## Athens and citizenship {#entry-athens-and-citizenship}

*Ἀθῆναι (Athēnai); Ἀθηναῖος (Athēnaios); πολίτης (politēs); πόλις (polis)*

**The word.** Ἀθῆναι is Athens; the plural form is the city’s proper name. Ἀθηναῖος means Athenian, and its plural names the Athenians collectively. Πολίτης is a citizen or fellow citizen. Πόλις denotes a city or civic community; in the poet’s journey “to the city” it marks the destination. These words can refer to overlapping realities without erasing the geographical distinction between the urban centre and the Attic countryside.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates introduces Hipparchus first as a citizen shared by himself and the companion. The possessives “mine and yours” make an ancient political figure part of a common civic inheritance. The ensuing narrative turns the citizen body into both the object of education and the population over which Hipparchus wishes to rule. The formulation at 228c therefore joins civic improvement with political authority rather than treating education as detached private cultivation.

The audience for the programme is broad in geographical terms. Citizens around the town are educated first; inhabitants of the country are then reached through roadside Herms. The text does not say that only urban residents are citizens. Nor does it describe the programme as universal education for all people living in Attica: women, slaves and non-citizen residents are not separately discussed, and their inclusion should not be inferred from the English breadth of “people.”

The noun for citizens also controls the competition with Delphi. Hipparchus wants “his citizens” to rank his sayings above the Delphic inscriptions. The cultural claim has a political audience, and admiration becomes one way of connecting that audience to its ruler. At the same time, Anacreon and Simonides are identified by non-Athenian origins: the city’s education is enhanced by bringing in poets from elsewhere.

At 229b the focus shifts from citizens as learners to Athenians as people ruled. Their purported memory of nearly Cronian happiness sets a civic judgment beside the individual judgment of wisdom. Both are reported by Socrates rather than independently demonstrated. The dialogue draws on shared identity to make its story matter, but it offers no developed account of citizenship law, franchise or democratic equality.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228b.** Πολίτῃ μὲν ἐμῷ τε καὶ σῷ — The common civic identity includes both interlocutors.
- **228c.** ἐκόμισεν εἰς τὴν πόλιν — Anacreon’s destination is the city.
- **228c.** παιδεύειν τοὺς πολίτας — Citizens are the explicit educational audience.
- **229b.** ἐν Ἀθήναις — The political retrospect is expressly located in Athens.

**In this edition.** “Fellow citizen” renders the relational force of πολίτῃ with its possessives, while “citizens” elsewhere names the educational population. The edition’s “town” for ἄστυ allows “city” and “citizen” to retain their wider civic associations. Its translation should not be flattened into a single undifferentiated word for all four Greek expressions.

**See also.** [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101) · [Pisistratus and Philaidae](#entry-pisistratus-and-philaidae) (p. 159)

## Attention and answering {#entry-attention-and-answering}

*προσέχω (prosechō); νοῦς (nous); ἀποκρίνομαι (apokrinomai); ἀπόκρισις (apokrisis); εἰκῇ (eikēi)*

**The word.** Prosechō means to direct or apply; with nous, mind or understanding, it forms the idiom “pay attention.” At 225c the text has prosechōn … ton noun, “applying your mind,” translated as an instruction to attend. Apokrinomai means to answer; apokrisis is an answer or response. Eikēi means at random, without proper consideration or purpose. These words concern how a person participates in an exchange, not merely whether he makes an audible reply.

**In Hipparchus.** The first demand for attention follows an unsatisfactory answer. Socrates offers the farmer as a test; the companion replies that a lover of gain thinks he should gain from everything. Socrates objects that he is answering at random, as though someone had wronged him, and asks him to attend and answer as if the question were being posed afresh. The instruction seeks a discriminating response to the particular case instead of an indignant repetition of the general accusation.

At 225d–226a Socrates adds a requirement of sincerity: the younger man must not answer with something he does not himself think. Attention therefore includes responsibility for one’s assent. Yet this rebuke is also part of the scene’s asymmetry. Socrates controls the questions and characterises the companion’s resistance as deception. The latter later reverses the charge, maintaining that Socrates is the deceiver. Careful reading should not treat every Socratic accusation as an independently established fact about the respondent.

The exchange changes at 230a when the companion asks how Socrates means his question. Socrates explains through food. At 230e–231a he identifies the same manner of answer for drink, tells the companion to imitate it, and then offers a definition when the companion cannot provide one himself. A proper answer now states what good and bad instances have in common. The earlier discipline of attending to a particular example becomes instruction in supplying a shared account.

This assistance has a consequence: Socrates supplies much of the conceptual work to which the companion assents. When the latter is at a loss at 231c, the questioning continues. At 232a Socrates checks his memory of the argument’s starting point and offers to remind him. These are supports for participation, but they do not guarantee mastery. The companion’s final distinction between being compelled and persuaded shows that giving the required answers can coexist with unresolved resistance.

The dialogue thus makes answering both a methodological and an interpersonal problem. Refusing a careless response is legitimate within inquiry; treating every hesitation as bad faith would foreclose it. The text leaves the reader to assess how Socrates’ pressure, explanations and offer of revision bear on the companion’s eventual assent.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225b–c.** προσέχων ἐμοὶ τὸν νοῦν ἀπόκριναι — Attention is directed to Socrates and joined to the command to answer.
- **230e.** ὁ αὐτὸς ἂν τρόπος εἴη τῆς ἀποκρίσεως — The drink analogy supplies a manner of answering.
- **231a.** ἐμοῦ λέγοντος σκόπει — When the companion cannot answer, he is asked to examine Socrates’ proposal.
- **232a.** Μνημονεύεις οὖν — The closing review tests memory as well as assent.

**In this edition.** The edition’s “pay attention” translates the mind idiom without making nous a separate faculty-theory. “Manner of the answer” at 230e preserves the noun apokrisis, while “imitate me as I answer” keeps the practical modelling at 231a. Its wording also leaves the crucial distinction visible: Socrates asks for truthfulness early, but the companion does not finally report having been persuaded.

**See also.** [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115) · [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154) · [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152)

## Auspicious speech {#entry-auspicious-speech}

*εὐφημεῖν (euphēmein)*

**The word.** Εὐφημεῖν means to speak auspiciously, to utter words of good omen or refrain from ill-omened speech. Εὐφήμει is the singular imperative. Depending on its setting the injunction can require respectful words or silence; it is not simply the ordinary command “tell the truth.” Its use here draws on the force of a conventional warning against improper utterance.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates says Εὐφήμει immediately after the companion accuses him of deception. The shift is striking: an objection to argumentative conduct receives a response associated with the propriety and omen of speech. Rather than first analysing where the alleged deception lies, Socrates treats the accusation as something the companion ought not say and invokes obedience to a good and wise man.

The injunction opens the Hipparchus narrative. It creates a pause between an angry or suspicious claim and the extended account of cultural authority. On a sympathetic reading, Socrates is insisting that the charge is unjust to a friend. On a more ironic reading, the elevated rebuke attempts to displace scrutiny with reverence. The text does not provide a stage direction that settles the tone, and translating the word as a generic exclamation would remove the ambiguity rather than resolve it.

The later response proves that the rebuke has not ended the dispute. After hearing the story, the companion again says that he cannot be persuaded Socrates is not deceiving him. The speech has become no more auspicious in substance, but the objection is now sharpened by the maxim Socrates himself introduced. The passage consequently distinguishes controlling what an interlocutor says from answering the reason he has for saying it.

Nothing here establishes that a sacrifice, oath-taking rite or formal religious observance is currently under way. The dialogue gives no setting. The expression retains a religiously coloured social force without permitting reconstruction of a ceremony around the speakers.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228b.** Εὐφήμει — The imperative interrupts the accusation of deception.
- **228b.** ἀνδρὶ ἀγαθῷ καὶ σοφῷ — The justification appeals to a good and wise man.
- **229e.** οὐ δύναμαι πεισθῆναι — The companion’s later reservation shows the dispute remains open.

**In this edition.** “Speak auspiciously!” is intentionally more specific than “Hush!” or “Don’t say that!” The supplied note explains the good-omen sense and compares Alcibiades II 143d. That comparison is lexical and dramatic; it does not make the two dialogues’ occasions identical or prove common authorship.

**See also.** [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181) · [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80)

## Authorship and attribution {#entry-authorship-and-attribution}

*Ἵππαρχος (Hipparchos); φιλοκερδής (philokerdēs); Πλάτων (Platōn)*

**The word.** Ἵππαρχος is Hipparchus, the personal name serving as the dialogue’s principal transmitted title. Φιλοκερδής means lover of gain or gain-loving and supplies its alternative title. Πλάτων is Plato; the name belongs to the work’s traditional authorial attribution and the edition’s heading, not to the dialogue’s spoken Greek. These three labels concern respectively the central historical figure, the ethical subject and the transmitted author.

**In Hipparchus.** The work is handed down among Plato’s dialogues, but transmission and authorship are different questions. The supplied Introduction reports that most modern scholars reject Platonic authorship, that there have been defenders, and that no date is certain. A lexicon can describe those limits without presenting a new consensus survey or assigning a precise date unsupported by the evidence supplied.

Ancient reception already shows both inclusion and doubt. Diogenes Laertius’ account of the tetralogies places Hipparchus after the two Alcibiades dialogues and before the Lovers, gives the alternative title The Lover of Gain and classifies it as ethical. Aelian retells the cultural story as Plato’s while qualifying the attribution: if the Hipparchus really is his. The latter is an ancient doubt, not a modern discovery or a categorical ancient rejection.[^culture-authorship]

Attribution matters for how claims are expressed. “Socrates says” identifies a dramatic utterance. “The dialogue argues” describes an argumentative presentation. “Plato believes” would add an authorial and doctrinal conclusion that requires evidence beyond the speaker’s name. The same caution applies to the history: the distinctive story of Hipparchus need not record the historical Socrates’ beliefs simply because he tells it in a dialogue.

The supplied Introduction compares the Minos, which also opens with a bare question to an unnamed companion and turns to an ancient ruler. Such parallels can help readers recognise a literary manner and frame questions about relationship or imitation. They do not alone establish a shared author, direction of dependence or exact chronology. Likewise, apparent argumentative faults can invite an ironic or pedagogical reading without proving that a known master intentionally planted them.

The central narrative itself is concerned with attribution on a smaller scale. Hipparchus learns some wisdom, discovers some, and publishes poems under his own name. Aelian later repeats the narrative while naming his literary source. Keeping these layers separate helps prevent the familiar error of treating a dependent retelling as an independent historical witness.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225a.** Τί γὰρ τὸ φιλοκερδές; — The opening ethical question explains the relevance of the alternative title.
- **228b.** Ἱππάρχῳ — The title figure appears within Socrates’ story, not as a speaker.
- **228d.** αὑτοῦ ποιήματα — The story itself marks the attribution of poems to Hipparchus.

**In this edition.** Burnet’s title and speaker list are preserved in the supplied edition, which calls the work Plato’s in the traditional corpus sense while explicitly discussing the uncertainty. Its Greek text reproduces Burnet’s edition; it is not a new argument for authenticity. Questions of authorship, textual transmission and soundness of reasoning should be examined separately rather than made to decide one another automatically.

**See also.** [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181) · [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101) · [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67) · [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188)

## Basket bearing and the sister {#entry-basket-bearing-and-the-sister}

*κανηφορία (kanēphoria); ἀδελφή (adelphē)*

**The word.** Κανηφορία is basket-bearing, the ceremonial carrying of a basket in a procession. Ἀδελφή means sister. The dialogue refers elliptically to “the sister” in the account of the dishonour over basket-bearing; the historical comparison identifies her as Harmodius’ sister. The singular expression does not name her, give her exact age or describe the basket’s contents.

**In Hipparchus.** The ceremonial episode appears as an explanation Socrates rejects. He reports that the many attributed Hipparchus’ death to the sister’s dishonour and calls that account simple-minded. The more cultivated explanation, he says, concerns educational rivalry and the contempt of a younger admirer. Thus basket-bearing is not a narrated scene in the dialogue but the compressed sign of a story the audience is expected to recognise.

Public ceremonial inclusion carries honour, so exclusion can affect more than the person removed. In the historical accounts, the insult to Harmodius’ sister is also an attack on Harmodius and his standing. It is therefore misleading to paraphrase the matter as a trivial disagreement over carrying an object. Equally, the Hipparchus itself provides no legal rule for selecting bearers, and a detailed reconstruction of eligibility would go beyond its evidence.

The competing ancient accounts differ over agency. Thucydides assigns the affront to Hipparchus after his pursuit of Harmodius fails; the Aristotelian Constitution blames the younger brother Thessalus. The dialogue dismisses the basket-bearing explanation instead of selecting one of those agents. These versions cannot be fused into a single uncontested chronology. The named sister belongs to Harmodius in the historical material, not to Hipparchus.[^culture-basket]

The repeated word for dishonour makes the rejected account remain active. The supposedly superior explanation does not abolish offended honour as a motive; it relocates it from a ceremonial role to intellectual reputation. This is why the narrative’s dismissal deserves scrutiny rather than automatic acceptance. Socrates has given a social ranking of explanations, but has not demonstrated that wounded educational prestige is intrinsically a more credible cause of violence than a public insult.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **229c.** τῆς ἀδελφῆς — The sister is mentioned without a personal name.
- **229c.** ἀτιμίαν τῆς κανηφορίας — Basket-bearing is the setting of the alleged dishonour.
- **229c.** ἐπεὶ τοῦτό γε εὔηθες — Socrates’ narrator dismisses that explanation as simple-minded.

**In this edition.** The edition’s “the dishonour to the sister over the basket-bearing” preserves the condensed and allusive form. Its explanatory note supplies Harmodius’ identity as her brother and sets the historians’ disagreement beside the dialogue. A lexicon should identify that relation clearly without pretending that the Greek clause itself gives the whole historical scene.

**See also.** [Panathenaea](#entry-panathenaea) (p. 150) · [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94) · [Honour dishonour and rivalry](#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry) (p. 108) · [The cultivated and the many](#entry-the-cultivated-and-the-many) (p. 191)

## Benefit and harm {#entry-benefit-and-harm}

*ὠφελεῖσθαι (ōpheleisthai); ὠφέλιμος (ōphelimos); ἀνωφελής (anōphelēs); βλάπτεσθαι (blaptesthai)*

**The word.** Ōpheleisthai means to be benefited, helped or advantaged. Ōphelimos means beneficial or useful, and anōphelēs of no benefit or unhelpful. Blaptesthai means to be harmed or injured. The passive infinitives foreground what happens to a person; the adjectives characterise what can help or fail to help. They are not restricted to economic outcomes.

Benefit and harm supply the dialogue’s practical standard for judging acquisition. They do not by themselves resolve whose benefit counts, over what period, or whether an advantage in one respect outweighs injury in another. Those questions become acute whenever the companion allows base gain.

**In Hipparchus.** At 227a Socrates says people are harmed by loss, and the companion agrees. This licenses the badness of loss in the argument. Gain is then pronounced good through opposition, without a separately worded agreement equating gaining with being benefited. At 227d Socrates nevertheless announces that they agreed just now that to gain is to be benefited. This is a strengthened retrospective formulation, as the edition’s note 8 expressly recognises. It may be intended as a compressed consequence of the earlier exchange, but it is not an exact recollection of its wording.

The companion does not simply accept that every apparent profit benefits him. He excludes gains from which one will be harmed. Socrates checks that by harm he means suffering loss, then asks whether loss comes from gain or from loss. The companion answers both. His distinction is intelligible if an acquisition that is a gain under one measure has damaging consequences under another. Socrates’ reformulation presses toward an all-things-considered sense in which genuine gain already includes benefit.

The bodily example at 231b makes the issue concrete. Someone acquires disease while feasting at no expense; the companion denies that this is gain. Acquiring health, by contrast, is accepted as gain. Material acquisition and benefit are therefore not coextensive. The case does not require a doctrine that every costly pleasure is bad; the decisive element is the stipulated harmful result.

At the end, worth leads to worth possessing, worth possessing to the beneficial rather than the useless, and benefit to goodness. This supplies a different route from the earlier opposition argument. The chain may clarify what genuine gain should mean, but it must not be represented as having settled all ordinary uses of profit. A profitable sale can benefit one party and harm another; the dialogue has not conducted a separate inquiry into distributive justice or external costs.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **227a.** Βλάπτονται ὑπὸ τῆς ζημίας ἄρα ἄνθρωποι. — Harm is the reason loss is classified as bad.
- **227d.** εἶναι ὠφελεῖσθαι — The retrospective formulation identifies gaining with being benefited.
- **227e.** βλαβήσεσθαι — The companion points to future harm from certain gains.
- **231e.** τὸ ἀνωφελὲς ἢ τὸ ὠφέλιμον — The last argument contrasts what is useless with what benefits.

**In this edition.** The edition retains “be benefited”, “beneficial”, “of no benefit” and “be harmed”. These somewhat formal renderings keep the verbal and adjectival relations visible. Note 8 warns against treating the 227d recollection as a verbatim agreement. The later chain should not be projected backward so that the initial inference looks more fully argued than the dialogue presents it.

**See also.** [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19)

## Body {#entry-body}

*σῶμα (sōma)*

**The word.** Σῶμα means body. The two genitive forms in the food-and-drink definitions, σώματός and σώματος, express whose nourishment is being described. The variation in accent placement follows the surrounding construction; it does not indicate a different noun or philosophical sense.

The bodily reference gives the examples a recipient and a function. Dry or wet nourishment is nourishment of something, not an abstract quantity detached from a living being. The text does not here contrast body with soul, classify bodily pleasures, or argue for a metaphysical doctrine of embodiment.

**In Hipparchus.** At 230e Socrates explains why good food and bad food are both food: both are dry nourishment of the body. The drink parallel then supplies wet nourishment of the body. These definitions answer a classificatory question while already connecting the classified objects with use. They tell the companion what sort of common feature he should look for in decent and base gain.

The explicit body also prevents an overly commercial reading of the last part of the dialogue. The examples of gain are not confined to money or transferable property. A guest at a feast can acquire disease or health (231b), and the value of that acquisition is assessed by its consequence for the person. The body is therefore the practical setting in which “having more” can plainly fail to mean doing better.

At the same time, the bodily examples cannot settle every ethical distinction. Health is treated as a benefit and disease as a bad acquisition, but no developed account of human flourishing follows. In particular, moving from bodily benefit to the goodness of every gain does not by itself resolve whether a financial advantage acquired shamefully is a benefit in one respect and harmful in another. The body anchors an intelligible counterexample rather than supplying a complete measure of moral value.

The article thus treats a narrow noun with a wider argumentative consequence. An apparently ordinary genitive introduces the standpoint of a recipient; once that standpoint is admitted, mere addition to possessions becomes insufficient. What is acquired must be assessed in relation to the being who acquires it.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **230e.** ξηρὰ τροφὴ σώματός — The body is the recipient of dry nourishment.
- **230e.** τῇ τοῦ σώματος ὑγρᾷ τροφῇ — The parallel definition of drink retains the same recipient.
- **231b.** νόσον κτήσηται — Bodily disease makes an acquisition without expenditure undesirable.

**In this edition.** The edition simply gives “body.” It does not introduce “physical organism,” “bodily self,” or “material body,” each of which would add a theoretical emphasis absent from the local wording. References to health and disease in this article explain the continuation of the example; they are not additional attestations of σῶμα.

**See also.** [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78) · [Drink and wetness](#entry-drink-and-wetness) (p. 62) · [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97) · [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161)

## Courage and courteous addresses {#entry-courage-and-courteous-addresses}

*ἀνδρεῖος (andreios), θαυμάσιος (thaumasios), γλυκύς (glykys), βέλτιστος (beltistos), ἑταῖρος (hetairos)*

**The word.** Ἀνδρεῖος means courageous or manly; θαυμάσιος wonderful or remarkable; γλυκύς sweet; βέλτιστος best, here the courteous “my excellent friend”; and ἑταῖρος companion or associate. In direct address these words manage the relationship between speakers as well as describe qualities. Their politeness does not guarantee literal praise.

The final ἀνδρειότατε is the superlative vocative, “most courageous.” Θαυμάσιε is a vocative, γλυκύτατε a superlative vocative, and βέλτιστε the vocative of βέλτιστος. These actual forms should be distinguished from the dictionary forms in the heading. The companion’s designation ΕΤΑΙΡΟΣ likewise tells the reader his role without supplying a personal name.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates’ addresses repeatedly soften or sharpen a point at which the companion’s answer is under pressure. “My wonderful friend” accompanies the conclusion that, on the proposed account, nobody is a lover of gain (226d). “My excellent friend” precedes a reminder that knowingly seeking gain from worthless things has already been excluded (226e). “My sweetest friend” introduces the recall that gaining was agreed to be being benefited (227d). The affection of the wording and the severity of the argument can operate together.

At 232a the address becomes “most courageous of all men” when the goodness of the gainful returns for the third or fourth time. Courage here is not the subject of a definition. The expression can gently honor persistence, tease resistance to repeated refutation, or do both. The text supplies no explicit psychological explanation that would license a single certainty about Socrates’ tone.

The vocatives are consequently part of the dialogue’s method. They maintain personal contact through exchanges whose short answers can otherwise sound mechanical. They also mark an asymmetry: the older Socrates can adopt indulgent or teasing familiarity while controlling the questions. The companion mostly addresses him by name. This is a dramatic pattern rather than evidence that Socrates’ apparent friendliness must be false.

The addresses also matter to the charge of deception. Socrates appeals to friendship as a reason he would not deceive; the companion answers that either the friendship or the obedience to Hipparchus must be in doubt. Warm forms of address cannot settle whether the argument is trustworthy. Their presence alongside suspicion prevents the reader from making courtesy a substitute for logical adequacy.

Finally, “courage” in the final compliment should not be used to import a theory of virtue into the dialogue. Its force is local, conversational and potentially ironic. The article identifies an ethical word employed as address, rather than an otherwise absent systematic treatment of courage.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226d.** ὦ θαυμάσιε — The wonderful friend is told that the definition appears to have no instances.
- **226e.** ὦ βέλτιστε — A courteous address accompanies the exclusion already reached.
- **227d.** ὦ γλυκύτατε — The sweetest friend is reminded of the benefit equation.
- **232a.** ὦ ἀνδρειότατε πάντων — The final superlative marks persistence under argumentative pressure.

**In this edition.** The edition’s introduction explicitly calls attention to these addresses as part of the comedy of the persons and the argument. Its “most courageous of all men” translates the superlative and πάντων without turning the phrase into a diagnosis of stubbornness. The Note on this Edition also records uncertainty in a damaged letter of βέλτιστε; the lexical reading is nevertheless printed as such.

**See also.** [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80) · [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181) · [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152)

## Craftsmen and expertise {#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise}

*δημιουργός (dēmiourgos); ἐπιστήμων (epistēmōn); ἔμφρων (emphrōn); ὄργανον (organon); παρασκευή (paraskeuē)*

**The word.** Dēmiourgos is a craftsman or skilled practitioner; the dialogue has the genitive plural dēmiourgōn. Epistēmōn means knowledgeable or expert, here qualified by what the person knows about. Emphrōn means intelligent or sensible, represented by emphronōn in “other intelligent men.” Organon is an instrument or tool; paraskeuē is preparation or equipment, here the resources supplied for an activity. The heading names a practical pattern. The noun technē, “craft,” is not used in this passage and should not be silently substituted for its actual vocabulary.

**In Hipparchus.** The pattern begins before the collective noun appears. At 225c the companion grants that a lover of gain has knowledge of the worth of the source from which he expects gain. Socrates then assigns knowledge of plants to the farmer. Horseman, pilot, general, musicians and archer provide progressively shorter instances of the same relation between a practitioner and the means he employs.

At 226c Socrates gathers them under craftsmen and “the other intelligent men,” considering worthless instruments or any other equipment whatever. This wording extends the scope beyond occupational artisans; it does not define all intelligence as craftsmanship. Nor does epistēmōn confer universal knowledge. The farmer’s expertise is explicitly knowledge of plants’ worth in the circumstances of planting. The other cases similarly rely on bounded competence.

The inferential pressure comes from combining that competence with the stipulation of known worthlessness. If the practitioner understands what the activity needs and knows the means cannot serve it, the expectation of gain becomes hard to maintain. Socrates moves from the companion’s repeated refusals to the conclusion that, under his description, no human being is a lover of gain. That extension is stronger than the particular examples: the list has tested informed users of defective means, not every person conventionally called grasping.

Two distinctions therefore matter. First, technical uselessness is not identical to moral baseness. A dishonest transaction might yield an advantage to its perpetrator even when decent people would refuse it. Second, the user’s gain is not automatically the same as everyone else’s benefit. The companion tries to recover these concerns at 227d–e by distinguishing gains decent men avoid and gains that harm. The crafts have made his initial wording unstable without dissolving those concerns by themselves.

After the Hipparchus narrative, inquiry shifts from expert examples to a shared account of gain. Food and drink show how unlike qualities can belong to one kind; acquisitions, health and exchange then test the proposed definition. The final link between worth, possession and benefit at 231e–232a returns to the practical standard implicit in the tools, but as a general argument rather than a fresh catalogue of occupations.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225c.** ἐπιστήμονα εἶναι περὶ τῆς ἀξίας — Knowledge is expressly directed toward worth.
- **226c.** τῶν δημιουργῶν — The occupational examples are gathered under craftsmen.
- **226c.** τῶν ἄλλων τῶν ἐμφρόνων ἀνδρῶν — The scope includes other intelligent men.
- **226c.** ὄργανα ἢ ἄλλην παρασκευὴν — Instruments are broadened to any other equipment.

**In this edition.** The edition uses “has knowledge of,” “craftsmen,” “intelligent,” “instruments” and “equipment,” preserving the different functions of the five words. At 226d Burnet prints Apelt’s supplied “but.” It makes the knowingly expectant lovers of gain a contrast to the men just surveyed; the edition notes that without it the clause would describe those men. That small supplement matters to the transition from examples to the claim that no one fits the definition.

**See also.** [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74) · [Horseman and horse](#entry-horseman-and-horse) (p. 110) · [Pilot and ship](#entry-pilot-and-ship) (p. 156) · [General and arms](#entry-general-and-arms) (p. 87) · [Musicians and instruments](#entry-musicians-and-instruments) (p. 140) · [Archer and bow](#entry-archer-and-bow) (p. 26) · [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)

## Cronus and the golden age {#entry-cronus-and-the-golden-age}

*Κρόνος (Kronos); βασιλεύειν (basileuein); ἐγγύς (engys)*

**The word.** Κρόνος is Cronus, the divine ruler associated here with a happy earlier age. Βασιλεύειν means to reign or rule as king; βασιλεύοντος is the participle in “when Cronus was reigning.” Ἐγγύς means near, and ἐγγύς τι gives the approximating force “nearly.” “Golden age” is the traditional interpretative label for the allusion; the dialogue does not use a Greek adjective for golden in this sentence.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates says that, apart from Hippias’ final three years, the Athenians lived nearly as in the reign of Cronus. The comparison makes Hipparchus’ death mark the end of a remarkably blessed condition. It is part of a praise narrative whose immediate purpose is to establish Hipparchus as a good and wise authority, not an independently demonstrated economic description of archaic Athens.

The qualification “nearly” is important. Socrates does not literally identify the historical period with the divine reign. The comparison draws on a familiar image of ease and abundance without asserting that Athenians became deathless, ceased working or enjoyed every feature of a mythic race. The surviving account in Hesiod places the golden race under Cronus and portrays a life free from ordinary toil and misery. That gives the comparison its positive force.[^culture-cronus]

Political memory also uses such comparisons selectively. The supplied edition notes that the Aristotelian Constitution applies the Cronian description to Pisistratus’ own tyranny and contrasts that period with harsher rule under his sons. Here the favourable period extends through Hipparchus’ life. The shared image therefore does not guarantee agreement over which rulers deserve it or when the decline occurred.

The comparison interacts suggestively with the dialogue’s concern about gain. A life of abundant good things would seem to reduce the pressure of scarcity, yet Socrates’ argument says all people desire what is good, not merely people deprived of it. The passage does not develop an economic model of the golden age, and it should not be made to prove that avarice was absent from Hipparchus’ Athens. Its demonstrable role is commemorative: the authority whose precept Socrates invokes is placed within an idealised civic past.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **229b.** ἐγγύς τι ἔζων Ἀθηναῖοι — The Athenians’ manner of living is compared only approximately with the mythic age.
- **229b.** ὥσπερ ἐπὶ Κρόνου βασιλεύοντος — Cronus’ reign supplies the favourable standard.

**In this edition.** The edition uses “nearly as in the reign of Cronus,” avoiding stronger claims such as “exactly” or “very nearly.” Its note juxtaposes Hesiod’s mythic background with the Constitution’s different political application. Those are two functions of the allusion: one explains the image, the other warns against treating its use as historical agreement.

**See also.** [Hippias and tyranny](#entry-hippias-and-tyranny) (p. 103) · [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28)

## Decent and base {#entry-decent-and-base}

*χρηστός (chrēstos); πονηρός (ponēros)*

**The word.** Chrēstos means useful or serviceable and, of people, decent, respectable or good in conduct. Ponēros means wretched, bad or worthless and, in moral characterisation, base or wicked. The edition’s “decent” and “base” preserve a pair distinct from the broader “good” and “bad”. The initial contrast concerns what kind of people seek certain gains, but the adjectives also qualify gains and drink.

The association of chrēstos with use helps explain how practical and moral evaluation can touch without becoming identical. A useful object and a decent person are not being judged in exactly the same way. Similarly, calling a gain base may concern its source or manner, not its failure to increase a sum of money.

**In Hipparchus.** The companion calls lovers of gain base at the start and later contrasts them with decent people who do not dare profit from some sources. His proposed classification is ethically selective: everyone may want advantages, but not everyone accepts every means of obtaining them. The dialogue’s ultimate universalisation threatens this use of lover of gain as a reproach, not necessarily the whole distinction between decent and base character.

At 227e the companion explicitly names base gain as a source of loss. Socrates answers by asking whether something decent and good can be base, then recalls the goodness of gain as the opposite of bad loss. The denial that the same thing is both decent and base under the same description is unproblematic. What needs examination is whether gain has yet been established as decent, and whether harmful consequences disqualify a profit from being a gain in every relevant sense.

After the retraction, decent and base people provide a model of a common kind surviving opposed evaluations. Neither is more or less human. Socrates transfers the point to gains: the decent and base are equally gain. This is a legitimate distinction between classification and evaluation, but it cannot by itself establish that their amounts or effects are equal. At 230c–d the language of more and less makes that risk explicit.

The description of drink as decent or base at 230e–231a is deliberately broad. The terms here concern the quality or fitness of wet nourishment, not the beverage’s moral agency. Preserving the verbal repetition allows the reader to see the analogy being stretched across people, profits and consumables. At 232b–c the personal opposition returns: decent people wish for all good things and base people love gains small and great. Both consequently fall under the reconstructed label. Their conduct is not otherwise declared indistinguishable.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225b.** πονηροὺς καὶ ἥττους τοῦ κέρδους — Base character forms part of the initial accusation.
- **227d.** οἱ χρηστοὶ οὐ τολμῶσι κερδαίνειν — Decency is exhibited through a refusal to use certain sources.
- **230c.** ὁ μὲν χρηστός ἐστιν — A decent person supplies one instance of the common kind human.
- **232c.** καὶ οἱ χρηστοὶ καὶ οἱ πονηροί — The conclusion includes both moral classes.

**In this edition.** The edition admits that “decent or base” sounds stiff when applied to drink, but retains it to make the analogy traceable. Smoothing this into “wholesome or spoiled” in a lexicon quotation would conceal the movement of the Greek adjectives. Its Key Words section gives the broad practical and moral ranges; this article follows those ranges without treating an etymological association as a definition of every occurrence.

**See also.** [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204) · [Shamelessness and daring](#entry-shamelessness-and-daring) (p. 175) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39)

## Deception and sincerity {#entry-deception-and-sincerity}

*ἐξαπατᾶν (exapatan); ἀληθῶς (alēthōs); ἀληθής (alēthēs); ἐπίτηδες (epitēdes)*

**The word.** Exapatan means to deceive, delude or mislead; its prefixed form need not be translated with a separate intensifier every time. Alēthōs means truly or in truth, while alēthēs means true. Epitēdes means deliberately or on purpose. The cluster distinguishes false appearance, truthful answering and intentional misconduct. The dialogue does not assume that every false statement or unsuccessful argument is a deliberate deception.

Sincerity is the demand that a respondent say what he actually thinks. It is not sufficient for truth: a sincere speaker can be mistaken. Equally, a speaker may express a true conclusion by a defective argument. The quarrel depends on keeping these possibilities apart.

**In Hipparchus.** The first accusation comes from Socrates at 225d–226a. The younger companion is warned not to deceive an older man by answering what he does not himself think, but to speak truly. Socrates’ claim is thus about the relation between utterance and belief. It also brings age and deference into an inquiry ostensibly governed by reasons. The companion then denies that the knowledgeable farmer expects gain from a worthless plant.

At 228a Socrates again accuses him, this time of deliberately saying things contrary to their recent agreements. A changed or inconsistent answer is being construed as a purposeful attempt to mislead. The companion reverses the accusation: Socrates is deceiving him, though he cannot tell how the arguments are being twisted. His admission of diagnostic uncertainty does not concede that his unease is groundless. The strengthened recollection at 227d and the passage between kinds of value give the reader concrete places to test the complaint.

Socrates’ defence invokes Hipparchus, a good and wise man whose inscription forbids deceiving a friend. The defence is ethical and personal: he regards the companion as a friend and would not dare disobey. It is not a repair of any particular inference. The companion therefore answers that either the friendship or the obedience is failing, since he remains unconvinced. The historical narrative has enlarged the question of trustworthy authority without settling the charge.

The offer to take back a move provides a procedural answer: the companion may retract whichever premise troubles him. That is meaningful fairness, yet it does not guarantee that later reasoning will be sound. The ending’s distinction between compulsion and persuasion leaves sincerity and argumentative success imperfectly aligned. The text does not conclusively adjudicate whether Socrates knowingly deceives, deliberately trains the companion through traps, or sincerely presents a faulty proof. A lexicon should describe the accusations and evidence rather than pronounce an unsupported verdict on his intention.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225d.** Μὴ τοίνυν με ἐπιχείρει ἐξαπατᾶν — The first prohibition concerns answers contrary to the respondent’s own thought.
- **226a.** ἀλλ’ ὡς ἀληθῶς εἰπέ — Truthful answering is requested before the farmer’s case is repeated.
- **228a.** ἐπίτηδες ἐναντία — The second accusation expressly attributes purpose.
- **229b.** μὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα — Hipparchus’ maxim turns the argument toward the ethics of friendship.

**In this edition.** The edition keeps “deceive” for the recurring verb so the first accusation, reversal, inscription and renewed complaint remain connected. Note 5 explains the printed correction “tell me: is there” at 226a; the appeal to true speech belongs to the edition’s constituted text. The article’s title “sincerity” is an interpretive grouping, not a claim that a separate Greek noun for sincerity occurs here.

**See also.** [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30) · [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123) · [Shamelessness and daring](#entry-shamelessness-and-daring) (p. 175) · [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147)

## Definition and common character {#entry-definition-and-common-character}

*τί ἐστιν (ti estin), τὸ αὐτό (to auto), καλεῖν (kalein), ὄνομα (onoma)*

**The word.** Τί ἐστιν asks “what is it?”; τὸ αὐτό means “the same,” here the feature shared by contrasted examples. Καλεῖν is to call or name, and ὄνομα is a name. The heading “common character” is an explanatory label for these questions and expressions, not a claim that a technical Greek noun for essence appears in this passage.

A common name alone is not the requested explanation. Socrates asks why the companion applies it, what he sees in both examples that warrants doing so. The movement is from acknowledged usage to an account of what the name denotes. Conversely, the text does not explicitly posit a separately existing Form of gain; its examples can be followed as ordinary classificatory explanations.

**In Hipparchus.** The opening asks both what love of gain is and who lovers of gain are (225a). Most early answers describe people and their conduct. At 230d–231a the inquiry turns more directly to the object named gain. Having provisionally allowed good and bad gains, Socrates asks what remains the same in them. This separates a thing’s kind from its evaluation, at least long enough to make a fresh definition possible.

The food example gives the desired shape: good food and bad food are both dry nourishment of the body. Drink is wet nourishment of the body, whether decent or base. A successful answer states something common to the instances, rather than merely repeating that one is good and one bad. These are local working descriptions. Nothing in the passage establishes that every borderline case of nutrition has been considered.

The companion then accepts “every possession” acquired without spending or by spending less and receiving more. This answer introduces two alternative routes to gain under one account of acquisition. The first is tested by illness obtained at a feast, the second by an exchange of gold for a larger quantity of silver. The examples expose an omitted evaluative condition: an acquisition can be free or physically greater and still leave its recipient worse off.

The final appeal to worth and benefit restores goodness to the definition. That return may clarify what genuine gain means. It may also evade the original social category: a discreditable financial profit can still be called a gain even if it harms the person overall. The lexicon must keep these readings available. The definitions are not neutral labels that settle the ethical problem by themselves; choosing what counts as gain carries the dispute.

The most vulnerable preceding step should be kept separate from the legitimate demand for a definition. Both examples being equally gains does not establish that their possessors gain equally much. Socrates can reasonably ask for a common account even if that quantitative inference fails.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225a.** τί ποτέ ἐστιν — The opening question requests an account of what love of gain is.
- **230d.** τί ταὐτὸν ἐν ἀμφοτέροις ὁρῶν — Socrates asks what sameness warrants the common designation.
- **231a.** τοῦτο τὸ ὄνομά ἐστι, ποτόν — The name drink is attached to wet bodily nourishment.
- **231a.** κέρδος λέγεις πᾶν κτῆμα — The proposed definition applies gain to every possession meeting the conditions.

**In this edition.** The edition repeatedly renders καλεῖν as “call.” Retaining this ordinary language matters: the passage concerns why speakers apply a word, not an explicitly formulated theory of universals. Its descriptions of food and drink are translated with “nourishment,” preserving the functional term that allows qualitative differences within the kind.

**See also.** [Sameness and difference](#entry-sameness-and-difference) (p. 170) · [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115) · [Quantity and quality](#entry-quantity-and-quality) (p. 163) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)

## Delphi and its maxims {#entry-delphi-and-its-maxims}

*Δελφοί (Delphoi); γιγνώσκειν (gignōskein); ἄγαν (agan)*

**The word.** Δελφοί is Delphi, the sanctuary named as the location of familiar wise inscriptions. Γιγνώσκειν means to know or recognise; Γνῶθι is its aorist imperative, “know.” Ἄγαν means too much or excessively. The two quoted maxims are Γνῶθι σαυτόν, “Know thyself,” and Μηδὲν ἄγαν, “Nothing too much.” These compressed imperatival expressions require interpretation rather than supplying a complete ethical theory.

**In Hipparchus.** Hipparchus selects and publishes his sayings with an expressly comparative purpose: his citizens are not to admire the wise inscriptions at Delphi but to consider his own words wiser. The competition is therefore not only between particular schools in Athens. It sets an individual ruler’s programme against a widely recognised source of concise wisdom.

The maxims’ content makes the competition especially suggestive. “Know thyself” invites scrutiny of one’s own condition and limits; the narrative attributes wisdom to Hipparchus through his own selection of what he considers wisest. “Nothing too much” enjoins a check on excess; the dialogue elsewhere examines people said to crave small or worthless things without satisfaction. These are connections a reader can test, not interpretations explicitly laid out by Socrates in the story. He never demonstrates that either Delphic maxim is inferior.

The contrast also creates a tension with the statement that Hipparchus begrudges wisdom to no one. Giving people access to wisdom and seeking superior recognition can occur together. The generous distribution of maxims does not eliminate rivalry over their authorship and prestige. Conversely, rivalry alone does not establish that the new injunctions are false: thinking justly and not deceiving friends remain intelligible ethical demands.

In the Charmides, Critias gives a distinctive reading of “Know thyself” as the god’s greeting and contrasts it with other inscribed advice. That parallel, cited by the supplied edition, shows that familiar maxims could be contested and interpreted within Socratic dialogue. It does not authorize transferring Critias’ entire account of self-knowledge into the Hipparchus, which merely names the sayings as rival objects of admiration.[^culture-delphi]

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228e.** τὰ ἐν Δελφοῖς γράμματα — Delphi is introduced through its written sayings.
- **228e.** Γνῶθι σαυτόν — The first maxim is an injunction to know oneself.
- **228e.** Μηδὲν ἄγαν — The second compresses a demand against excess.
- **228e.** τὰ Ἱππάρχου ῥήματα — Hipparchus’ sayings are the proposed rivals.

**In this edition.** The edition preserves Burnet’s initial capitals and quotation marks around the maxims. Its “Nothing too much” is deliberately terse and does not supply a missing verb. “Wiser” renders the comparative judgment Hipparchus wants citizens to make; it is not a judgment independently endorsed by the editor or established in the argument.

**See also.** [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209) · [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69) · [Inscriptions and memorials](#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials) (p. 119) · [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117)

## Discovery and learning {#entry-discovery-and-learning}

*μανθάνειν (manthanein); ἐξευρίσκειν (exheuriskein); ἐκλέγεσθαι (eklegesthai)*

**The word.** Μανθάνειν means to learn; the aorist ἔμαθεν refers to what Hipparchus learned. Ἐξευρίσκειν means to find out or discover; ἐξηῦρεν names what he discovered himself. Ἐκλέγεσθαι means to select or choose out, with ἐκλεξάμενος describing his selection from both sources. Learning, discovering and selecting are distinct operations in the account, not interchangeable descriptions of a single act.

**In Hipparchus.** The account of the Herms recognises two sources for Hipparchus’ wisdom. Some has been learned, some found by himself. Calling it “his own wisdom” therefore need not mean that every thought originated with him. What is especially his own is the ensuing selection, versification and public presentation of the material as poems and specimens of wisdom.

The selection is governed by what he judges wisest. That brings assessment between possession and publication: even a wide store of knowledge must be arranged for the intended audience. Yet the dialogue does not identify his teachers, name the discoveries, or show the reasoning by which the best material was chosen. The cultural programme is praised through its structure and supposed aims rather than documented through a curriculum.

This distinction helps interpret the competing claims of authorship. Hipparchus can be said to learn material and still compose his own verses. The narrative does not accuse him of plagiarism, and a modern requirement that every maxim identify an original author should not be imposed on it without argument. At the same time, publishing acquired wisdom under a conspicuous personal memorial formula foregrounds the question of who receives credit from what others can learn.

The route offered to the country people reverses the process. They meet a selected sample, taste its wisdom and are expected to seek further education. Discovery in the ruler’s past becomes material for learning in the citizens’ future. The speakers’ own inquiry is different: instead of receiving a finished selection of wise sayings, the companion tries definitions, is challenged and requests a retraction. The contrast invites reflection on whether education is the transmission of settled conclusions, the discovery of a distinction, or both; the dialogue does not decide this by a formal definition.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228d.** ἥν τ’ ἔμαθεν — One part of Hipparchus’ wisdom has been learned.
- **228d.** ἣν αὐτὸς ἐξηῦρεν — Another part is attributed to his own discovery.
- **228d.** ἃ ἡγεῖτο σοφώτατα εἶναι — Judgment determines which material is selected.
- **228e.** παιδευθησόμενοι — The sample is intended to lead readers toward further education.

**In this edition.** The edition renders the distinction directly as “what he had learned and what he had discovered himself.” Its repetition of “his own” and “he himself” preserves the Greek emphasis on agency and attribution, without implying that learned material was never acknowledged as learned. A lexical account should keep this careful difference between originality of thought and authorship of a verse.

**See also.** [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209) · [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67) · [Inscriptions and memorials](#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials) (p. 119)

## Drink and wetness {#entry-drink-and-wetness}

*ποτόν (poton), ὑγρός (hygros), τροφή (trophē)*

**The word.** Ποτόν is drink, literally what is drunk; ὑγρός means wet or liquid; τροφή means nourishment. At 230e–231a the dative phrase τῇ τοῦ σώματος ὑγρᾷ τροφῇ identifies that to which the name “drink” belongs. The article’s heading groups a named kind with the physical characteristic used to distinguish it from dry bodily nourishment.

The contrast is local and functional, not a complete scientific classification of liquids. Water or wine is not separately analyzed, and no claim is made that every wet substance nourishes. Likewise, the quality of a drink can vary while it remains drink. These limits are required by the example’s role in a conversation about gain.

**In Hipparchus.** Drink is first added to food as another familiar case in which examples can share a kind while differing in goodness (230b). Socrates then broadens the claim to other things and to decent and base human beings. Drink is therefore not incidental scenery: it reinforces the general pattern the companion is asked to recognize before applying it to gain.

At 230e–231a the answer about drink repeats the method just used for food. Food is dry nourishment of the body, drink wet nourishment. The parallel makes it possible to separate the common function, bodily nourishment, from the feature distinguishing the two kinds. Socrates immediately urges the companion to imitate that manner of answering. The pedagogical force lies in the form of the response, not in the originality of the nutritional account.

The Greek calls the drink decent or base, using the same evaluative pair that has characterized people and their gains. The edition retains those slightly unusual English expressions. They expose how easily adjectives move from the quality of an object to moral character and back. In the drink example, the words need not imply that a liquid is morally culpable; they can describe serviceable or poor quality. Applied to people or ways of profiting, their moral force becomes harder to detach.

This shift matters to the entire inquiry. A common noun may tolerate good and bad instances, as drink clearly does. It does not follow that every evaluative term applied across the examples has an identical meaning, or that gain has exactly the same relation to goodness as drink has. The analogy supports asking for a common definition; it does not replace the work of establishing that definition.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **230b.** καὶ ποτὸν καὶ τἆλλα πάντα — Drink extends the initial food analogy.
- **230e.** τῇ τοῦ σώματος ὑγρᾷ τροφῇ — The working account identifies drink as wet bodily nourishment.
- **230e–231a.** ἐάντε χρηστὴ ἐάντε πονηρὰ ᾖ — The common name remains despite differences of quality.
- **231a.** τοῦτο τὸ ὄνομά ἐστι, ποτόν — Socrates distinguishes the name from its explanatory account.

**In this edition.** The edition consistently renders ποτόν “drink,” ὑγρός “wet,” and τροφή “nourishment.” Readers should resist silently rewriting “decent or base” as “healthy or unhealthy”: the latter would insert a particular bodily criterion before the dialogue’s subsequent health-and-disease example has introduced it.

**See also.** [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78) · [Body](#entry-body) (p. 42) · [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115)

## Education {#entry-education}

*παιδεύειν (paideuein); ἐπιδείγματα (epideigmata); γεῦμα (geuma)*

**The word.** Παιδεύειν means to educate or train, not only to instruct children. Ἐπιδείγματα means displays, specimens or examples; Hipparchus’ verses are presented as specimens of his wisdom. Γεῦμα is a taste or sample, here transferred from eating to an initial experience of wisdom. These terms distinguish sustained formation from the short, public example that invites a person toward it.

**In Hipparchus.** Hipparchus’ educational programme is made the motive for his cultural acts. Bringing Homer and poets to Athens is supposed to make citizens as good as possible, so that he may rule over them in that condition. The syntax does not merely say that he waits until good citizens exist and then governs. Improvement and government are linked within the purpose of the activity.

The methods are varied: compulsory order among rhapsodes, a ship to collect Anacreon, fees and gifts for Simonides, and inscribed sayings for country people. Education thus includes organisation, patronage, reading and personal attendance, rather than a single classroom technique. The distribution of Herms extends the invitation, while the expectation that readers will come in for more keeps further instruction attached to the cultural centre.

The return of παιδεύειν in the assassination story changes the scale. Aristogeiton has educated one man, Harmodius, and prides himself on that achievement. Hipparchus has sought to educate a citizen body. Yet both public and private educators depend on recognition, and the transfer of admiration to Hipparchus becomes destructive for his rivals. Education is not merely a benevolent label in the story; it can become a possession on which prestige and resentment are founded.

The surrounding dialogue offers a third kind of educational encounter, although Socrates never labels the whole conversation a lesson in the same explicit way. He tests definitions and permits revision, but the companion feels deceived and ultimately compelled. Comparing that encounter with the narrative asks what successful education would require beyond assembling culture, winning admiration or extracting agreement. The text leaves this as a problem for interpretation, not a completed educational theory.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228c.** βουλόμενος παιδεύειν τοὺς πολίτας — The ruler’s stated intention is citizen education.
- **228d.** ποιήματα καὶ ἐπιδείγματα — The verses are both poems and specimens of wisdom.
- **228e.** γεῦμα λαμβάνοντες — Reading supplies a taste that should prompt further study.
- **229c.** ἐπὶ τῷ παιδεῦσαι ἄνθρωπον — Aristogeiton takes pride in having educated a person.

**In this edition.** At 228c4 Burnet prints παιδεύειν, which the supplied apparatus attributes to B; it reports πείθειν, “persuade,” for TW. That alternative would make the immediate statement about influencing citizens rather than educating them, although education remains explicit later. This is a report of the edition’s apparatus, not a fresh collation. “Plotting in turn to educate” at 228d preserves a potentially unsettling choice of verb instead of smoothing it into uncomplicated benevolence.

**See also.** [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209) · [Homer and rhapsodes](#entry-homer-and-rhapsodes) (p. 106) · [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69) · [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154)

## Elegiac verse and sayings {#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings}

*ἐλεγεῖον (elegeion); ποίημα (poiēma); ῥῆμα (rhēma)*

**The word.** Ἐλεγεῖον denotes elegiac verse, particularly the elegiac couplet formed by a hexameter followed by a pentameter. Ποίημα means a made thing or composition, here a poem. Ῥῆμα is a saying or spoken expression; its plural ῥήματα names Hipparchus’ maxims and earlier the clever sayings attributed to men skilled in lawsuits. Elegiac describes metre here, not necessarily lament or mournful subject matter.

**In Hipparchus.** Hipparchus does not simply put an undifferentiated collection of wise thoughts on stone. Socrates describes a sequence: he selects what he considers wisest from acquired and discovered wisdom, fits it into elegiac verse, and inscribes it as his own poems and specimens of wisdom. The form is therefore part of how the selected material is presented and attributed.

The two quoted ethical lines have the same beginning, “This is Hipparchus’ memorial,” followed by different commands. One asks the traveller to proceed with just thoughts; the other forbids deceiving a friend. Repetition makes the authorial or commemorative name inseparable from the practical instruction. The metre and brevity suit public recall, although the dialogue itself does not offer a theory of memory or say that travellers memorised the verses.

The edition’s metrical note is essential. Each quoted line is a pentameter, the second line of an elegiac couplet; the dialogue does not quote a complete couplet for each example. The geographical statement on the other side is described indirectly. One must not print the two different ethical pentameters together and call them a single elegiac couplet: they are alternative examples, and both occupy the same metrical role.

The word for sayings connects this elevated cultural display to the earlier mention of men clever at lawsuits. An impressive or memorable expression can attract assent without having its truth tested. The surrounding conversation does test the application of a saying: not deceiving a friend is admirable in form, but the companion wants to know whether Socrates is complying with it. Thus the narrative respects the force of concise wisdom while showing that its possession is not a substitute for examination.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228d.** εἰς ἐλεγεῖον — Hipparchus fits selected wisdom into elegiac form.
- **228d.** αὑτοῦ ποιήματα — The compositions are presented as his own poems.
- **228e.** ῥήματα μᾶλλον σοφὰ — The citizens are to consider his sayings wiser.
- **229b.** μνῆμα τόδ’ Ἱππάρχου· μὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα. — The complete second quoted pentameter combines commemoration and command.

**In this edition.** The translation distinguishes Homer’s “epics” from Hipparchus’ “poems” and uses “sayings” where their sententious content is in view. Its verse setting makes the two quotations visible as verse without representing them as a continuous poem. “Elegiac verse” should not be glossed as “an elegy for Hipparchus”: the monuments are described as his own educational initiative.

**See also.** [Inscriptions and memorials](#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials) (p. 119) · [Discovery and learning](#entry-discovery-and-learning) (p. 60) · [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209) · [Homer and rhapsodes](#entry-homer-and-rhapsodes) (p. 106)

## Envy and generosity {#entry-envy-and-generosity}

*φθονεῖν (phthonein); οὐδενί (oudeni)*

**The word.** Φθονεῖν means to envy, begrudge or withhold something through resentment of another’s enjoyment. With wisdom as its object and a person in the dative, “begrudge wisdom to someone” is the relevant construction. Οὐδενί means to no one, the dative of the negative pronoun; together with οὐκ it contributes to the emphatic claim that Hipparchus thought wisdom should be grudged to nobody. “Generosity” is the interpretative heading for that disposition, not a separate abstract noun in the passage.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates explains Hipparchus’ cultural patronage by a wish to educate citizens and a refusal to begrudge wisdom. The explanation makes intellectual benefit shareable: there is no suggestion that teaching a citizen necessarily deprives the ruler of what he knows. Fees and gifts maintain poets at court, while the Herms place selected wisdom where travellers can encounter it. Material spending and intellectual distribution cooperate in the portrait.

The account immediately complicates that praise. Hipparchus wants the citizens to prefer his maxims to Delphi’s and to come in for further education after tasting his wisdom. He may share what he knows while still wanting recognition as the superior source. There is no contradiction in the bare logic of those motives, but there is a question about what the generosity is for. The text explicitly allows both the improvement of the audience and the enhancement of its ruler’s authority.

The murder story supplies a darker counterpart. Aristogeiton prides himself on educating Harmodius, and both men are deeply hurt when an admired young man transfers his esteem to Hipparchus. Their reaction makes intellectual prestige appear scarce even if wisdom itself can be shared. The narrative does not use φθονεῖν again of them, so “envy” is an interpretation of the rivalry rather than the narrator’s exact diagnostic word. What it explicitly names is pain at dishonour.

These distinctions are relevant to love of gain. If receiving wisdom benefits someone, then generous teaching can create a gain without an obvious matching loss to the teacher. The teacher may nevertheless gain admiration, loyalty or political advantage. The dialogue does not calculate these exchanges, but its central narrative gives more varied possibilities of gaining than mere acquisition of coins. Reading the benefactions alongside the surrounding argument broadens the question without reducing every generous act to concealed greed.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228c.** σοφίας φθονεῖν — The object begrudged or freely shared is wisdom.
- **228c.** οὐκ οἰόμενος δεῖν οὐδενὶ — The negative construction states that Hipparchus thought no one should be excluded through begrudging.
- **228e.** μᾶλλον σοφὰ ἡγοῖντο — The citizens are also intended to rank his sayings higher.
- **229d.** περιαλγήσαντας ταύτῃ τῇ ἀτιμίᾳ — The rivals’ explicitly named response is intense pain at dishonour.

**In this edition.** “Begrudge” is more precise here than the unqualified “envy”: it shows the relation between possessing wisdom and letting another share in it. “Since he was a fine and good man” gives the narrator’s ethical explanation. The edition does not replace that praise with ironic quotation marks, so an ironic reading must be argued from the whole narrative rather than imposed by typographical scepticism.

**See also.** [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Simonides fees and gifts](#entry-simonides-fees-and-gifts) (p. 177) · [Honour dishonour and rivalry](#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry) (p. 108) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83)

## Error and correctness {#entry-error-and-correctness}

*ἐξαμαρτάνω (examartanō); ὀρθῶς (orthōs)*

**The word.** Examartanō means to go wrong or make a mistake. The form examartanoi at 227c is an optative used in a question about what argument one could employ without error. Orthōs is the adverb rightly or correctly. It occurs when the companion proposes the right way to understand a lover of gain and when Socrates finally denies the rightness of using that description as a reproach. The heading groups these expressions without claiming that the text supplies a formal theory of correctness.

**In Hipparchus.** At 227c Socrates places two results side by side: according to the first account no one is a lover of gain, whereas according to the next everyone is. He asks which argument one could use without making a mistake. This is more than a request for the companion’s preferred conclusion. The opposed results force a reconsideration of the criteria governing the name.

The companion answers that one must take the lover of gain rightly, and immediately specifies his intended social distinction: such a man eagerly seeks gain from sources from which decent men do not dare to gain. “Rightly” here claims fidelity to the blame expressed in the ordinary designation. The proposed correction is not an admission that everyone uses worthless instruments knowingly; it shifts attention to disreputable gain and the standards of respectable conduct.

Socrates presses that account against prior agreements about gain’s goodness. The companion insists that some gains harm, but Socrates characterises the resulting contradiction as attempted deception. The dispute therefore concerns what counts as the decisive error: departing from an ordinary moral distinction, or combining assertions incompatible with what has been conceded. The later permission to retract the claim that every gain is good temporarily allows the companion to revise his commitments instead of being bound to every previous answer.

At 232c orthōs returns in the conclusion: someone who reproaches another for loving gain does not do so rightly, since the reproacher is himself such a person. This gives the opening problem a practical destination in the use of blame. If everyone loves gain in the established sense, that property cannot by itself distinguish the base from the decent.

The inference still requires care. Sharing a property with the person one criticises does not generally make every criticism of it mistaken; people can correctly condemn a failing they also possess. Socrates’ conclusion has more force if the preceding argument has shown the common property to be desire for genuine good, not merely shown it to be universal. Conversely, the companion’s unease matters: universality has been reached through a contested interpretation of gain, and he says the argument compelled him rather than persuaded him. “Not rightly” is the dialogue’s final judgment, not a reason to conceal the route and its tensions.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **227c.** οὐκ ἂν ἐξαμαρτάνοι — The question concerns using an argument without going wrong.
- **227c–d.** ὀρθῶς λαμβάνοι — The companion claims a correct construal of the lover of gain.
- **232c.** Οὐκ ἄρα ὀρθῶς ὀνειδίζει — Correctness finally governs the act of reproach.

**In this edition.** The edition gives “making a mistake,” “rightly to take” and “does not reproach him rightly.” This consistency reveals the return of orthōs without turning its first occurrence into a technical definition. At 227c9 the apparatus records Cobet’s proposed tōn logōn in place of the printed tōi logōi. The alternative concerns the construction of “which of the arguments”; the edition follows Burnet’s singular wording while translating the choice intelligibly.

**See also.** [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186) · [Reproach and the ending](#entry-reproach-and-the-ending) (p. 166) · [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154)

## Farmer and plants {#entry-farmer-and-plants}

*γεωργός (geōrgos); γεωργικός (geōrgikos); φυτόν (phyton); φυτεύω (phyteuō)*

**The word.** Geōrgos is a farmer; geōrgikos means farming or skilled in farming and, with “man,” describes a farming man. Phyton is a plant, here something planted and subsequently grown, not a specified crop. Phyteuō means to plant. These are dictionary forms: the first example has phyteuōn, “planting,” and the later question phyteuei, “he plants.” The occupational noun and the adjective can identify the same practical competence without being the same word.

**In Hipparchus.** The farmer is the first test of the companion’s definition of a lover of gain. At 225b Socrates imagines a man planting something he knows to be worth nothing while expecting gain when it has grown. The reference to its later growth makes this more than an exchange of finished possessions. The farmer must judge a present input by an expected outcome, allowing for the process through which its value would be realised.

The companion initially evades the particular case: the lover of gain thinks he should gain from everything. Socrates therefore asks who knows the worth of plants and their appropriate time and place. The answer, a farmer, assigns the relevant judgment to a recognised expert. When the example returns at 226a, the companion denies that such a knowledgeable farming man would think he gained from his worthless plant. This assent supplies the pattern for horseman, pilot and the remaining practitioners.

The argument does not show that every apparently worthless plant remains worthless under cultivation. Its hypothesis is stronger: the practitioner already knows that the plant is worthless in the circumstances relevant to the proposed gain. Conversely, the example does not directly address a seller who knows a plant is bad but hopes to persuade someone else to buy it. The companion’s moral complaint about unscrupulous gain is being tested through knowledgeable cultivation and its results. Whether that is an adequate interpretation of his complaint is part of the pressure the example creates.

Plants do not return as an explicit example. Their functional valuation nevertheless anticipates 231e, where something of worth is explained as worth possessing and then as beneficial. The country people educated through Hipparchus’ Herms at 228d should not simply be identified with this farmer: the later passage concerns an audience’s location, not its members’ agricultural competence.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225b.** φυτεύων γεωργὸς ἀνὴρ — The first concrete claimant to gain is a farmer engaged in planting.
- **225c–d.** ἐπιστήμων περὶ φυτῶν τῆς ἀξίας — Knowledge of plants’ worth is assigned to the farmer.
- **226a.** γεωργικὸν ἄνδρα γιγνόμενον — The resumed example describes a man possessing agricultural competence.

**In this edition.** The edition distinguishes “a farmer” from “a farming man.” Its apparatus reports geōrgos in T against geōrgikos in B at 225b5; the printed noun is therefore a textual choice, while the adjective appears in the later question. At 226a4 Burnet prints Stephanus’ phyteuei against phyteuein in B and T. The translation “the plant he is planting” follows that finite verb. Neither report warrants treating the alternative wording as a different species of agricultural worker.

**See also.** [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46) · [Time and place](#entry-time-and-place) (p. 200) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123)

## Feast and hospitality {#entry-feast-and-hospitality}

*ἑστιᾶν (hestian), ἑστίασις (hestiasis), εὐωχεῖσθαι (euōcheisthai)*

**The word.** Ἑστιᾶν means to entertain or feast someone; the passive participle ἑστιαθείς means having been entertained at a feast. Ἑστίασις is the entertaining or feast itself, here in ἀπὸ ἑστιάσεως, “from a feast.” Εὐωχεῖσθαι means to feast well or richly. Its participle εὐωχηθείς emphasizes the pleasant abundance of the guest’s experience rather than the guest’s expenditure.

“Hospitality” is a convenient description of being fed by another in this example. It is not an attestation of a technical institution of guest-friendship, nor does the text identify host, festival or occasion. The details needed for the argument are that someone is entertained, spends nothing, and acquires a bodily condition.

**In Hipparchus.** The feast at 231b is a counterexample to the first branch of Socrates’ proposed account of gain. If every possession acquired without expenditure is gain, disease acquired while enjoying a free feast should count. The companion answers emphatically that it does not. The agreeable circumstances make the bad outcome more pointed: the guest can eat richly and yet fail to gain.

The alternative of acquiring health from a feast then isolates the relevant difference. The setting and absence of outlay do not change, but the outcome does. Health counts as gain, disease does not. The example therefore distinguishes three things that could easily be bundled together: receiving a benefit from a host in ordinary social language, enjoying an experience, and ending with an acquisition genuinely good for oneself.

The scene is deliberately hypothetical. It does not say that the companion has fallen ill after a banquet or that Socrates distrusts feasting in general. No account of overindulgence, poisoned food or negligent hosting is supplied. Introducing one would turn a logically economical counterexample into an unsupported story. The reader needs only to recognize that a pleasant free event can have an undesirable result.

Its relation to the preceding food-and-drink definitions is close but not identical. There food and drink illustrate sameness of kind despite differences in quality. Here the consequences of consuming them undermine the identification of acquisition with gain. The argument moves from what counts as food to whether getting or experiencing something is advantageous. This transition supplies a practical test for an abstract definition.

The absence of payment also prevents the companion from explaining the bad outcome merely as an excessive price. Even a thing obtained gratis may be bad to have. That prepares the stronger final claim that worth possessing must be assessed through benefit, although the feast alone cannot prove the goodness of every financial gain.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **231b.** ἐάν τις ἑστιαθείς — The case begins with someone entertained at a feast.
- **231b.** μηδὲν ἀναλώσας ἀλλ’ εὐωχηθείς — Free and rich feasting is contrasted with the resulting disease.
- **231b.** ἀπὸ ἑστιάσεως — Health is then imagined as an alternative acquisition from the same sort of event.

**In this edition.** The edition gives “entertained at a feast,” “feasting richly,” and “from a feast,” preserving the family while distinguishing the passive guest-role from the experience of abundant dining. These are not references to a named symposium in the dramatic setting; the dialogue provides no setting for the conversation itself.

**See also.** [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97) · [Spending and receiving](#entry-spending-and-receiving) (p. 183) · [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78) · [Worth possessing](#entry-worth-possessing) (p. 217)

## Food and nourishment {#entry-food-and-nourishment}

*σιτίον (sition), τροφή (trophē), ξηρός (xēros)*

**The word.** Σιτίον means food; its plural σιτία occurs both of a horse’s feed and of food in the later analogy. Τροφή means nourishment, the sustenance supplied to a living body. Ξηρός means dry. “Dry nourishment of the body” is Socrates’ working answer to the question why both good and bad food count as food. Nourishment is the broader description; dry distinguishes food from the drink immediately compared with it.

The words are not exact synonyms. Food names the kind under discussion, nourishment states its sustaining function, and dry supplies a differentiating characteristic. The noun τροφή need not mean that every example succeeds equally in nourishing or benefits every consumer. The dialogue itself allows bad food.

**In Hipparchus.** Food first enters the dialogue as a practical test of knowledge (226a–b). A knowledgeable horseman who supplies worthless food cannot fail to know that he is ruining the horse. Socrates uses that expertise to challenge the idea of knowingly expecting gain from worthless resources. The example concerns the relation between recognized quality and expected outcome, not simply an exchange price for feed.

At 230a–b food serves a different function. Socrates has permitted the companion to distinguish good and bad gain and asks whether good gain is more gain. When the question is unclear, food makes the distinction accessible: both good and bad food are equally food “as far as being food goes.” The analogy establishes a common classification while preserving differences in quality. It does not establish equal portions, equal nourishment or equal benefit.

At 230e the example becomes a model definition. Both kinds are called food because they are dry nourishment of the body. The companion is meant to supply a comparable common description of gain. That is a more precise task than listing gains or repeating that some are bad. Yet the model’s usefulness has limits: whether bad gain remains genuinely gain is the very question the later inquiry will unsettle.

The continuity with the early horse example is instructive. The same word can name something that fails its practical purpose and still remains food. Thus an appeal to ordinary food-language can support the companion’s insistence that a harmful acquisition remains a gain in one sense. Socrates’ later account instead restricts genuine gain through worth and benefit. The food comparison helps formulate the problem but does not alone decide whether the restriction is correct.

The feast example at 231b then reconnects acquisition with bodily consequences. Receiving food at no cost can yield disease rather than gain. The narrative moves from food as a classificatory example to eating as an event whose result must be evaluated.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226a.** οὐδενὸς ἄξια σιτία τῷ ἵππῳ παρέχει — Food supplied to the horse is evaluated by an expert.
- **230b.** κατὰ τὸ σιτίον εἶναι — The sameness concerns being food.
- **230e.** ἀμφότερα ξηρὰ τροφὴ σώματός — The common description is dry nourishment of the body.

**In this edition.** The edition keeps “food” for σιτίον in both the horse passage and the final analogy; it does not shift to a specialized English term in the earlier case. “Nourishment” keeps τροφή distinct. Its use of “good” and “bad” here, beside “decent” and “base” for the drink example, preserves a change in Greek vocabulary rather than polishing it away.

**See also.** [Drink and wetness](#entry-drink-and-wetness) (p. 62) · [Body](#entry-body) (p. 42) · [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56) · [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97)

## Friendship {#entry-friendship}

*φίλος (philos); φιλεῖν (philein)*

**The word.** Φίλος means friend, dear or friendly; in the inscription and its application it designates a person bound by friendship. Φιλεῖν means to love or be fond of. Earlier it describes loving gain or good things, whereas φίλος in the story names a relationship that carries obligations. The shared word-family does not make loving an object of advantage equivalent to being a reliable friend.

**In Hipparchus.** Friendship becomes the proposed answer to a breach of conversational trust. Socrates quotes Hipparchus’ command not to deceive a friend and immediately calls the companion his friend. The reasoning is practical and personal: if he is a friend and obeys the wise man, Socrates should not be deceiving him. It does not follow merely from knowing or admiring the maxim that he actually fulfils it.

The companion makes precisely that distinction. He replies that either Socrates does not regard him as a friend or does not obey Hipparchus. His continuing conviction that he is being deceived refuses to let the relationship be established simply by Socrates’ declaration. Friendship is tested by the conduct of the argument rather than secured by a friendly address.

The prohibition’s narrow object also matters. “Do not deceive a friend” does not state that deceiving everyone else is permitted, and the dialogue does not discuss such permission. Conversely, converting it into an unrestricted maxim against all deception would remove the condition on which the companion’s dilemma relies. The speaker’s immediate ethical resource is a particular reciprocal relationship.

Earlier the argument has claimed that everyone loves good things. Friendship introduces an ethical requirement involving someone other than the person who gains. This creates a possible tension between a universal desire for benefit and responsibility for another’s trust. The dialogue does not solve that tension by offering an account of shared good, yet Socrates’ offer to take back a move can be read as an attempt to repair the relationship in practice. Whether the repair succeeds remains qualified by the companion’s final distinction between being compelled and being persuaded.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **229b.** μὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα — The negative command singles out a friend as the person not to deceive.
- **229b.** σὲ ἐμοὶ ὄντα φίλον — Socrates explicitly applies the relation to his interlocutor.
- **229d.** εἰ ἡγῇ φίλον — The companion turns Socrates’ estimate of their relationship into a condition.
- **229e.** ἵνα μὴ οἴῃ — The offer of revision addresses the companion’s belief that he is deceived.

**In this edition.** The edition uses “love” for φιλεῖν and “friend” for φίλος in the maxim; the lexical kinship should be visible without forcing identical English expressions into unlike contexts. Its “think me a friend” preserves that the companion challenges Socrates’ acknowledgment of the relationship, not merely the external label attached to their meeting.

**See also.** [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181) · [The unnamed companion](#entry-unnamed-companion) (p. 193) · [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133) · [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19)

## Gain and gaining {#entry-gain-and-gaining}

*κέρδος (kerdos); κερδαίνειν (kerdainein); κερδαλέος (kerdaleos); ἀκερδής (akerdēs)*

**The word.** Kerdos is gain, profit or advantage, and can denote both a favourable result and what is gained. Kerdainein means to gain or make a gain. Kerdaleos means gainful, productive of or characterised by gain; akerdēs means without gain or unprofitable. The dialogue’s plural kerdē allows gains to be counted or distinguished as objects, whereas the infinitive directs attention to gaining as an activity or outcome.

None of these words by itself confines the topic to cash. Crops, healthy animals, successful navigation, useful equipment and bodily health all enter the inquiry. Monetary exchange eventually gives a sharp test of quantity against worth, but it does not supply the first or the only sense of gain.

**In Hipparchus.** The early examples ask whether a knowledgeable practitioner thinks he gains from worthless material. Their force depends on taking gain as success or benefit in the practice concerned. The companion’s complaint may instead concern a profit extracted through shoddy goods or morally objectionable dealings. The dialogue never fully separates gain for the user of an object from gain for a seller who transfers its costs to someone else. This is a limit on the reach of the examples, not a reason to deny their ordinary practical point.

At 226e–227a gain is opposed to loss, loss is harmful and bad, and gain is pronounced good. The inference is stronger than the bare lexical contrast: from the fact that one opposite is bad it does not universally follow that the other is good. At 227d Socrates retrospectively formulates gaining as being benefited, although that identity was not previously agreed in those words. The pair kerdos/kerdainein is later recited explicitly at 229e when the companion chooses which premise to retract.

After some gain is allowed to be bad, Socrates asks what makes the good and bad instances alike gain. At 230c–d, being equally instances of gain becomes “gains no more” and the exclusion of more and less. Equal membership in a kind does not by itself imply equal amounts or equal benefit: two sums may be equally money and unequal in amount. The subsequent inquiry into their common character should therefore be distinguished from this quantitative overreach.

The proposed answer at 231a treats gain as a possession acquired at no expense or for less than one gets. Disease acquired at a free feast defeats acquisition without evaluation. Gold exchanged for a greater quantity of silver defeats mere quantitative increase. The final sequence moves through worth, worth possessing, benefit and goodness. It thus restricts gain to genuine advantage, but leaves open whether ordinary morally bad profit has been explained or defined away.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **227a.** Ἀγαθὸν ἄρα τὸ κέρδος. — The first conclusion joins gain and goodness.
- **229e.** τὸ κέρδος καὶ τὸ κερδαίνειν — Noun and infinitive are paired when the earlier agreements are reopened.
- **230c.** Οὐδὲν ἄρα μᾶλλον κερδαίνει — The claim about equal status as gain is extended to how much someone gains.
- **231e.** τὸ δὲ ἀνάξιον ἀκερδές — Worthlessness is paired with absence of gain.

**In this edition.** The edition uses “gain” consistently instead of alternating unobtrusively among profit, benefit and advantage. This exposes, rather than solves, the relation between result, possession and activity. “Gainful” and “without gain” preserve the later derived adjectives. The supplied introduction itself notes that the gaining and the thing gained are two sides on which the reasoning turns.

**See also.** [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147) · [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133)

## Gainful and without gain {#entry-gainful-and-without-gain}

*κερδαλέος (kerdaleos), ἀκερδής (akerdēs)*

**The word.** Κερδαλέος means gainful or profitable, describing what brings or constitutes gain. Ἀκερδής means without gain, unprofitable; its privative beginning denies gainfulness. The source forms κερδαλέα, κερδαλέον and ἀκερδές are inflections of these adjectives. They differ grammatically from κέρδος, the noun gain, and κερδαίνειν, the verb to gain.

“Without gain” need not on its own mean a positive loss. Something might simply produce no gain. Although the argument connects worthlessness and absence of gain, the privative adjective is not a lexical synonym of ζημία, loss. Preserving that distinction avoids making the negative counterpart stronger than its wording.

**In Hipparchus.** At 230d both proposed kinds are called equally “gains and gainful.” The addition of the adjective links the classification of the things with their result for the possessor. It follows the disputed claim that someone with decent gain gains no more than someone with base gain. The adjective therefore participates in the passage’s pressure between being a gain and producing a gain, rather than providing independent proof of equality.

At 231e the adjective returns after the metal exchange. Socrates states that what is of worth is gainful, whether small or great, while what is of no worth is without gain. Size has ceased to determine the verdict. The relevant assessment concerns worth, and the next questions specify worth as worth possessing and then as benefit.

The final result at 232a is phrased adjectivally: what is gainful has once again been agreed good. Socrates counts this as the third or fourth arrival at the same conclusion. The wording ties together several earlier formulations, but the reader should still notice their differences. “Gain is good,” “gaining is being benefited,” and “what is gainful is good” are connected claims with different grammatical subjects; repeating their family does not make every transition self-evident.

The adjective also concentrates the main interpretive choice. If gainful means truly beneficial, calling it good is plausible and perhaps nearly built into the term as now explained. If it means profitable in an ordinary financial sense, the examples have not independently proved that every profitable thing is decent or beneficial overall. The companion’s original reproach may concern just that possibility. The lexicon consequently should not gloss κερδαλέος everywhere as “morally good,” even though Socrates eventually obtains agreement to its goodness.

The paired term ἀκερδής occurs in the compact summary at 231e rather than receiving a separate developed theory. It marks the failure to gain without forcing all neutral cases into a detailed taxonomy of loss.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **230d.** κέρδη μὲν ὁμοίως ἐστὶν ἀμφότερα καὶ κερδαλέα — Both noun and adjective are applied to the two supposed kinds.
- **231e.** Τὸ μὲν ἄξιον ἄρα κερδαλέον ἐστίν — Worth supplies the criterion for gainfulness.
- **231e.** τὸ δὲ ἀνάξιον ἀκερδές — The negative adjective describes what is of no worth.
- **232a.** τὸ κερδαλέον — The final return to goodness uses the substantivized adjective.

**In this edition.** The edition deliberately keeps the gain family visible with “gainful” and “without gain.” Rendering the latter “harmful” would add a claim, while rendering the former “beneficial” would erase the intervening question that connects gainfulness with benefit. Its glossary treats these as distinct members of one family, not interchangeable definitions.

**See also.** [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Worth possessing](#entry-worth-possessing) (p. 217) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179)

## General and arms {#entry-general-and-arms}

*στρατηγός (stratēgos); στρατιά (stratia); ὅπλον (hoplon)*

**The word.** Stratēgos is a general or military commander; stratia is an army or force. Hoplon is an implement, and in its military plural hopla means arms or equipment. At 226c the text has a general, his army, and the arms it possesses. These three terms distribute responsibility and possession: the commander knows the equipment’s condition, while the force is said to have it. No particular campaign, enemy or military officeholder is named.

**In Hipparchus.** The general follows the pilot at 226c. Knowing that his army has arms worth nothing, does he think he gains from them and think fit to gain? The companion’s “Not at all” carries the previous inference into a collective undertaking. A commander’s expertise concerns resources used by other people, so the sequence is no longer confined to a practitioner personally handling a plant, animal or instrument.

The wording deliberately repeats two expressions whose relation has already been examined: thinking that one gains and thinking fit to gain. At 225d the companion accepted Socrates’ interpretation of thinking fit as thinking that one ought to gain. In the general’s question those descriptions stand together, as though the practical recognition of useless arms makes either expectation untenable. The example works through the accepted interpretation, rather than independently proving that expectation, entitlement and desire always coincide.

The arms’ worth is assessed through their role in the army. Their weight, quantity, resale price and moral ownership do not enter the question. This helps isolate why the later discussion of gold and silver at 231d needs worth in addition to sheer amount: possessing more stuff need not improve one’s position. The arms themselves do not return, and the dialogue never develops a military account of benefit. The cross-reference is an argumentative resemblance, not a second occurrence of the example.

There is also a limit to the conclusion. An unscrupulous contractor who profits by supplying useless weapons would not be the general described here, and gain at the army’s expense is not tested. The example puts the informed director of a practice in the place of the alleged lover of gain. That substitution encourages assent because the commander’s immediate practical standard is clear. It does not by itself settle the original complaint about gains that respectable people refuse.

The general is one stage in a list, not an exception granted superior philosophical insight. After him Socrates turns immediately to musicians, an archer, craftsmen and other intelligent men. The question is common to their distinct competences: can they expect the relevant gain from what they recognise as worthless?

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226c.** στρατηγὸς γιγνώσκων — The commander’s knowledge is part of the hypothesis.
- **226c.** ἡ στρατιὰ αὐτῷ — The arms belong to the force under his direction.
- **226c.** οἴεται ἀπὸ τούτων κερδαίνειν καὶ ἀξιοῖ κερδαίνειν — The question couples expected gain with thinking fit to gain.

**In this edition.** The edition uses “general,” “army” and “arms.” Its apparatus gives stratia in T against strateia in B. Strateia can designate military service or an expedition rather than the force itself; Burnet’s printed stratia underlies the straightforward subject “his army.” This reported variation should not be expanded into a historical claim about a particular kind of Athenian campaign.

**See also.** [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198) · [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90)

## Gold and silver {#entry-gold-and-silver}

*χρυσίον (chrysion), ἀργύριον (argyrion)*

**The word.** Χρυσίον means gold, including gold treated as a valuable material; ἀργύριον means silver and can also denote money. In this exchange the explicit comparison by weight requires retaining the metals, rather than translating both generically as money. Their genitives, χρυσίου and ἀργυρίου, identify the material whose amount or worth is compared.

The nouns do not establish that the transaction uses coins of a particular denomination. No named coin, mint or standard is supplied. The example needs gold and silver because different materials can have different worth for the same physical weight. It does not need a reconstructed commercial contract.

**In Hipparchus.** The companion introduces the metals at 231c after disease and health have defeated acquisition in general as an account of gain. He says that he does not mean something bad, but the case of spending less gold or silver and getting more. This is an attempt to secure the definition by restricting its objects to familiar valuables. Socrates tests whether that restriction makes “more” unambiguous.

He asks about giving half a weight of gold and receiving double in silver. The companion immediately judges the result a loss because the gold, instead of commanding twelve times its weight, yields only twice its weight. Socrates insists that more has nevertheless been received, prompting the qualification “not in worth.” The important contrast is between a larger physical receipt and a smaller value.

The example shows that neither the names of valuable materials nor an increase in weight guarantees gain. Gold is not simply “good” and silver “bad”: the same silver could be advantageous at another price or quantity. What matters is the relation between the outlay and what comes back. The text’s later shorthand that the silver is not of worth should therefore be read in its immediate comparative setting before being generalized to an absolute claim about silver.

The source’s note explains the passage with a twelve-to-one valuation: half a unit of gold would be worth six units of silver, whereas the exchanger receives one. That is the edition’s explanatory model. The Greek’s compressed half/double comparison leaves its reference quantities partly implicit, and this lexicon does not silently replace it with a newly regularized equation. The loss of worth remains clear under the explanatory model and under a same-unit reading that takes the silver receipt as two units.

The episode does not warrant treating twelve-to-one as an invariant market law. The supplied note itself compares Herodotus’ thirteen-to-one reckoning. Its historical reference is an aid to the example, not a claim that a single ratio governed every place and period.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **231c.** χρυσίον ἢ ἀργύριον — The companion narrows the proposed definition to gold or silver.
- **231d.** χρυσίου σταθμὸν ἥμισυν — Gold is specified by weight in Socrates’ test.
- **231d.** διπλάσιον λάβῃ ἀργυρίου — The silver receipt is described as double.
- **231d.** Οὔτι τῇ ἀξίᾳ γε ἀργύριον χρυσίου — The companion distinguishes silver’s amount from its worth relative to gold.

**In this edition.** The translation gives “gold or silver,” avoiding the ambiguity of “money” at exactly the point where difference of material matters. The ratio and Herodotus reference come from the edition’s note 22; no fresh verification of ancient prices or monetary standards is claimed here.

**See also.** [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · [Spending and receiving](#entry-spending-and-receiving) (p. 183)

## Good and bad {#entry-good-and-bad}

*ἀγαθός (agathos); κακός (kakos)*

**The word.** Agathos means good, and kakos bad. Each can evaluate a thing as good or bad of its kind, good or bad for someone, or morally good or bad. Their neuter substantives designate what is good or bad, and their plurals good or bad things. Neither word by itself selects one ethical theory or one measure of practical advantage.

The dialogue’s other principal evaluative pair is decent/base. The two pairs overlap but are not simply identical. The edition keeps their English renderings distinct so the moments when Socrates brings them together remain available for inspection.

**In Hipparchus.** The first explicit proof that gain is good begins from suffering loss. No one is said to benefit from it; men are harmed by loss; loss is bad; gain is its opposite; therefore gain is good. The favourable evaluation is doing essential work when Socrates next generalises desire. If all people love good things, lovers of gain cannot be isolated as a special class merely by their object. This depends both on the inference from opposition and on what “good” means for the people doing the loving.

The companion’s third definition reintroduces moral selection. Decent people refuse certain sources, and good people do not want gains that will harm them. At 227e Socrates asks whether something decent and good can be base. The question is readily answered no, but it joins beneficial goodness to moral decency at the very point where the companion wants to distinguish an acquisition from its consequences. A cash profit can be a gain under one description and bad under another; a definition restricting gain to net good excludes that usage rather than refuting every possible instance.

The retraction at 230a expressly permits good and bad gain, and the food and drink analogy explains how differently evaluated objects can retain one common designation. Good food and bad food are both food; good and bad people are equally human. That classificatory point temporarily protects the companion’s distinction. The ensuing definition of gain nevertheless reintroduces value, because disease is an acquisition without being a gain and health is a gain.

At 231e–232a what is worth possessing is beneficial and the beneficial is good. This route differs from the earlier bare appeal to opposites. Yet its result still depends on treating “worth possessing” as beneficial rather than merely exchangeable or saleable. The final goodness of all gains can therefore be understood as a conclusion about genuine advantage, without making every ordinarily profitable action morally good. The dialogue ends before that interpretive issue is resolved between the speakers.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **227a.** Ἀγαθὸν ἄρα τὸ κέρδος. — Goodness follows the first opposition argument.
- **227d.** εἴπερ ἀγαθά γέ ἐστιν — Good men’s wish for all gains is conditional on their goodness.
- **230a.** κέρδος τι ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἕτερον κέρδος τι κακόν — Socrates provisionally permits good and bad gains.
- **232a.** τὸ ὠφέλιμον ἀγαθόν ἐστιν — The final chain identifies the beneficial as good.

**In this edition.** “Bad”, rather than “evil”, is the edition’s regular kakos. That matters for bad food, harmful disease and a disadvantageous exchange, where metaphysical or heavily moralised “evil” would overstate the sense. The same wide English “good” is retained for agathos, leaving the reader responsible for identifying the relevant standard at each step. Note 7 specifically warns readers to keep the moral pair distinct.

**See also.** [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130)

## Harmodius and Aristogeiton {#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton}

*Ἁρμόδιος (Harmodios); Ἀριστογείτων (Aristogeitōn); παιδικά (paidika)*

**The word.** Ἁρμόδιος and Ἀριστογείτων are Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the men who killed Hipparchus. Παιδικά, a neuter plural used of a person, means a beloved, here Harmodius in relation to Aristogeiton. The expression identifies an erotic relation; it does not on its own tell us that its participants possessed wisdom or that education necessarily took place. Socrates’ story makes education an additional claim.

**In Hipparchus.** The pair enter a narrative that deliberately contests a familiar explanation. Socrates says that the “more cultivated” attribute Hipparchus’ murder to a rivalry over wisdom rather than to the dishonour done to a sister. Aristogeiton has educated Harmodius and takes pride in that achievement. He regards Hipparchus as his opponent. Harmodius in turn loves an unnamed young man, whose initial admiration for both men is displaced by contempt after association with Hipparchus.

The resulting relationships cannot be compressed into a simple contest between two lovers for one beloved. The account distinguishes Aristogeiton’s attachment to Harmodius from Harmodius’ attachment to the younger man, while making both older figures claimants to intellectual admiration. The student’s change of allegiance damages their standing as wise men. The story gives their pain at this dishonour as the immediate motive for the killing.

This educational explanation has a sharp dramatic relevance. A conversation in which a man feels injured by apparent cleverness is interrupted by a story in which reputed educators react disastrously to a loss of recognition. Socrates may be warning against wounded vanity, but that is an interpretative possibility, not his explicit explanation for telling the story. Equally, the account may provoke suspicion about someone who controls both the argument and the history by which he justifies himself.

The historical alternatives should remain separate. Thucydides makes Hipparchus’ failed pursuit of Harmodius and the public insult to Harmodius’ sister central. The Aristotelian Constitution assigns the pursuit and insult to Thessalus. Neither supplies the unnamed young man or the competition in wisdom presented here. The edition notes that the pair received Athenian honours as tyrant-slayers. The dialogue therefore revises the reputation of publicly honoured figures, rather than merely supplying an anecdote about obscure private persons.[^culture-tyrannicides]

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **229c.** παιδικὰ τοῦ Ἀριστογείτονος — Harmodius is Aristogeiton’s beloved.
- **229c.** πεπαιδεῦσθαι ὑπ’ ἐκείνου — The narrative adds that Aristogeiton had educated him.
- **229d.** τόν τε Ἁρμόδιον καὶ τὸν Ἀριστογείτονα ὡς σοφούς — Both initially receive the young man’s admiration as wise.

**In this edition.** “Beloved,” “educated,” “opponent,” and “dishonour” are separate links in the edition’s account. Preserving them prevents the pedagogical story from becoming a generic romantic quarrel. Socrates’ report that cultivated people tell it does not make their social distinction a guarantee of historical truth.

**See also.** [The unnamed young man](#entry-unnamed-young-man) (p. 195) · [Honour dishonour and rivalry](#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry) (p. 108) · [Basket bearing and the sister](#entry-basket-bearing-and-the-sister) (p. 37) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65)

## Health and disease {#entry-health-and-disease}

*ὑγίεια (hygieia), νόσος (nosos)*

**The word.** Ὑγίεια means health; νόσος means disease or illness. The source has the accusatives ὑγίειαν and νόσον as objects of acquiring. These nouns name contrasting bodily conditions, and their value in the hypothetical case is immediately accepted by the companion. They are not used to classify a particular diagnosed illness.

The contrast differs from gain and loss in an important way: health and disease provide familiar examples from which the speakers judge the adequacy of a proposed definition. They are not initially inferred from that definition. The companion’s refusal to count disease as gain supplies an independent check on the unrestricted acquisition account.

**In Hipparchus.** At 231a gain is provisionally described as every possession obtained with no expenditure or with a smaller outlay than receipt. The first condition permits the disease example: a guest is entertained at a feast, spends nothing, and acquires illness. The companion refuses the label gain. Socrates then changes the outcome to health and receives the opposite verdict. The paired test shows that lack of expenditure is compatible with either an advantageous or a disadvantageous acquisition.

Socrates moves from these examples to a more general conditional: if the acquisition is good, it appears to be gain; if bad, loss (231b–c). The result returns to the earlier opposition between good gain and bad loss. The companion is brought back to the claim he had asked to retract. The bodily pair therefore performs decisive argumentative work rather than merely illustrating an already settled distinction.

The scope of that work must be kept proportionate. The case shows that some acquisitions are not gains because they are bad. It does not yet prove that every ordinary use of “gain” excludes harm in any respect. A financial gain can be accompanied by illness, shame or another cost. Socrates’ formulation encourages assessment of the acquired condition itself; the earlier complaint about gain-loving concerned character and conduct. Those perspectives need not coincide without further argument.

Nor does the passage give medical advice. It does not specify what food causes illness or what feast produces health. Its premise is an intelligible possibility, sufficient for testing the proposed definition. Treating the hypothetical health gain as a recommendation to feast, or the disease as evidence of a general condemnation of rich dining, would add content the text does not supply.

Health and disease thus anchor the distinction between having more and being better off. Their clarity makes the definition’s failure easy to see, while the move from a clear bodily case to a universal ethical conclusion remains open to scrutiny.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **231b.** νόσον κτήσηται — Disease is acquired despite the absence of expenditure.
- **231b.** Ὑγίειαν δὲ κτησάμενος — Health is substituted as the contrasting outcome.
- **231b.** ἐάν γε ἀγαθόν — The companion’s qualification makes goodness decisive.
- **231c.** ἡ δὲ ζημία κακόν — The bodily example returns the discussion to loss as bad.

**In this edition.** The edition translates νόσος “disease” and ὑγίεια “health.” It expressly revises the answer at 231b to “It appears he will, if it is good, at least,” preventing an English reader from taking the assent as a denial that acquiring a good thing is gain. The question’s negative structure makes that clarification important.

**See also.** [Feast and hospitality](#entry-feast-and-hospitality) (p. 76) · [Body](#entry-body) (p. 42) · [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161) · [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152)

## Herms and Hermes {#entry-herms-and-hermes}

*Ἑρμῆς (Hermēs); Ἑρμαῖ (Hermai)*

**The word.** Ἑρμῆς is Hermes, and the same name can designate a Herm, the stone monument representing him. Ἑρμαῖ is a plural form used of these monuments; the accusative Ἑρμᾶς appears when Hipparchus sets them up. A Herm is a pillar bearing a head of Hermes, not simply an unadorned milestone. The movement between god and object is especially visible when the inscribed Hermes is made to speak.

**In Hipparchus.** The objects have a double function in Socrates’ account. They identify a midpoint between town and deme, and they present a moral saying attached to Hipparchus’ name. The first function assists geographical orientation; the second invites ethical and intellectual orientation. Because the monument is Hermes, the information is voiced by a recognisable divine figure rather than by an anonymous post.

At 229a the description explicitly says that Hermes is inscribed as speaking. The other inscription calls the object a memorial of Hipparchus. This layering gives the monument several authorities: the represented god, the publicly placed object, the memorable verse, and the attributed human teacher. The passage does not analyse how these authorities interact, but the reader should notice that Socrates’ eventual appeal to Hipparchus comes through this constructed public voice.

The programme’s stated aim is to educate country people. The statues are therefore described as instruments of a wider invitation: a traveller who tastes the wisdom is supposed to come in for more. This makes the Herm both a self-contained maxim and a partial sample. It is unnecessary to label the project either wholly altruistic or wholly propagandistic; the text states a wish to improve citizens and a wish to make them prefer Hipparchus’ wisdom.

A surviving Herm found at Koropi carries the geographic verse about Kephale and the town. It provides material support for the type of monument and its midpoint language. The lost second line is restored by reference to the dialogue in the modern inscription edition; its reconstructed wording must not be counted as independent physical proof of the very literary account used to restore it.[^culture-herm-evidence]

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228d.** ἔστησεν αὐτοῖς Ἑρμᾶς — Hipparchus erects the monuments for the country population.
- **229a.** λέγων ὁ Ἑρμῆς ὅτι — Hermes is represented as giving the monument’s location.
- **229a.** ἐν ἄλλοις Ἑρμαῖς — The quoted examples belong to a larger series.

**In this edition.** The edition capitalises “Herms” to retain their identity as representations of Hermes. Its archaeological note appropriately says that the surviving example is generally assigned to Hipparchus. The distinction between the extant geographic text and the restored commemorative line is especially important when using archaeology to test the narrative rather than merely illustrate it.

**See also.** [Inscriptions and memorials](#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials) (p. 119) · [Roads and Steiria](#entry-roads-and-steiria) (p. 168) · [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65)

## Hipparchus {#entry-hipparchus}

*Ἵππαρχος (Hipparchos)*

**The word.** Ἵππαρχος is the personal name Hipparchus. The bearer here is the son of Pisistratus whose public benefactions and death Socrates recounts, not the later astronomer. Inflected forms include Ἱππάρχῳ, “to Hipparchus,” and Ἱππάρχου, “of Hipparchus.” The traditional title names someone who never enters the conversation: his presence is mediated by Socrates’ narrative and by quoted inscriptions.

**In Hipparchus.** Hipparchus enters as the answer to an apparent ethical difficulty. Accused of deceiving his companion, Socrates says that he obeys a good and wise man. The companion asks who; Socrates supplies a fellow citizen with a genealogy and an impressive programme of cultural patronage. Only after Homer, the poets and the roadside educational scheme does the relevant command emerge: do not deceive a friend. The long identification makes the authority of the command depend partly on the character and accomplishments of its attributed author.

The portrait joins several kinds of power. Hipparchus controls recitation, transports a poet, pays another, selects exemplary wisdom and places his name before travellers. His professed wish to make citizens as good as possible accompanies his wish to rule over them. Giving wisdom freely and gathering admiration are both part of the narrative; neither should be removed to make him either an uncomplicated benefactor or an obvious villain. His rivalry with Delphi, followed by his fatal rivalry with private educators, keeps the question of what a teacher gains within a dialogue nominally concerned with gain.

Socrates calls him the eldest and wisest of Pisistratus’ sons. This is the dialogue’s claim, not an agreed historical datum. Thucydides expressly identifies Hippias as the eldest and ruling son; the supplied edition also compares the Aristotelian Constitution. The account of intellectual rivalry as the cause of Hipparchus’ murder likewise belongs to this dialogue’s distinctive presentation. A reader can find these departures provocative without pretending that their literary purpose is certain.[^culture-hipparchus-history]

The companion’s response supplies the decisive dramatic limit on the praise. He does not dispute the genealogy or the cultural history. He objects that Socrates must either deny their friendship or disobey Hipparchus, since the argument still feels deceptive. The story therefore furnishes a standard by which Socrates can be judged; it does not by itself acquit him.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228b.** πρεσβύτατος καὶ σοφώτατος — “Eldest and wisest”: a paired assertion whose historical and evaluative components need separate scrutiny.
- **228c.** βουλόμενος παιδεύειν τοὺς πολίτας — The stated purpose of the cultural benefactions is citizen education.
- **229b.** μὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα — The maxim makes the historical portrait immediately relevant to the conversation.

**In this edition.** The edition consistently attributes the story to Socrates and warns that its history differs from the historians’. Its “a fine and good man” preserves a conspicuous ethical commendation at 228c; it should not be silently reduced to social rank. The title’s prominence does not mean that Hipparchus, rather than the unnamed companion, is Socrates’ interlocutor.

**See also.** [Hippias and tyranny](#entry-hippias-and-tyranny) (p. 103) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80) · [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35)

## Hippias and tyranny {#entry-hippias-and-tyranny}

*Ἱππίας (Hippias); τυραννίς (tyrannis); τυραννεῖσθαι (tyranneisthai)*

**The word.** Ἱππίας is Hippias, Hipparchus’ brother. Τυραννίς means tyranny, the rule of a tyrant; τυραννεῖσθαι means to be ruled by a tyrant. The text has the aorist passive ἐτυραννεύθησαν, “were ruled by a tyrant.” The noun can identify a political regime, while in this narrative it also carries the evaluative contrast between oppressive rule and a supposedly happier earlier time.

**In Hipparchus.** At 229b Socrates makes Hipparchus’ death the dividing line in Athenian political experience. He says that the Athenians were then ruled by his brother Hippias for three years, and presents the men of old as witnesses that these alone were the years of tyranny. The statement lends retrospective authority to Hipparchus: losing him is made to mean losing an almost golden-age way of life.

This is stronger than saying that an existing tyranny became harsher. The dialogue’s “only” restricts the name tyranny to the last period. Its political description depends on the character of the regime, or at least on the approving vocabulary used of it, more than on a supplied constitutional definition. Nothing in the passage explains institutions that would distinguish Hipparchus’ earlier rule from Hippias’ later rule. Calling the earlier life nearly Cronian is a eulogy, not an institutional analysis.

The edition’s historical controls matter here. Thucydides gives Hippias the succession from Pisistratus and reports a harsher regime after Hipparchus’ assassination; the Aristotelian Constitution similarly distinguishes earlier and later conditions. Those accounts allow a change of severity without requiring a change from non-tyranny to tyranny. Consequently, agreement over an interval of approximately three years cannot be used to harmonise the whole narrative.[^culture-tyranny]

Within the conversation, this retrospective political praise completes the credentials of the man whose command Socrates claims to obey. Yet the argument about gain has not supplied a criterion for evaluating political rule, and the companion has not assented to the historical claims one by one. Their persuasive effect and their evidential status therefore remain distinct. The later language of being “compelled” by the argument may invite comparison with authority and rule, but the text does not equate Socrates with Hippias or identify dialectical pressure as literal tyranny.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **229b.** τρία ἔτη ἐτυραννεύθησαν Ἀθηναῖοι — The three-year period is explicitly placed after Hipparchus’ death.
- **229b.** ταῦτα μόνον τὰ ἔτη — “Only these”: the restriction makes the claim more than a change in harshness.
- **229b.** τυραννὶς ἐγένετο ἐν Ἀθήναις — The noun names the political condition restricted to those years.

**In this edition.** The edition renders the verb “were ruled by a tyrant” and the noun “tyranny,” keeping the verbal action and the named condition audible. Its note cites Thucydides 6.59 and the Constitution 16.7. Those references qualify the dramatic claim; they do not license rewriting Socrates’ account into the historians’ version.

**See also.** [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101) · [Cronus and the golden age](#entry-cronus-and-the-golden-age) (p. 49) · [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154)

## Homer and rhapsodes {#entry-homer-and-rhapsodes}

*Ὅμηρος (Homēros); ἔπος (epos); ῥαψῳδός (rhapsōdos); ὑπόληψις (hypolēpsis)*

**The word.** Ὅμηρος is Homer, the poet to whom the epics are attributed. Ἔπος means a word or utterance and, in the plural ἔπη here, epic poetry. Ῥαψῳδός is a rhapsode, a performer who recites epic verse. Ὑπόληψις means a taking up or succession in this context; ἐξ ὑπολήψεως describes one performer taking up where another has left off. It is not used here in its other possible sense of an assumption or opinion.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates makes Hipparchus the first to bring Homer’s epics into the country and credits him with compelling rhapsodes at the Panathenaea to proceed consecutively, each taking over from the previous performer. The report includes both access to poetry and regulation of its public performance. “As even now they do” connects the attributed initiative with a practice familiar at the conversation’s dramatic present.

Neither claim should be expanded into a full history of the Homeric text. The dialogue does not describe an editor collating manuscripts, composing the Iliad and Odyssey, or establishing a definitive written recension. The ordering of performance presupposes some understanding of sequence, but the passage does not explain the material form in which that order was transmitted. Likewise, “first brought” is Socrates’ commemorative claim about Hipparchus, not an independently established account of Homer’s earliest circulation in Attica.

The placement of the episode gives public poetry an educational role. Hipparchus’ later stated wish to educate citizens gathers the Homeric performance together with his patronage of lyric poets and his own maxims. Yet the text quotes no Homeric passage and does not explain what moral content the rhapsodes teach. Their contribution is presented institutionally, through making a major poetic tradition publicly available and ordered.

The verb of compulsion is conspicuous. It can describe enforcing a performance rule without implying that the poems’ audience is intellectually convinced. Later the companion says that the argument has compelled rather than persuaded him. The verbal connection invites comparison between ordered performance and ordered assent, but it does not prove that Hipparchus’ regulation was either educationally defective or a coded portrait of Socrates.

An alternative ancient attribution survives: Diogenes Laertius assigns a consecutive-recitation rule to Solon. The discrepancy limits any easy inference from the story to historical priority. Aelian’s later repetition explicitly names the dialogue as his source, so it is not an independent confirmation.[^culture-homer]

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228b.** τὰ Ὁμήρου ἔπη — The objects brought to Athens are Homer’s epics.
- **228b.** ἠνάγκασε τοὺς ῥαψῳδοὺς — The narrative stresses enforced regulation of performers.
- **228b.** ἐξ ὑπολήψεως ἐφεξῆς — Taking turns and consecutive order are both expressed.
- **228b.** ὥσπερ νῦν ἔτι — The practice is said to continue in the dramatic present.

**In this edition.** The edition uses “epics” for ἔπη and “poems” for Hipparchus’ own compositions, preserving the local distinction. At 228b7 its apparatus reports that B has ἔπη while TW omit it; Burnet retains the noun. This is the supplied apparatus’s evidence, not a new examination of the manuscripts.

**See also.** [Panathenaea](#entry-panathenaea) (p. 150) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154) · [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35)

## Honour dishonour and rivalry {#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry}

*ἀτιμία (atimia); ἀνταγωνιστής (antagōnistēs); μέγα φρονεῖν (mega phronein)*

**The word.** Ἀτιμία means dishonour or loss of honour. Although it can have technical legal uses elsewhere, the dialogue uses it for a ceremonial slight and a loss of intellectual esteem, not a specified sentence of civic disenfranchisement. Ἀνταγωνιστής is an opponent or rival in a contest. Μέγα φρονεῖν, literally to think greatly, means to pride oneself or think highly of oneself; here the cause of pride is an educational achievement.

**In Hipparchus.** The passage repeats dishonour across the two rival accounts of Hipparchus’ death. The familiar account concerns a sister’s exclusion from basket-bearing. Socrates dismisses that explanation and supplies a supposedly more cultivated one: Harmodius and Aristogeiton are dishonoured when a young admirer comes to despise them. The object of injury changes from ceremonial standing to reputation for wisdom, but the emotional structure survives.

Aristogeiton’s pride supplies the competitive frame. He has educated Harmodius and regards Hipparchus as his opponent. The narrative does not first announce a formally organised contest with agreed rules. “Opponent” shows how Aristogeiton understands the relationship. Nor does Socrates demonstrate that Hipparchus consciously competed for this particular young man; the younger man’s association with him becomes the occasion of the others’ loss of esteem.

This makes the word “dishonour” more than a decorative moral label. It connects a private feeling with publicly intelligible ranking. The men are hurt not only because someone changes a belief but because that change lowers their standing as wise. The final violence is attributed to their intense reaction to that humiliation. Nothing in the narrative makes the reaction justified simply because an injury is felt.

The recurring concern with recognition also bears on Hipparchus’ programme. His sayings are meant to be ranked above Delphi’s, and his name is repeated in the memorial formula. The praised teacher and his condemned rivals inhabit an economy of esteem, even though their actions differ radically. In the surrounding conversation, the companion’s resistance can likewise be examined as either wounded self-regard or a legitimate demand for better reasoning. The text gives no warrant for dismissing every objection as vanity merely because the cultural story condemns a destructive rivalry.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **229c.** ἀτιμίαν τῆς κανηφορίας — The first account centres on dishonour over basket-bearing.
- **229c.** μέγα δ’ ἐφρόνει — Aristogeiton’s pride is explicitly stated.
- **229c.** ἀνταγωνιστὴν ἡγεῖτο — The opponent relation is framed as his judgment.
- **229d.** ταύτῃ τῇ ἀτιμίᾳ — The repeated noun now concerns being despised as educators.

**In this edition.** The edition deliberately uses “dishonour” in both places so that the recurrence can be heard. “Prided himself” keeps the idiom distinct from ordinary thinking, while “opponent” retains the competitive structure. The title’s “honour” names the positive standing whose loss is at issue; no independent occurrence of the noun τιμή is being claimed.

**See also.** [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94) · [Basket bearing and the sister](#entry-basket-bearing-and-the-sister) (p. 37) · [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17) · [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69)

## Horseman and horse {#entry-horseman-and-horse}

*ἱππικός (hippikos); ἵππος (hippos); σιτίον (sition); διαφθείρω (diaphtheirō)*

**The word.** Hippikos means equestrian or skilled in horsemanship; the text’s hippikon andra, an accusative phrase, is rendered “a horseman.” Hippos is a horse. Sition is food, with the plural sitia used for the horse’s provisions. Diaphtheirō means to destroy, spoil or ruin; its present form diaphtheirei describes the damage the man does to the animal. “Horseman” here identifies practical knowledge, not a stated cavalry rank or a particular social class.

**In Hipparchus.** At 226a–b the horseman extends the farmer’s case while changing its mechanism. A plant may fail to produce a valuable result; worthless food positively ruins an existing horse. Socrates asks whether the knowledgeable horseman could be ignorant of that consequence. Once the companion denies the ignorance, Socrates concludes that the man does not think he gains from the food. The case links knowledge of an input’s quality to knowledge of damage caused by its use.

The horse is thus not merely one more object labelled worthless. It is a valuable dependent object whose condition is changed by what the practitioner supplies. The example makes the relation between immediate acquisition and subsequent loss vivid before loss becomes the explicit opposite of gain at 226e–227a. A cheap provision may be disastrous when assessed through the continuing activity it supports.

Even so, the actual question is not whether every equestrian practitioner always feeds a horse well. Socrates stipulates that the man knows the food is worthless and asks what he thinks follows. Nor is a complete account of veterinary or nutritional knowledge supplied. The argument depends on the companion granting this inference in a deliberately obvious case. It has not yet excluded every situation in which someone knowingly accepts damage to one possession for an advantage elsewhere.

The animal disappears from the dialogue, but its food returns lexically in the later comparison between good and bad food at 230a–231a. There the point is that both remain food regardless of quality. This is a significant change of question. Earlier bad provisions rule out expected gain from their use; later bad food retains membership in its kind. A reader should not assume that being genuinely food makes it beneficial. The free feast that produces disease at 231b gives a human counterpart to nourishment that damages its recipient.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226a.** ἱππικὸν ἄνδρα — The occupational description is an adjective with “man”.
- **226a.** τὸν ἵππον διαφθείρει — The known consequence is ruining the horse.
- **226b.** τῶν σιτίων τῶν μηδενὸς ἀξίων — The denial of gain concerns the worthless provisions.
- **230a.** σιτίον ἐστίν τι ἀγαθόν τε καὶ κακόν — Food later illustrates the difference between a kind and its quality.

**In this edition.** The edition keeps “food” for sition in both contexts, permitting this connection without inventing a separate Greek term for fodder. It translates the printed present diaphtheirei as “is ruining.” The apparatus records Cobet’s proposed future diaphtherei; it does not print that proposal as the text. The difference concerns how the consequence is presented in time, not whether damage to the horse counts as the relevant result.

**See also.** [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74) · [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128) · [Drink and wetness](#entry-drink-and-wetness) (p. 62)

## Human beings {#entry-human-beings}

*ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos), ἀνήρ (anēr)*

**The word.** Ἄνθρωπος means a human being or person; ἀνήρ means a man and can mark an adult male, a particular man, or a courteous address. The edition commonly translates both as “man” or “men,” so the English alone does not preserve every lexical distinction. The universal claim πάντες ἄνθρωποι concerns the human category, while the dramatic speakers and many occupational examples are male.

Neither noun by itself denotes moral worth. At 230c a decent person and a base person are equally human. The grammatical vocabulary therefore distinguishes membership in the kind from a person’s evaluative description. This distinction is explicit, although its wider ethical consequences are not developed.

**In Hipparchus.** The argument repeatedly expands from a described sort of person to everyone. The first account produces the startling result that no human being is a lover of gain (226d). The next produces the opposite: all people love good things, gain is good, therefore all appear lovers of gain (227b–c). At the end, the same universal class is recovered by joining decent and base people under their wish for gains (232b–c).

Between those universals, the human example is used in a narrower analogy (230b–c). Just as good and bad food remain food, decent and base people remain equally human. Socrates specifically denies that either is more or less human than the other. This is a claim about classification in the argument, not an explicit proclamation of a modern political principle. It also says nothing about equal wealth, capacities or happiness.

Applied to gain, the analogy creates a question rather than a completed proof. If good and bad gains share a name as decent and base humans do, what makes both gains? Socrates nevertheless moves directly from equal kind-membership to the claim that one possessor gains no more than another. The human example highlights the difficulty: equality as human beings does not imply equality in every human action or condition.

The ending’s “all men” must accordingly be read under the argument’s shifting definition of gain. If gain means genuine good, wishing for it can be universal without carrying the original reproach of graspingness. If love of gain means the shameful willingness to profit where decent people would refuse, universality has not been independently demonstrated. The common human noun stays stable while the predicate attached to it changes its apparent moral force.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226d.** οὐκ ἔστ’ ἀνθρώπων οὐδεὶς — The first definition seems to leave no human instance.
- **230c.** ἄνθρωπός γε οἶμαι οὐδέτερος — Neither decent nor base person differs in being human.
- **232c.** πάντες ἄνθρωποι — The closing result is universal.
- **228b.** ἀνδρὶ ἀγαθῷ καὶ σοφῷ — A particular good and wise man is invoked as an authority.

**In this edition.** The source’s “all men” preserves its chosen English idiom; glossing ἄνθρωπος as “human being” helps readers distinguish it from ἀνήρ without rewriting the translation. The article does not infer details about citizenship, gender inclusion in Athenian institutions, or the companion’s biography from a universal logical expression.

**See also.** [All some and none](#entry-all-some-and-none) (p. 22) · [Sameness and difference](#entry-sameness-and-difference) (p. 170) · [Reproach and the ending](#entry-reproach-and-the-ending) (p. 166) · [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51)

## Inquiry and imitation {#entry-inquiry-and-imitation}

*ἐπισκέπτεσθαι (episkeptesthai), σκοπεῖν (skopein), μιμεῖσθαι (mimeisthai), ἀποκρίνεσθαι (apokrinesthai)*

**The word.** Ἐπισκέπτεσθαι is to investigate or look into a question; σκοπεῖν is to examine or consider it. The edition uses “look into” for both in the final inquiry, according to context. Μιμεῖσθαι means to imitate, and ἀποκρίνεσθαι to answer. At 231a the object of imitation is a way of answering, not a dramatic impersonation or a theory about imitative art.

The actual forms include ἐπισκέψασθαι, “to look into,” σκόπει, “look into it,” and ἀποκρινόμενον, “answering.” Their different verbal aspects and constructions should not be mistaken for different technical methods. What matters locally is who supplies a candidate answer and who inspects it.

**In Hipparchus.** At 230d Socrates says that “we” must look into why the companion calls both decent and base gain gain. The question is not initially which sort he prefers. It is what he sees that is the same in both. Food and drink provide models: each can be good or bad while retaining a common description, respectively dry or wet nourishment of the body. Socrates exhibits an answer to a question of kind before requiring an answer about gain.

“Try ... to imitate me” then gives the companion a manageable assignment (231a). He need not invent the format as well as the definition. He is to say what the contrasted examples possess in common. The instruction is pedagogical: abstract inquiry proceeds through familiar cases, and a model answer reduces the difficulty of moving from examples to an account.

Yet the companion does not produce the proposed definition independently. Socrates immediately adds that if he cannot answer, he should examine what Socrates says, and offers acquisition without expenditure or acquisition of more for less. The companion replies “I think I call that gain.” This tentative endorsement differs from a confident exposition of his own theory. Socrates subsequently tests the proposal he has supplied, first with disease acquired at a feast, then with metal exchange. Responsibility for the formulation is consequently shared, even though the final conclusion is called the companion’s argument.

The sequence helps explain both the effectiveness and the strain of the dialogue. Socrates makes an unclear claim testable and offers tools for answering. He also determines the choice of examples and the vocabulary in which the answer develops. Readers should therefore distinguish an invitation to participate from evidence of equal control over the inquiry. The final “compelled ... rather than persuaded” is consistent with the companion’s having followed each local question without fully owning the account that emerges.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **230d.** δεῖ ἡμᾶς ἐπισκέψασθαι — Inquiry is presented as a task for both speakers.
- **231a.** πειρῶ οὖν καὶ σὺ ἐμὲ μιμεῖσθαι — The companion is asked to imitate Socrates’ form of answer.
- **231a.** ἐμοῦ λέγοντος σκόπει — If unable to formulate an answer, he is to inspect Socrates’ proposal.
- **231b.** Ἔμοιγε δοκῶ τοῦτο καλεῖν κέρδος — His assent to the proposed definition is qualified as what he thinks he calls gain.

**In this edition.** “Imitate” belongs to a single, explicit conversational instruction; it should not be inflated into a claim about a developed doctrine of mimesis. The edition’s “look into it as I speak” preserves an active role for the listener even while Socrates supplies the words. This is more exact than presenting the episode as either pure joint discovery or mere dictation.

**See also.** [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154) · [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78) · [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161)

## Insatiability and craving {#entry-insatiability-and-craving}

*ἀπληστία (aplēstia); γλίχεσθαι (glichesthai); ὑπερφυῶς (hyperphyōs); σπουδάζειν (spoudazein)*

**The word.** Aplēstia means insatiability, the condition of not being filled or satisfied. Glichesthai means to cling to, crave or hanker after something. Hyperphyōs means extraordinarily or prodigiously; here it intensifies the craving. Spoudazein means to be in earnest, take something seriously or devote oneself to it. It appears in the companion’s next definition and shifts the description from appetite toward determined pursuit.

The terms do not say only that an object is wanted. They describe the degree, persistence or organising force of the attachment. That is why replacing the whole group with the neutral word “desire” would erase an important part of the companion’s objection.

**In Hipparchus.** When Socrates declares the first definition empty, the companion supplies a behavioural picture: the lovers of gain, every time and out of insatiability, crave even very small things and things worth little or nothing prodigiously. The disproportion is between the intensity of the pursuit and the object’s size or worth. Someone who cannot pass up a negligible advantage could fit this description even without believing it a great advantage. The companion is trying to make excess, rather than a straightforwardly false calculation, do the explanatory work.

Socrates answers that such people cannot knowingly pursue things worth nothing, because that has already been found impossible. He then infers ignorance and the belief that worthless things are worth much. This response catches one part of the description, actual worthlessness, but not all of it. Smallness, slight value and zero value are distinct; so are overvaluing an object and caring too much about an object one correctly values. The dialogue does not explicitly disentangle those possibilities.

The next move asks only whether lovers of gain love gain. With that simple predication the adverbial and motivational qualifications largely fall away. If gain is good and everyone loves good things, everyone qualifies. The result is strongest as an exposure of how an ordinary reproach can be widened by unpacking a compound; it does not independently demonstrate that insatiability is a universal human trait.

The third definition’s spoudazein makes a comparable attempt to specify disposition, now by earnest pursuit of forbidden sources. The closing recapitulation says base men love gains small and great, and good men wish for every good thing. The equal extension is obtained without returning to whether they pursue those objects with the same urgency, proportion or restraint. The shift from “prodigiously” to an unqualified “love” is thus indispensable to a careful reading of the ending.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226d.** ὑπὸ ἀπληστίας — The cause of the second definition’s pursuit is insatiability.
- **226e.** γλίχονται ὑπερφυῶς — The attachment is marked as excessive in intensity.
- **227d.** σπουδάζῃ ἐπὶ τούτοις — The third definition adds earnest commitment to particular sources.
- **232c.** σμικρὰ καὶ μεγάλα κέρδη φιλοῦσιν — The final summary retains size but omits the earlier intensity.

**In this edition.** The edition’s “crave prodigiously” is more informative than a smooth “seek profit”, because it preserves the potentially lost qualification. “In earnest” likewise distinguishes spoudazein from the surrounding verbs of thinking and wishing. The word “even” in the translation captures the force of kai before the small objects. These details belong to the argument, not merely its colourful surface.

**See also.** [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212) · [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130) · [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123)

## Inscriptions and memorials {#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials}

*γράμματα (grammata); ἐπίγραμμα (epigramma); μνῆμα (mnēma); ἐπιγράφειν (epigraphein)*

**The word.** Γράμματα, literally letters or written characters, here means inscriptions, especially the famous sayings at Delphi. Ἐπίγραμμα is something written on an object, an inscription; τὠπιγράμματε is the contracted dual expression for the two inscriptions. Μνῆμα means a memorial or remembrance, something that keeps a person or event in mind. Ἐπιγράφειν means to inscribe or write on; its forms describe the placement of Hipparchus’ sayings on the Herms.

**In Hipparchus.** The inscription narrative contrasts several kinds of writing. Delphi’s letters already enjoy public esteem. Hipparchus composes and inscribes sayings of his own so that the citizens will consider them wiser. The medium is therefore more than a neutral container: the selection, public setting and attribution affect whose wisdom receives recognition.

The two inscriptions are described by their positions on the Herm. One tells the passer-by that the monument stands halfway between town and deme; the other combines a commemorative formula with an ethical command. The first is reported indirectly, while two versions of the second are quoted as verse. A reader should not count both quoted ethical lines as the two inscriptions simultaneously present on every Herm. They are examples from different monuments, one of them located on the Steirian road.

“Memorial” need not mean a tombstone or a monument erected after death. The story has Hipparchus establish the Herms as part of his living educational activity. The formula announces whose wisdom and initiative the object commemorates. Its repetition works alongside the repeated moral commands: one remembers the rule and the giver together.

The written command eventually enters a spoken examination. Socrates quotes the injunction against deception to guarantee his conduct, but the companion immediately asks whether that guarantee is being honoured. Writing supplies an apparently fixed standard; it does not supply a judgment about its present application. The transition from inscription to argument thus exposes the distance between possessing a maxim and living or conversing in accordance with it.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228e.** τὰ ἐν Δελφοῖς γράμματα — The Delphic sayings are identified as written inscriptions.
- **228e.** ἐστὸν δὲ δύο τὠπιγράμματε — The dual expression explicitly counts two inscriptions.
- **229a.** μνῆμα τόδ’ Ἱππάρχου — The repeated commemorative formula names Hipparchus.
- **229a.** ἐπιγεγραμμένα — The participle describes poems written on other Herms.

**In this edition.** The edition’s “inscriptions” serves both γράμματα and ἐπίγραμμα, while “memorial” preserves the distinct force of μνῆμα. Its note identifies the quoted moral lines as pentameters, rather than complete couplets. The apparatus reports alternative spellings of the left- and right-hand expressions; these should not be inflated into evidence that the monuments’ arrangement was different.

**See also.** [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99) · [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67) · [Delphi and its maxims](#entry-delphi-and-its-maxims) (p. 58) · [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80)

## Justice and just thoughts {#entry-justice-and-just-thoughts}

*δίκαιος (dikaios); φρονεῖν (phronein)*

**The word.** Δίκαιος means just or right in conduct. The inscription has δίκαια, neuter plural, “just things” or “just thoughts,” rather than the abstract noun δικαιοσύνη, justice. Φρονεῖν means to think, have a mind or be disposed in a certain way; φρονῶν is the present participle, describing the traveller as thinking justly while proceeding. The title names the ethical topic; it does not claim that the abstract noun occurs here.

**In Hipparchus.** The first quoted moral line tells the passer-by to go on with just thoughts. Its setting is important: an ordinary journey is made the occasion for attention to the quality of one’s intentions. The saying does not specify a legal dispute, name a law or give a procedure for distinguishing just actions. It offers a general demand for a rightly directed mind.

The syntax joins movement and disposition. The imperative orders the person to proceed; the participle characterises the manner or accompanying state in which that proceeding should occur. “With just thoughts” therefore avoids turning the command into a promise that a particular path is legally permitted or safe. The road supplies the literal action, while the adjective broadens its significance to conduct.

Within the narrative this maxim precedes the more immediately relevant command not to deceive a friend. The sequence gives the friendship injunction an ethical setting, but Socrates does not explicitly derive it from a theory of justice. Nor does he return to define δίκαια in the later reasoning about gain. The absence is instructive: the discussion repeatedly asks whether gain is good or beneficial, while the public moral text presents justice as a demand whose precise relation to advantage remains unexplained.

A reader may therefore ask whether a gain that benefits its recipient can nevertheless violate justice toward someone else. That question exposes a possible limitation in treating benefit as a complete account of gain’s goodness. It is an analytical question prompted by juxtaposition, not a solution supplied by the inscription itself. The maxim should not be made to prove a doctrine that the dialogue never develops.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **229a.** στεῖχε δίκαια φρονῶν — The whole ethical clause binds proceeding to a just disposition.
- **229a.** μνῆμα τόδ’ Ἱππάρχου — The injunction is presented as Hipparchus’ memorial.
- **229b.** μὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα — The next quoted maxim gives a more determinate relational prohibition.

**In this edition.** “Go your way with just thoughts” keeps both the physical imperative and the participial disposition. “Act justly” would be a plausible broad paraphrase but would suppress the road’s role. The edition does not introduce a technical theory of justice into this line, and the lexicon likewise distinguishes an ethical injunction from a definition.

**See also.** [Roads and Steiria](#entry-roads-and-steiria) (p. 168) · [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67)

## Knowledge and ignorance {#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance}

*γιγνώσκειν (gignōskein); ἀγνοεῖν (agnoein); ἐπιστήμων (epistēmōn); εἰδέναι (eidenai)*

**The word.** Gignōskein means to know, recognise or understand; agnoein means to be ignorant of, fail to know or fail to recognise. Epistēmōn means knowledgeable or expert in a specified matter. Eidenai, the infinitive corresponding to oida, means to know. The dialogue uses these expressions without presenting a systematic division between recognition, expert knowledge and every other cognitive state.

The opening inquiry concerns knowledge of worth, not possession of information in general. Someone might know an object’s features while misjudging its usefulness or return. Conversely, a practitioner’s expertise is invoked because it lets him assess the relevant worth in a concrete activity.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates’ first division gives the companion a difficult choice: those who pursue worthless things either know their worthlessness or do not. The ignorant would be senseless, a description the companion rejects in favour of calculated baseness. Socrates therefore asks who is expert about the plant’s value at a particular season and place. The answer, the farmer, makes the alleged lover of gain answerable to the very practical knowledge the companion attributes to him.

The succeeding cases require the knowledgeable rider not to be ignorant that bad food ruins his horse, and the pilot to foresee loss from bad equipment. The inference connects knowledge of resources with knowledge of consequences. It is persuasive within the specified practice, but cannot automatically establish what every knowledgeable person might do for another purpose, such as selling rather than using the defective object. The dialogue also leaves little room at this stage for knowingly accepting one loss to secure some separate good.

At 226e the second account is pushed into the ignorant branch. If people crave valueless objects, they must suppose those objects worth much. Ignorance now operates as a mistaken estimate, not bare absence of thought. This explains why someone may seek what is actually harmful while remaining oriented toward apparent gain. The generalisation that everyone loves good things later depends on how appearance and reality are related; the text does not pause to supply a formal account of that relation.

There is a different ignorance in the companion’s accusation at 228a and 229e: he cannot say how Socrates deceives him. This admission need not concede that the reasoning is trustworthy. He distinguishes a felt argumentative difficulty from the ability to diagnose its mechanism. The ending confirms the distinction when agreement is compelled without persuasion. The dialogue therefore gives both practical knowledge of objects and reflective uncertainty about argument a role.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225a.** ἢ ἀγνοοῦντες; — The knowledge dilemma makes ignorance an explicit alternative.
- **225c.** ἐπιστήμονα εἶναι περὶ τῆς ἀξίας — The relevant expertise concerns worth.
- **226e.** οἰόμενοι δὲ τὰ οὐδενὸς ἄξια πολλοῦ ἄξια εἶναι — Ignorance is accompanied by an affirmative but mistaken estimate.
- **228a.** οὐκ οἶδα ὅπῃ — The companion admits that he cannot identify how the arguments are being twisted.

**In this edition.** The edition normally renders gignōskein “know” and agnoein “be ignorant”, preserving their explicit opposition. It does not translate them as technical terms from a later theory of knowledge. “Has knowledge” renders the adjectival epistēmōn at 225c. The quoted finite forms should be distinguished from the dictionary-style infinitives in the header.

**See also.** [Senselessness and intelligence](#entry-senselessness-and-intelligence) (p. 172) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145) · [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46) · [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53)

## Lawsuits and fine speaking {#entry-lawsuits-and-fine-speaking}

*δίκη (dikē); δεξιός (dexios); καλλιεπέομαι (kalliepeomai); ῥῆμα (rhēma)*

**The word.** Dikē can mean justice, a judgment or a legal action; in the plural dikas at 225c it means lawsuits. Dexios literally means right-hand or on the right, and figuratively clever or skilful; the text’s dexioi describes people clever at lawsuits. Kalliepeomai means to speak in fine language, with kalliepountai its third-person plural form here. Rhēma is a saying, expression or spoken formulation; rhēmata names the “wise sayings” whose phrasing Socrates momentarily imitates.

**In Hipparchus.** The legal speakers appear in an aside within the farmer example. Having asked in what “time and clime” plants are worth planting, Socrates remarks that he too is inserting one of the wise expressions with which people clever at lawsuits speak finely. The immediate object of attention is a rhyming phrase, not an actual lawsuit. Neither litigants nor an audience nor a disputed legal question enters the scene.

The aside makes verbal competence visible while the exchange is asking about practical competence. Agricultural expertise can justify a judgment about plants; elegant phrasing does not by itself justify the judgment expressed. Socrates knows how to produce the verbal effect and points it out as he does so. The reader is invited to hear both the useful content of the question and its self-conscious ornament.

It would go beyond the passage to identify these clever men with a named sophist or to infer a comprehensive condemnation of forensic speech. “Speak finely” can carry irony in this setting, but the dialogue offers no history of the formula. Nor does its mention of lawsuits prove that the companion is a litigant. Socrates’ preceding suggestion that he answers as though someone had wronged him is a comparison, not a disclosure of his biography.

Rhēma returns prominently at 228e, where Hipparchus wants his sayings thought wiser than the inscriptions at Delphi. That recurrence links the opening aside to the long narrative’s competition over wise formulations. Rhyming forensic language and public maxims are different forms of verbal display, and neither is refuted merely by being memorable. The issue is the authority a striking expression claims and the understanding its audience gains.

The distinction becomes personally charged when the companion says he is being twisted about in arguments at 228a and cannot be persuaded at 229e. A speaker can control the language of an exchange without making the other participant understand why its conclusion is right. Socrates’ concession of a revisable move and his later model answers respond to that difficulty. The final admission of compulsion rather than persuasion keeps the difference open.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225c.** οἱ δεξιοὶ περὶ τὰς δίκας — The cleverness is specifically connected with lawsuits.
- **225c.** καλλιεποῦνται — The verb concerns finely shaped speech.
- **228e.** τὰ Ἱππάρχου ῥήματα — The word for sayings returns in the competition for wisdom.

**In this edition.** The edition keeps “clever,” “lawsuits” and “speak finely,” avoiding both the professional title “lawyers” and the unqualified accusation “deceive.” Its “time and clime” reproduces the sound-play identified in the note. The apparatus also records variation in the clause introducing the borrowed sayings; Burnet’s printed embālōmen hōn supports “may throw in some of those … with which.” The grammatical choice enables the joke but does not identify its source.

**See also.** [Time and place](#entry-time-and-place) (p. 200) · [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30) · [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209) · [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154)

## Loss and suffering loss {#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss}

*ζημία (zēmia); ζημιοῦσθαι (zēmiousthai)*

**The word.** Zēmia means loss or damage and, in other contexts, a penalty or fine. Zēmiousthai means to suffer loss or incur damage. The noun names the loss; the middle-passive infinitive marks undergoing it. Here the legal sense is not the controlling one, even though lawsuits occur in an earlier joke. Economic diminution and practical injury provide the operative examples.

The expression “at a loss” at 231c belongs to a different Greek family, aporein, being perplexed or unable to find a way forward. English can make the companion’s intellectual difficulty sound like a final specimen of financial loss, but the Greek does not repeat zēmia there.

**In Hipparchus.** The pilot at 226b already knows that worthless sails and rudders will cause loss and expose him, the ship and its cargo to destruction. Loss is therefore introduced through concrete stakes before it becomes an abstract opposite. It need not mean only a reduced balance of money: failure in a practice can destroy the very agent or equipment required for further activity.

At 226e–227a, the companion accepts that gain is opposite to loss, that suffering loss is good for nobody, and that people are harmed by it. Socrates then identifies loss as bad and gain as good. The universal “for no one” matters: the argument is treating loss as an already adverse overall result. It has not considered whether losing some possession, paying a beneficial penalty or surrendering one advantage might help a person in a larger respect. To import such possibilities as explicit examples would go beyond the dialogue, but their possibility explains why the level of assessment needs care.

The companion tries at 227e to preserve precisely a distinction of levels. Some gains cause harm, and harm is agreed to mean suffering loss. He consequently allows men to suffer loss both from loss and from base gain. On a net-benefit sense of gain this sounds contradictory; on a sense of acquiring money or an object while incurring another injury it is intelligible. Socrates answers with the previous opposition rather than disaggregating kinds of outcome. The quarrel is partly about the standard under which the word is being used.

When offered a retraction at 229e, the companion retains the badness of loss and the opposition between loss and gain. He retracts the universal goodness of gaining. At 231b–c disease is treated as a loss despite being acquired without expense, and at 231d getting more silver can still be loss because its value falls short of the gold surrendered. The later examples support an evaluative rather than merely subtractive use: adding something can constitute loss.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226b.** ὅτι ζημιωθήσεται — The pilot’s projected loss is an anticipated consequence of deficient equipment.
- **227a.** Κακὸν ἄρα ἡ ζημία. — Loss is classified as bad.
- **227e.** καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ κέρδους τοῦ πονηροῦ — The companion insists that base gain can itself cause loss.
- **231d.** κέρδος ἢ ζημίαν εἴληφεν; — The exchange asks whether a larger quantity received is gain or loss.

**In this edition.** The edition keeps “loss” and “suffer loss” throughout, including where “damage” would be idiomatic. Its note 20 expressly separates perplexity from loss. The apparatus records alternative future forms at 227e; these do not remove the distinction between what is acquired and whether its acquisition benefits its possessor.

**See also.** [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)

## Love and hatred {#entry-love-and-hatred}

*φιλεῖν (philein); μισεῖν (misein)*

**The word.** Philein means to love, like or be attached to; misein means to hate or dislike. Philein forms the first element of the word for lover of gain, and Socrates explicitly exploits that relation. These verbs describe attitudes toward objects, not automatically a settled hierarchy among them or a measure of how intensely they are pursued.

The pair in this argument is love of good things and hatred of bad ones. Erotic love in the historical story uses a different Greek family, although attachment and competition there raise related issues. A lexical account should not silently make every kind of love one technical psychological state.

**In Hipparchus.** After the second definition, Socrates asks whether lovers of gain love gain. The answer is effectively secured by the compound’s transparent formation. Gain is then classed as good, and lovers of gain become lovers of a good thing. The next question involves the companion personally: does he love what is good? Socrates offers his own parallel admission and then includes everyone. This sequence turns an accusation against a separate group into a shared human orientation.

The movement from loving some good thing to loving all good things is explicit in the questions at 227b–c. The companion denies that there is a good thing he does not love rather than a bad one. Socrates then asks about all other people loving good things and hating bad ones. The argument gives no extended account of apparent goods, competing goods or the practical impossibility of securing every good together. Its immediate function is to remove the lover of gain’s distinctiveness under the accepted definition.

The crucial suppressed question is degree and arrangement. An ordinary lover-of-something label may identify a marked disposition rather than any instance of approval: liking a profitable outcome need not be a life organised around profit. The companion’s insatiability and prodigious craving had supplied just such a marked disposition. The simple verb “love” used in the universalisation does not retain those qualifications automatically.

The final proof places two descriptions beside each other. Decent people wish for all good things; base people love gains small and great. If every gain is good, Socrates concludes, both groups are lovers of gain. Here love and wishing are allowed to support the same designation. That may express a reasonable common orientation toward benefit, but it does not establish identical motives or practices. The closing rebuke works by exposing the accuser’s participation in the broadly construed attitude.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226e.** φιλοῦσι τὸ κέρδος — Loving gain unpacks the defining compound.
- **227b.** πάντα τὰ ἀγαθὰ ἴσως φιλεῖς — Socrates moves to loving all good things.
- **227c.** τἀγαθὰ φιλεῖν, τὰ δὲ κακὰ μισεῖν — Good and bad things receive the explicitly opposed attitudes of love and hatred.
- **232c.** κέρδη φιλοῦσιν — Love of gains is recalled as the companion’s account of base people.

**In this edition.** The edition keeps “love” even where English “like” might sound less elevated. The consistency is necessary to see how philokerdēs is analysed. “Hate” preserves the explicit opposed attitude without implying that the speakers have demonstrated every person’s actual emotional response to every harm. The article uses the infinitive lemmas, while the dialogue commonly has finite personal or plural forms.

**See also.** [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133) · [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212) · [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145)

## Love of gain {#entry-love-of-gain}

*φιλοκερδής (philokerdēs); τὸ φιλοκερδές (to philokerdes); φιλοκερδεῖν (philokerdein)*

**The word.** Philokerdēs means gain-loving, a lover of gain. Its first element expresses attachment or liking, its second gain. The neuter substantive to philokerdes names the characteristic or disposition, rendered “the love of gain”; philokerdein means to love gain or act as a lover of gain. These are related formations, not interchangeable grammatical forms. The question moves at once from the characteristic to the people who possess it: what is it, and who are they?

In the ordinary reproach presupposed by the companion, a lover of gain is grasping or greedy. The label picks out a culpable manner of seeking advantage, not everyone who welcomes improvement. The edition keeps the compositional expression “lover of gain” rather than translating it simply “greedy”, because Socrates will exploit the relation between loving gain and loving something good.

**In Hipparchus.** The opening definition identifies lovers of gain as people who think fit to gain from things worth nothing. Asked whether they know these things are worthless, the companion rejects stupidity and insists on knowing unscrupulousness. Socrates then interprets worthlessness through expertise: a competent farmer, rider or pilot recognises defective resources as sources of damage. By 226d, no intelligent person satisfies the definition so construed. This does not establish that greed never occurs; it makes the companion’s particular formulation empty.

The second attempt relocates the fault in insatiability: lovers of gain crave even tiny and valueless objects excessively. Socrates first returns to the knowledge dilemma, then separates the compound into its elements. Lovers of gain love gain; gain is good; everyone loves good things. At 227c the extension reverses from nobody to everybody. The derivation suppresses the excess and indiscrimination that made the initial designation a reproach. A person may like gain without making it an overriding commitment, but the dialogue’s argument requires no threshold of attachment.

The third attempt makes the social boundary explicit: a lover of gain pursues sources from which decent men refrain. After the historical interlude and renewed arguments about what counts as gain, the conclusion again includes both decent and base people. The closing rebuke is directed against the reproacher: the person who calls someone else a lover of gain is one himself. Read narrowly, this is a challenge to a badly defined accusation. Read more expansively, it rehabilitates the desire for genuine benefit. Neither reading warrants concluding that exploitation has become morally acceptable, since the argument has repeatedly excluded harmful acquisition from genuine gain.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225a.** Τί γὰρ τὸ φιλοκερδές; — The abstract disposition is questioned before its bearers are identified.
- **226e.** οἵ γε φιλοκερδεῖς φιλοῦσι τὸ κέρδος — The compound is unpacked into loving and its object.
- **227c.** Πάντες αὖ φιλοκερδεῖς φαίνονται — The universal extension is explicitly an appearance produced by this argument.
- **232c.** καὶ οἱ χρηστοὶ καὶ οἱ πονηροί — The final extension crosses the moral distinction with which the companion began.

**In this edition.** Note 1 explains both the abrupt opening gar and the everyday reproach. The stable English family makes the semantic manoeuvre visible without endorsing it. The edition’s introduction treats the uncertainty over whether the dialogue exposes or inadvertently commits its argumentative faults as unresolved. A lexical account should retain that uncertainty instead of converting Socrates’ last sentence into an unqualified doctrine about greed.

**See also.** [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117) · [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204) · [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130)

## Memory and reminders {#entry-memory-and-reminders}

*μνημονεύειν (mnēmoneuein), ὑπομιμνῄσκειν (hypomimnēiskein), ἀμφισβητεῖν (amphisbētein)*

**The word.** Μνημονεύειν means to remember; ὑπομιμνῄσκειν means to remind or bring something back to someone’s mind. Ἀμφισβητεῖν means to dispute or contest. The passage’s μνημονεύεις asks about the companion’s memory, ὑπομνήσω promises a reminder, and ἠμφεσβήτησας recalls what he disputed. The heading joins recollection with argumentative accountability, not a doctrine of prenatal recollection.

To remind someone of a claim is different from quoting its original wording. The remembered point can be a summary selected for its role in the next inference. The lexicon must therefore compare the reminder with the earlier passage rather than treat every retrospective formulation as an exact transcript.

**In Hipparchus.** At 232a Socrates asks whether the companion remembers where “this argument of ours” began. The companion thinks he does; Socrates offers to remind him if not. The immediate origin supplied is the dispute about good people not wishing to gain every gain, but only good gains rather than base ones. This points to 227d–e and the subsequent reopening, not simply to the first question at 225a.

The reminder selects the objection most relevant to the final conclusion. If all gains are now good, then decent people’s wish for good things can cover all gains. Recollection is thus part of the inferential arrangement: earlier commitments are brought into the scope of the new result. The move also prevents the last exchange from appearing unrelated to the companion’s original resistance.

Yet the wording is not neutral in every respect. “Good men” and “decent men,” good gains and base gains, have been used across a discussion in which the relation between practical benefit and moral decency is disputed. Restating these words together can make the argument seem more uniform than it has been. A careful reader follows the exact earlier speech as well as the recap.

At 232c Socrates adds that the companion himself said base men love gains small and great. The earlier account explicitly emphasized even tiny gains worth little or nothing. The final paired formula broadens that recollection, plausibly drawing on the “even,” but it is not the same sentence. The edition’s note flags the source of the reminder and the conjecture behind “you yourself.”

The episode gives memory a double role. It is necessary for a sustained inquiry because admissions must not be forgotten when inconvenient. It can also become a source of pressure when one speaker decides which formulation best represents what has been agreed. The companion’s distinction between compulsion and persuasion follows directly after the reminder, making that tension dramatically audible.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **232a.** Μνημονεύεις οὖν ὅθεν — Socrates asks whether the argument’s starting point is remembered.
- **232a.** ἐγώ σε ὑπομνήσω — The proposed reminder is supplied by the questioner.
- **232a.** ἠμφεσβήτησάς μοι — The earlier point is identified as a dispute.
- **232c.** αὐτὸς εἶπες — The final recap emphatically attributes a statement to the companion.

**In this edition.** The apparatus reports B and W’s ἠμφισβήτησας beside the text’s ἠμφεσβήτησας at 232a8. At 232c1 Burnet prints Bekker’s αὐτός, “you yourself,” against the reported αὐτούς in B and T. These are textual distinctions, not claims based on direct manuscript inspection.

**See also.** [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152) · [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179) · [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188)

## More and less {#entry-more-and-less}

*μᾶλλον (mallon), ἧττον (hētton), πλέον (pleon), ἔλαττον (elatton)*

**The word.** Μᾶλλον and ἧττον mean more and less in degree: more human, more properly a gain, or doing something to a greater degree. Πλέον and ἔλαττον are comparative forms used for a larger or smaller amount, including what one receives or spends. The distinction is important but not absolute: Greek comparative expressions, like English “more,” depend on the respect of comparison supplied by the sentence.

At 232b μᾶλλον ... ἢ has a different force, “rather than”: the companion has been compelled rather than persuaded. That idiom selects between descriptions; it does not calculate two measurable quantities of compulsion and persuasion. Lexical consistency does not require one mechanical English rendering in every construction.

**In Hipparchus.** The first comparison concerns whether good food is more food than bad food (230a–b). Neither food’s quality makes it more fully a member of its kind. A similar denial follows for decent and base persons: neither is more or less human. The claim is not that the people have equal size, equal abilities or equal possessions.

When Socrates says that the possessor of decent gain “gains no more” than the possessor of base gain (230c), the comparison changes grammatical shape, from predicate membership to an activity. The text then generalizes to doing or undergoing anything more or less with a thing to which neither more nor less belongs. Unless the comparison remains strictly “as a case of gain,” this risks inferring equal outcomes from equal classification. The article must register the risk without pretending the dialogue marks it as a formal fallacy.

At 231a the argument explicitly turns to quantities: spending less and getting more is proposed as one condition of gain. The comparative objects initially remain open. The companion narrows them to gold or silver at 231c, but the metal example shows that more by weight need not mean more in worth. The question “more in what respect?” therefore governs both stretches of the argument, though the words and examples differ.

The two problems should not be collapsed. In the earlier stretch, equal status as gain is made to imply equal gaining. In the later stretch, an increase in physical quantity is mistaken for an increase in value. Both concern illicit movement between respects of comparison, but only the latter is explicitly corrected by the speakers. The former remains a problem for the reader to assess.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **230c.** οὔτε μᾶλλον οὔτε ἧττόν — Neither decent nor base person is more or less human.
- **230c.** Οὐδὲν ἄρα μᾶλλον κερδαίνει — The crucial shift to the amount or degree of gaining.
- **231a.** ἔλαττον ἀναλώσας πλέον λάβῃ — The proposed quantitative description of profitable acquisition.
- **231d.** Οὔτι τῇ ἀξίᾳ γε — The companion specifies worth as the relevant measure.
- **232b.** μᾶλλον ἐμέ γε ἢ πέπεικεν — The comparative construction means rather than persuaded.

**In this edition.** The apparatus at 231c7 matters to the repeated quantitative premise: Burnet prints πλέον κτήσηται from a later hand in T; B is reported with κτήσηται and T with πλεονεκτήσηται. The edition translates the printed reading as “acquires more.” This lexicon follows that reading while distinguishing the recorded alternatives from a new collation.

**See also.** [Quantity and quality](#entry-quantity-and-quality) (p. 163) · [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207) · [Sameness and difference](#entry-sameness-and-difference) (p. 170) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154)

## Musicians and instruments {#entry-musicians-and-instruments}

*αὐλητής (aulētēs); αὐλός (aulos); κιθαριστής (kitharistēs); λύρα (lyra)*

**The word.** Aulētēs is a player of the aulos, a wind instrument; the edition calls the performer a “flute-player” and the plural auloi “flutes.” Kitharistēs is a cithara-player or performer on a stringed instrument. Lyra is a lyre: the actual object named after kitharistēs at 226c is lyran, the accusative of lyra, not a form of kithara. The edition correspondingly writes “a lyre-player a lyre.” These names distinguish performers and their instruments rather than naming an undifferentiated art of music.

**In Hipparchus.** The two musicians enter in the rapid series after the general at 226c. The first has wind instruments worth nothing; the second a lyre. The question, completed only after the archer and the generalisation to craftsmen, asks whether any of these men thinks he gains from such equipment. The shorter second phrase relies on the first for the worthless condition. Its brevity is not permission to imagine that the lyre has a different valuation.

Music broadens the practical setting of the test. The previous examples involved cultivation, care of an animal, navigation and war; professional performance equally requires usable means. A musician’s possession of an instrument does not automatically count as a gain when the object cannot serve its relevant purpose. The inference depends on the musician’s intelligent assessment of the equipment, as the surrounding series makes clear, rather than on the instrument’s bare presence.

No fee, audience, competition or sale is specified. One can reasonably understand gain as an advantage obtainable through performance, but the text does not restrict it to a wage. Nor does it examine whether a defective instrument might have another valuable use, or whether a performer might sell it dishonestly. Such possibilities distinguish the concrete practitioner’s judgment from the broader moral class the companion first intended to condemn.

The dialogue later makes cultural production central to Hipparchus’ reputation: Homeric recitation, Anacreon’s arrival and Simonides’ large fees and gifts appear at 228b–c. Those figures are not the unnamed musicians of the craft list, and the later passage does not describe their instruments. It does, however, place practical expenditure beside a claimed educational benefit. The earlier performers test whether worthless means can yield advantage; the patronage narrative presents resources spent to acquire culturally valuable people and performances. The relationship is thematic, not a stated proof that the expenditure was good.

The musicians also help resist a narrowly commercial reading of the whole opening. Socrates chooses activities with intelligible standards of successful use. The sequence can then move from those standards toward worth and benefit without ever offering a technical account of market profit.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226c.** αὐλητὴς αὐλοὺς οὐδενὸς ἀξίους ἔχων — The wind-player explicitly possesses worthless instruments.
- **226c.** κιθαριστὴς λύραν — Performer and instrument use different but related Greek names.
- **228c.** μεγάλοις μισθοῖς καὶ δώροις πείθων — Simonides’ fees and gifts supply a later, different connection between culture and material advantage.

**In this edition.** The edition’s paired English expressions make the parallel easy to hear, but “lyre-player” smooths the difference between kitharistēs and lyra. The gloss should therefore preserve both Greek lemmas. “Flute” is the translation’s chosen term for aulos; it should not be taken as a precise identification with a modern orchestral flute. The passage needs usable instruments, not an organological classification.

**See also.** [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46) · [Anacreon and the fifty oared ship](#entry-anacreon-and-the-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 24) · [Simonides fees and gifts](#entry-simonides-fees-and-gifts) (p. 177) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)

## Necessity and impossibility {#entry-necessity-and-impossibility}

*ἀνάγκη (anankē), ἀδύνατος (adynatos), δεῖ (dei), δύνασθαι (dynasthai)*

**The word.** Ἀνάγκη means necessity and serves as the answer “Necessarily.” Ἀδύνατος means unable or impossible; the neuter ἀδύνατον can stand alone as “Impossible.” Δεῖ is the impersonal “it is necessary,” “one must” or “ought,” with its force determined by context. Δύνασθαι means to be able. These words express different kinds of constraint, from the conduct of inquiry to a person’s capacity to assent.

Necessity as an answer should be distinguished from ἀναγκάζειν, compelling someone. The former marks what the companion treats as following from the discussion; the latter describes what the argument has done to him by the end. The conceptual relation is important, but the grammatical forms do not establish that compulsion is the same as rational persuasion.

**In Hipparchus.** At 226e Socrates calls it impossible to know that something is worth nothing and nevertheless think one ought to gain from it, on the basis of the earlier craft examples. That modal conclusion is already contestable if the examples have not exhausted possible senses of gaining. “Impossible” states the result the speakers accept, not an external guarantee supplied by the lexicon.

In the final sequence the companion answers “Necessarily” when Socrates proposes treating decent and base gain as equally gain (230c). The following question extends the reasoning: how could someone do or undergo something more or less with a thing to which neither more nor less belongs? “Impossible” again closes the step (230d). The strength of the reply can conceal the need to specify the respect in which more and less are excluded. Equal membership in a kind does not make every difference of amount or effect impossible.

Socrates then says “we must look into” what is the same in both gains. Here δεῖ directs the next task; it does not assert that a completed proof has already determined its answer. At 231d the same verb introduces a requirement for an adequate account: worth must belong to gain in addition to the quantity acquired. This is the necessity of satisfying a condition made visible by a counterexample.

At 229e the companion says he is unable to be persuaded that Socrates is not deceiving him. This inability concerns his present conviction, not the formal impossibility of Socrates’ innocence. At 232b he distinguishes being compelled by the argument from being persuaded. The dialogue therefore contains logical, procedural and psychological constraining language, and moving among them requires care.

The repeated short answers are dramatic signs of tightening pressure. They make the argument sound inexorable while leaving its premises and shifts available to a critical reader. Quoting “Necessarily” or “Impossible” cannot substitute for showing why the relevant necessity holds.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226e.** ὅτι ἀδύνατον — The early knowledge argument is treated as establishing impossibility.
- **229e.** οὐ δύναμαι πεισθῆναι — The companion reports his inability to be persuaded.
- **230c.** Ἀνάγκη — The analogy’s application to gain receives an emphatic assent.
- **230d.** Ἀδύνατον — The broad claim about doing or undergoing receives another.
- **231d.** Δεῖ ἄρα — Worth is introduced as a necessary condition of gain.

**In this edition.** The edition keeps the compact replies “Necessarily” and “Impossible,” rather than expanding them into explanations the companion does not give. Its “must” at the examination of gain marks the proposed task. These translations preserve both the force and the brevity of the modal language.

**See also.** [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154) · [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115) · [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123)

## Opinion and seeming {#entry-opinion-and-seeming}

*οἴεσθαι (oiesthai); δοκεῖν (dokein); φαίνεσθαι (phainesthai); ἡγεῖσθαι (hēgeisthai); ἐοικέναι (eoikenai)*

**The word.** Oiesthai means to think or suppose; dokein means to seem or to be thought, and with a person in the dative can express that person’s judgement. Phainesthai means to appear or be evident. Hēgeisthai means to lead in other contexts, but here to consider, regard or judge. Eoikenai means to seem or look likely; the frequent eoiken gives “it seems”. These overlapping verbs should not be forced into a technical hierarchy the dialogue never states.

Their subjects and constructions matter. “They seem to me” reports the companion’s account of the relevant people; “he thinks he gains” describes an agent’s expectation; “gain appears good” reports an argumentative result. All involve a perspective, but not the same perspective.

**In Hipparchus.** The companion starts with “to me they seem”, modestly presenting a proposed description. Socrates then asks what the alleged lovers of gain themselves know and think. The craft sequence repeatedly opposes true knowledge of worthlessness to an incompatible expectation of gain. At 226e mistaken thought supplies the missing link: ignorant people think things worth nothing worth much. The reasoning is therefore not simply that desire tracks objective worth; it also recognises that an agent’s estimate can be wrong.

At 227c the conclusion is that all men “appear” to be lovers of gain in this way, as no one was a lover of gain in the previous account. This language does not make the conclusion a casual guess, since it follows an articulated series of agreements. It does, however, present the result as one produced by a particular route of argument and immediately invites a question about which route avoids error.

Hēgeisthai becomes important when the companion says how one should rightly regard the lover of gain, and in the historical narrative where citizens are to regard Hipparchus’ sayings as wiser than Delphi’s. The same broad act of evaluation may classify a character or rank a cultural authority. Its presence alone does not certify the judgement’s truth. The ruler’s educational plan seeks admiration and belief as well as instruction.

The companion often answers “it seems” even when a stronger question has been put. At the end he explicitly distinguishes being compelled from being persuaded. These short assent formulas are consequently best read as local concessions whose psychological force must be assessed from context. Repeated acceptance is evidence that the conversation has reached a stated position; it is not proof that the speaker possesses a stable conviction or that every inference is valid.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225a.** Ἐμοὶ μὲν δοκοῦσιν — The first definition is presented as the companion’s judgement.
- **226e.** Φαίνεται. — A brief assent follows the explanation by mistaken valuation.
- **227c.** τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον — The universal conclusion is qualified by this route of reasoning.
- **231c.** τὸ μὲν κέρδος ἀγαθὸν φαίνεται — Goodness reappears as an outcome of the acquisition test.

**In this edition.** The edition distributes “think”, “seem” and “appear” rather than replacing each with “believe”. That preserves the difference between someone’s expectation and the dialogue’s emerging result, while not claiming a rigid one-to-one philosophical vocabulary. The header uses infinitive citation forms; the common replies contain finite forms such as phainetai and eoiken.

**See also.** [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123) · [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198) · [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Error and correctness](#entry-error-and-correctness) (p. 71) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92)

## Opposites {#entry-opposites}

*ἐναντίος (enantios); τοὐναντίον (tounantion)*

**The word.** Enantios means opposite, opposed or contrary. It can relate objects or states, such as gain and loss, and statements, such as present claims and earlier agreements. Tounantion is the contracted form of to enantion, “the opposite” or “on the contrary”. The dialogue therefore uses opposition both as a premise of reasoning and as a way of reversing an accusation.

“Opposite” does not specify unaided whether the pair is exhaustive, whether intermediate cases exist or whether favourable evaluation transfers from one member’s contrary. Those are further logical claims. The dialogue’s striking use of the word makes them unavoidable questions for the reader.

**In Hipparchus.** At 226e the companion grants that gain is opposite to loss. Socrates asks whether suffering loss is good for anyone; it is bad and harms people. He then concludes that gain is good. The bare form “the opposite of something bad is good” is not universally valid. An opposite may be another bad thing, and the relevant contrast may permit an intermediate state. The gain/loss pair might nevertheless be defined evaluatively so that gain means an improvement and loss a worsening. On that interpretation goodness is already built into the chosen sense of gain rather than established by opposition alone.

The issue returns at 227e–228a when the companion allows harm from base gain. Socrates recites the earlier opposition and goodness, then calls the new statement deliberately contrary to what was agreed. Opposition between gain and loss has become opposition between utterances. This changes the burden: the companion is no longer simply invited to explain an ordinary use but charged with violating his conversational commitments.

The companion immediately answers “on the contrary”: Socrates is the deceiver, twisting things up and down in the arguments. The reversal does not provide a technical diagnosis of the inferential failure, but it contests who has broken the conversational norm. The subsequent history of Hipparchus is Socrates’ answer to this personal charge rather than a new proof about opposites.

At 229e–230a the offered retractions separate the components. The companion will not withdraw the badness of loss or the opposition of gaining and suffering loss; he withdraws the claim that all gaining is good. This choice is philosophically important. He wants the lexical opposition to coexist with good and bad specimens of gain. Socrates must therefore pursue the common character of those specimens, eventually returning to worth and benefit. The dialogue itself thus offers more than repeated assertion of the first opposition argument.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226e.** Κέρδος δὲ λέγεις ἐναντίον τῇ ζημίᾳ; — Gain and loss are accepted as an opposed pair.
- **228a.** Ἐναντίον δὲ ὂν κακῷ ἀγαθὸν εἶναι; — The evaluative inference is recapitulated explicitly.
- **228a.** ἐπίτηδες ἐναντία — Socrates characterises disagreement as deliberate contradiction.
- **228a.** ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον σύ με — The companion reverses the accusation of deception.

**In this edition.** The edition consistently uses “opposite” rather than switching between contradiction, contrariety and opposition in a way that would imply a technical distinction not made in the text. Its introduction identifies the questionable inference directly. A critical article should explain that inference without claiming that every occurrence of enantios has the same logical relation or that the dialogue contains a formal theory of contraries.

**See also.** [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128) · [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53)

## Panathenaea {#entry-panathenaea}

*Παναθήναια (Panathēnaia)*

**The word.** Παναθήναια is the Panathenaea, the Athenian festival associated with Athena. The dialogue uses the plural dative Παναθηναίοις, “at the Panathenaea.” The festival’s name is a cultural reference, not a generic Greek word for every procession or musical contest. Its occurrence here specifies the setting for rhapsodic performance.

**In Hipparchus.** The festival connects cultural education with public civic practice. Hipparchus is said to have required rhapsodes to recite Homer consecutively there, following one another in sequence. The claim is not simply that the ruler enjoyed hearing poems at home. It credits him with shaping the form in which citizens encountered epic within a recurring communal occasion.

The narrative later turns to Hipparchus’ death and the alleged insult over basket-bearing. The dialogue’s main text does not there repeat the festival’s name or narrate the assassination’s ritual setting in detail. The edition’s historical notes identify the killing as occurring at the Panathenaea of 514 BC. Keeping the distinction clear prevents information from a note from being presented as an explicit clause in Socrates’ version.

The historical setting creates an important relation between two otherwise different parts of the story. The festival is both a site of the cultural benefaction for which Hipparchus is praised and, in the historical accounts, the occasion of the violence that ended his life. The dialogue’s preferred explanation transfers the cause of that violence from a ceremonial exclusion to competitive reputation for wisdom. A reader who knows the festival’s role can hear how much the narrative has changed without importing every detail of Thucydides into it.

No timetable, cycle of competitions, prize list or description of a procession is supplied. Nor does the verse-recitation claim demonstrate that every performance took place before the same audience. The useful point for this dialogue is the public and ordered character of the poetic practice, together with the institution’s place in civic memory.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228b.** Παναθηναίοις — The dative festival name means at the Panathenaea.
- **228b.** ἐξ ὑπολήψεως ἐφεξῆς — The festival rule concerns consecutive performance by rhapsodes.
- **228b.** ὥσπερ νῦν ἔτι — Socrates presents that rule as a continuing practice.
- **229c.** τῆς κανηφορίας — Basket-bearing supplies the ceremonial feature of the rival death-story.

**In this edition.** The Greek festival name is divided across a printed line-end in the source, Πανα- / θηναίοις; the lexical form joins the word normally. The edition’s note places the assassination in the festival context but does not merge the competing explanations of its cause. Cultural performance and ceremonial honour deserve separate attention even when they belong to the same public occasion.

**See also.** [Homer and rhapsodes](#entry-homer-and-rhapsodes) (p. 106) · [Basket bearing and the sister](#entry-basket-bearing-and-the-sister) (p. 37) · [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28) · [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94)

## Perplexity and return {#entry-perplexity-and-return}

*ἀπορεῖν (aporein), περιτρέχειν (peritrechein), πάλιν (palin), αὖ (au)*

**The word.** Ἀπορεῖν means to be perplexed or at a loss about how to proceed. Περιτρέχειν means to run around or circle back; πάλιν means again or back; αὖ means in turn or again, depending on context. These ordinary expressions describe the companion’s intellectual impasse and the argument’s repeated arrival at the goodness of gain.

The noun “loss” in the English idiom “at a loss” does not translate ζημία. The companion’s perplexity is not itself an economic loss. This distinction matters particularly in a dialogue where almost every neighboring occurrence of loss belongs to the gain-and-loss opposition.

**In Hipparchus.** After the health-and-disease example Socrates says that the companion is “running round back again to the same place” (231c). The initial unrestricted acquisition definition has been tested, and bad acquisition has again been assigned to loss, good acquisition to gain. The companion had retracted the proposition that all gain is good, but the new route appears to recover it.

The answer “I am at a loss what to say” is a confession about answering. It does not amount to a considered declaration that Socrates’ reasoning is sound. Socrates replies that the perplexity is “not unjustly” experienced and immediately continues with the second branch, acquiring more for less. Perplexity becomes the occasion for another test rather than the dialogue’s stopping point.

At 232a the return is counted: goodness of the gainful has been agreed “for the third or fourth time.” The deliberately loose tally refers to repeated formulations rather than a precise proof inventory. Gain was agreed good at 227a, recalled at 227c and 228a, and recovered through the feast at 231c. The metals and worth sequence now brings it back once more.

The circular language admits different evaluations. Repeated return could mean that the same truth survives each attempt to escape it. It could also indicate that the inquiry keeps reinstating an equivocal premise under changed language. Neither the running metaphor nor the count settles which reading is correct. The end’s distinction between being compelled and persuaded confirms that repetition has not simply dissolved the companion’s unease.

The article therefore separates a return to a conclusion from circular reasoning in the technical sense. The speakers explicitly recognize recurrence, but do not formally diagnose an argument that assumes its conclusion. The reader must inspect the actual transitions through benefit, opposition, acquisition and worth, rather than infer validity or invalidity from the image of a circle alone.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **231c.** πάλιν αὖ περιτρέχεις εἰς τὸ αὐτό — Socrates names the return to the same result.
- **231c.** Ἀπορῶ ἔγωγε ὅτι εἴπω — The companion cannot find what to say.
- **231c.** Οὐκ ἀδίκως γε σὺ ἀπορῶν — Socrates acknowledges the intelligibility of the impasse.
- **232a.** αὖ πάλιν τρίτον ἢ τέταρτον — The repeated conclusion is counted approximately.

**In this edition.** The edition explicitly notes that “at a loss” renders ἀπορεῖν, not the noun for loss. Its note 24 identifies the earlier conclusions behind the “third or fourth” phrase. Those supplied references are useful for following the recurrence; they should not be turned into a more exact numerical count than Socrates himself gives.

**See also.** [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186) · [Memory and reminders](#entry-memory-and-reminders) (p. 135) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154) · [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97)

## Persuasion obedience and compulsion {#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion}

*πείθειν (peithein), πείθεσθαι (peithesthai), ἀναγκάζειν (anankazein)*

**The word.** Πείθειν means to persuade; πείθεσθαι, its middle/passive infinitive, can mean to be persuaded or to obey. These are related responses to someone’s word or authority, not interchangeable English translations in every context. Ἀναγκάζειν means to compel or necessitate. Its grammatical subject can be a ruler imposing a practice or an argument pressing its hearers toward an admission. The dialogue does not reserve compulsion for physical force.

At the end, πέπεικεν is a perfect form of the persuasion verb, presenting persuasion as an achieved condition; ἠνάγκακε similarly presents the argument as having compelled agreement. The companion distinguishes these results. A speaker can have no answer available under accepted premises without having arrived at a settled conviction.

**In Hipparchus.** The historical narrative makes the vocabulary concrete before the final logical exchange. Hipparchus compelled the rhapsodes to perform Homer in ordered succession (228b), while he kept Simonides with him by “persuading him with large fees and gifts” (228c). Persuasion here includes material inducement. Socrates himself claims that he must obey a good and wise man, Hipparchus, and therefore must observe the inscription forbidding deception of a friend. Whether that appeal is serious, comic or both, obedience to a saying is offered as evidence about the trustworthiness of a living conversation.

The companion turns the appeal against Socrates at 229d–e: either Socrates does not regard him as a friend or does not obey Hipparchus, because he cannot be persuaded that Socrates is not deceiving him. The repeated verb binds the two accusations together. Socrates’ assent to an authority has not produced the companion’s assent to Socrates. The offer to retract a premise then attempts to restore the conditions for persuasion rather than merely invoking Hipparchus again.

At 232b the argument, now personified as the agent that compels, has brought the companion back to “all gains are good.” His answer explicitly withholds persuasion. Socrates does not answer that compulsion and persuasion are identical. He allows that persuasion might follow later, then proceeds on the agreement already obtained. The closing deduction thus rests on recorded concessions while the dramatic situation records an unresolved objection. This need not prove that every step is false; it does prevent the reader from treating the companion’s final assent as enthusiastic understanding.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228b.** οὐ πειθόμενος — Socrates’ claim that he would not act well by disobeying the wise man.
- **229d–e.** οὐ πείθεσθαι Ἱππάρχῳ — Obedience to Hipparchus becomes the companion’s test of friendship.
- **229e.** οὐ δύναμαι πεισθῆναι — The companion cannot be persuaded that he is not being deceived.
- **232b.** μᾶλλον ἐμέ γε ἢ πέπεικεν — The companion distinguishes having been compelled from having been persuaded.

**In this edition.** The edition renders the final μᾶλλον ... ἢ as “rather than,” not as a measurement of how much persuasion has occurred. Its Note on this Edition records that correction. Socrates’ next “it might also persuade you” confirms the distinction. “Obey,” “persuade” and “compel” should remain visibly connected without being flattened into a single English word.

**See also.** [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186) · [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101)

## Pilot and ship {#entry-pilot-and-ship}

*κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs); ναῦς (naus); ἱστίον (histion); πηδάλιον (pēdalion); σκεῦος (skeuos)*

**The word.** Kybernētēs is a steersman or pilot, the person directing a ship. Naus is ship: the passage has nēi, “for the ship,” and naun, “the ship,” inflections of that noun. Histion is a sail, pēdalion a rudder or steering oar, and skeuos an implement or item of equipment. The plurals histia and pēdalia name the specific fittings; skeuē subsequently gathers them as “tackle.” No change of vessel or new set of objects is implied by that broader description.

**In Hipparchus.** The pilot at 226b has equipped his ship with worthless sails and rudders. Socrates asks whether he can fail to know that he will suffer loss and risk his own death, the ship’s destruction and the loss of everything carried. The companion says he cannot. The conclusion, crossing into 226c, is that he does not expect gain from the worthless tackle. This is the longest and most consequential of the short professional examples.

Unlike the farmer’s unproductive plant or the horseman’s damaging food, the equipment here endangers an interconnected enterprise. Pilot, vessel and cargo can all be lost together. The example is especially important because it introduces suffering loss before the formal discussion of gain’s opposite at 226e–227a. The reader has already been shown what the later abstraction can mean: failure that exceeds the price of the faulty item.

Socrates distinguishes the prediction of loss from the risk of the larger catastrophe. The pilot will suffer loss and will be in danger of perishing; the latter is not asserted as an inevitable event. Even so, this is not a developed calculation of risk, probability and expected return. The decisive condition is knowledge that the equipment is worthless for the contemplated use. The companion grants that such knowledge defeats the expectation of gain from it.

The case leaves open questions the original moral accusation might have raised. Someone selling defective tackle could profit while passing the danger to another person; someone knowingly accepting some risk might obtain a compensating benefit. Neither possibility is examined here. They expose the limited role of the analogy rather than changing the example’s stipulated outcome. What the pilot establishes is the relation between worthless equipment and the knowledgeable user’s expectation.

A ship appears again at 228c when Hipparchus sends a fifty-oared vessel to bring Anacreon to Athens. It is not this pilot’s ship, and its condition is not discussed. The later vessel belongs to the practical resources of cultural patronage, whereas the first belongs to the test of instrumental worth.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226b.** ἱστία καὶ πηδάλια — Sails and steering equipment are the concrete defective inputs.
- **226b.** ζημιωθήσεται καὶ κινδυνεύσει — Certain loss and exposure to further danger are separately expressed.
- **226b–c.** ἀπὸ τῶν σκευῶν τῶν μηδενὸς ἀξίων — The conclusion collects those fittings as worthless tackle.

**In this edition.** The edition’s “pilot” should not suggest the modern operator of an aircraft. Its “will be in danger” preserves the risk construction; “losing” the ship and cargo translates forms of the same destruction verb that supplies “perishing” for the pilot. “Tackle” distinguishes the nautical collection from the more general “instruments” and “equipment” used in the culminating craft example at 226c.

**See also.** [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46) · [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Anacreon and the fifty oared ship](#entry-anacreon-and-the-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 24)

## Pisistratus and Philaidae {#entry-pisistratus-and-philaidae}

*Πεισίστρατος (Peisistratos); Φιλαΐδαι (Philaidai)*

**The word.** Πεισίστρατος is Pisistratus, the Athenian ruler and father of Hipparchus and Hippias. Φιλαΐδαι is Philaidae, a local Attic community or deme. The text gives the genitive Πεισιστράτου and the phrase τοῦ ἐκ Φιλαϊδῶν, “of the man from Philaidae.” The plural-looking place-name is not a reference here to a group of people called “the Philaidae.”

**In Hipparchus.** The identification at 228b moves through citizenship, father and locality before settling on Hipparchus. Socrates first describes the authority he obeys as a fellow citizen of both speakers. He then adds that this man is Pisistratus’ son, identifying Pisistratus by his connection with Philaidae. The construction embeds the apparently extraordinary cultural ruler in an ordinary civic geography. Athens in the story includes the communities of Attica as well as its urban centre.

Pisistratus himself is not given a speech, action or developed character. His importance is genealogical and political: his name identifies the ruling family against which the praise of Hipparchus must be heard. The later claim that Athens experienced tyranny only during Hippias’ three final years makes the earlier family regime appear exceptionally benign. That is a feature of Socrates’ account, not a reason to describe Pisistratus’ rule as a democracy.

The location also prepares the geography of the Herms. A reader has already heard of one local community before learning that Hipparchus set monuments halfway between the town and each deme. This relation is textual rather than a claim that Philaidae was one of the specific sites named on a surviving Herm. No such monument is identified in the dialogue.

Plutarch’s Life of Solon 10.2 associates Pisistratus with Philaidae in an account of Athenian claims to Salamis. That later source supports the local identification supplied by the edition’s note. It does not independently establish Hipparchus’ educational intentions or the accuracy of his description as the eldest son.[^culture-philaidae]

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228b.** Πεισιστράτου δὲ ὑεῖ — “And the son of Pisistratus”: the father identifies the person Socrates obeys.
- **228b.** τοῦ ἐκ Φιλαϊδῶν — The locality belongs to the identification of Pisistratus.
- **228d.** τῶν δήμων ἑκάστων — The narrative expands from a named local origin to the network of demes.

**In this edition.** The translation prints “Pisistratus of Philaidae,” without an article before the place-name. Its note identifies Philaidae as a deme and cites Plutarch. “Deme” is useful geographical vocabulary here, but one should not import the full later democratic administrative system into every reference to an earlier Attic community. The passage supplies no tribal affiliation, boundary description or institutional history.

**See also.** [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101) · [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28) · [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202) · [Hippias and tyranny](#entry-hippias-and-tyranny) (p. 103)

## Possession and acquisition {#entry-possession-and-acquisition}

*κτῆμα (ktēma), κτᾶσθαι (ktasthai), κεκτῆσθαι (kektēsthai), ἔχειν (echein)*

**The word.** Κτῆμα means a possession, something acquired or held. Κτᾶσθαι is to acquire; its perfect κεκτῆσθαι commonly denotes the resultant state, to possess or have acquired. Ἔχειν is the broader verb to have or hold. The edition differentiates “acquire,” “possess” and “have” where the Greek distinguishes the act, its result and ordinary holding.

The range of possession here extends beyond saleable property. One can acquire disease or health. The example deliberately exploits that breadth: if an account makes every acquisition gain, unpleasant conditions must be considered too. Calling disease something acquired is ordinary enough to support the test; it is not an assertion that illness is an alienable commodity.

**In Hipparchus.** At 230c Socrates speaks of the person “having” decent gain or base gain. The later proposed definition then makes gain a possession acquired under one of two conditions: with no expenditure, or with less spent than received (231a). This is a change of focus from a disposition of persons to a relation between something acquired and the acquisition’s cost.

The feast tests the first branch. A guest spends nothing but acquires disease; the companion denies that this is gain. Health acquired from a feast, by contrast, is gain. The same verb and noun family can describe both outcomes, so the act of acquisition alone is insufficient. Socrates explicitly concludes that acquiring any possession whatever is not gain.

The second branch leads to gold and silver. Again, the bare fact of acquiring more cannot determine gain until the relevant worth is specified. The object’s desirability matters independently of the numerical addition. At 231e Socrates accordingly asks whether what has worth is worth possessing, then whether what is worth possessing is beneficial. The perfect infinitive focuses on having the thing as a condition, rather than the excitement or success of getting it.

This progression does not prove that “acquisition” and “gain” are never interchangeable in ordinary speech. It establishes the companion’s willingness to exclude acquisitions that are bad for their recipient. The philosophical pressure lies in the breadth of the exclusion. If the final account makes every gain beneficial by definition, the original distinction between decent and base ways of gaining may have been displaced rather than answered. It remains possible for an acquisition to count as a financial profit and yet not be worth possessing on an all-things-considered assessment.

The lexical distinction also guards against treating possession as automatically stable or secure. The dialogue asks about having and acquiring, but does not discuss legal title, ownership rights or whether the recipient can retain what is obtained.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **231a.** πᾶν κτῆμα ὃ ἄν τις κτήσηται — The first proposed account identifies gain with a suitably acquired possession.
- **231b.** νόσον κτήσηται — Disease tests the breadth of acquisition.
- **231b.** τὸ ὁτιοῦν κτῆμα κτήσασθαι — Any acquisition whatever is explicitly ruled insufficient.
- **231e.** Ναί, κεκτῆσθαι — The companion accepts possessing as the completion of worth.

**In this edition.** The edition’s Key Words expressly distinguishes κτᾶσθαι “acquire” from κεκτῆσθαι “possess.” At 231c Burnet’s “acquires more” depends on a reported later-hand reading; that textual choice affects the quantitative definition but not the basic distinction between acquisition and possession. See Text and apparatus for its limits.

**See also.** [Spending and receiving](#entry-spending-and-receiving) (p. 183) · [Worth possessing](#entry-worth-possessing) (p. 217) · [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97) · [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56)

## Quantity and quality {#entry-quantity-and-quality}

*ξηρός (xēros), ὑγρός (hygros), ἀγαθός (agathos), κακός (kakos), ἀξία (axia)*

**The word.** Ξηρός means dry and ὑγρός wet; in the examples they distinguish food and drink. Ἀγαθός means good and κακός bad; they evaluate examples within a kind. Ἀξία means worth or value; in the exchange example it supplies the relevant measure beyond physical amount. These words do different work. Dryness is not another name for goodness, and worth is not identical with weight.

“Quantity and quality” is a modern organizing heading. The dialogue does not formulate a technical distinction under Greek nouns corresponding to these two English abstractions. It instead uses comparisons, evaluative adjectives and concrete examples. Their relations are therefore better explained passage by passage than converted into a doctrine attributed to the author.

**In Hipparchus.** The sequence of food, drink and human beings separates what a thing is from whether it is good (230a–c). The separation enables the companion to retain the expression “bad gain” provisionally. Bad food is still food, so one cannot refute the expression merely by observing that gain is a common name. At this stage quality varies within the kind.

Socrates’ next inference from equally being gains to equally gaining is less secure. A difference of quality need not by itself establish a difference of quantity, but neither does common kind establish equal quantity. The analogy warrants no automatic inference in either direction. Reading the qualifications carefully is more useful than treating “quality” and “quantity” as labels that settle the argument.

Once gain is described as acquisition, amount becomes explicit. Receiving something free appears sufficient under the first proposed condition; receiving more for less appears sufficient under the second. Disease acquired at a feast blocks the first simplification: the thing added can be bad for its recipient. A heavier amount of silver received for gold blocks the second: amount needs a common scale of assessment. This is not just a return to the food distinction, because a comparison between metals concerns relative worth in an exchange.

The final inference from worth through worth possessing and benefit to goodness brings evaluation back inside the definition of gain. A plausible account of genuine advantage emerges: more possession does not help unless what is acquired has beneficial worth. Yet the original question concerned a morally reproached disposition. Economic value, benefit to the acquirer and moral decency are not established as identical by the examples. Keeping their differences visible is essential to understanding why the companion can accept individual answers and still resist the conclusion.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **230e.** ξηρὰ τροφὴ σώματός — Dryness enters the working definition of food.
- **230e.** τῇ τοῦ σώματος ὑγρᾷ τροφῇ — Wetness enters the corresponding account of drink.
- **231b.** ἐὰν κακόν — The badness of an acquisition defeats the unrestricted possession account.
- **231d.** τῷ κέρδει τοῦτο προσεῖναι, τὴν ἀξίαν — Worth must be added to the account of gain.

**In this edition.** The edition preserves “decent” and “base” for χρηστός and πονηρός, even of drink, beside “good” and “bad” for ἀγαθός and κακός. That deliberate stiffness prevents a smooth English paraphrase from hiding changes in evaluative vocabulary. This article’s conceptual labels are aids to reading those changes, not substitutes for them.

**See also.** [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207)

## Reproach and the ending {#entry-reproach-and-the-ending}

*ὀνειδίζειν (oneidizein), ὀρθῶς (orthōs), τυγχάνειν (tynchanein)*

**The word.** Ὀνειδίζειν means to reproach, taunt or cast something against someone as a fault. Ὀρθῶς means rightly or correctly. Τυγχάνειν, when joined to a participle as here, marks a fact about someone: the reproacher turns out to be, or is in fact, the same sort of person. Its function is not to describe a lucky chance occurrence.

The final sentence repeats the reproach verb three times in different forms, keeping the act of accusation before the reader. It distinguishes whether someone can be called a lover of gain from whether that description is correctly used as a reproach. A universal classification is not automatically an ethical vindication.

**In Hipparchus.** The dialogue began with a loaded social category. The companion called lovers of gain unscrupulous, base and shameless, and later distinguished their willingness to profit from conduct decent people would refuse. Socrates repeatedly broadens gain into something good or beneficial, then derives love of gain from the shared desire for good things. By 232c both decent and base people fall under the description.

The conclusion is explicitly framed “by your argument.” This assigns the result to the companion’s concessions rather than presenting it as an unsupported authorial maxim. The companion says only “It appears so.” Socrates then states that reproaching another for loving gain is not right, because even the reproacher is such a person.

Two interpretive routes need distinguishing. If love of gain has been shown to mean an ordinary wish for genuine benefit, the term has lost the special vice implied by the opening reproach. Calling someone a lover of gain would then fail to identify the alleged fault. On that reading, the final turn exposes imprecise moral language. But if the original vice of graspingness remains, the fact that everyone shares it does not alone prove that reproach is incorrect. A shared fault could still be a fault. The final sentence therefore depends on more than universality.

The companion’s charge of deception and last admission of compulsion complicate any simple reading of the ending as settled wisdom. The dialogue closes before he gives a fully persuasive alternative account, but also before Socrates demonstrates that his resistance has vanished. The reader is left to examine whether the argument clarifies gain or changes its sense at decisive points.

The repeated ὀνειδίζειν turns scrutiny back on the accuser. That dramatic reversal need not be reduced to the slogan that only flawless people may criticize others. The specific question is whether this particular description can distinguish the blamed person from the person blaming him under the accepted account. The text tests the vocabulary of blame along with the logic of desire.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **232c.** κατὰ τὸν σὸν λόγον — The universal result is attributed to the companion’s argument.
- **232c.** Οὐκ ἄρα ὀρθῶς ὀνειδίζει — Socrates denies the correctness of the reproach.
- **232c.** εἴ τίς τῳ ὀνειδίζει φιλοκερδεῖ εἶναι — The charge is specifically being a lover of gain.
- **232c.** τυγχάνει γὰρ καὶ ὁ ταῦτα ὀνειδίζων — The accuser is included in the class he invokes.

**In this edition.** The translation’s “even the one who casts this reproach” preserves καί’s sting: the condemning speaker is himself caught. “Rightly” should not be silently replaced with “politely” or “legally”; the question concerns the justification of the accusation. The edition ends with this reversal and supplies no final reconciliatory speech.

**See also.** [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112) · [All some and none](#entry-all-some-and-none) (p. 22) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154)

## Roads and Steiria {#entry-roads-and-steiria}

*ὁδός (hodos); Στειριακός (Steiriakos); στείχειν (steichein)*

**The word.** Ὁδός means road or way. Στειριακός means Steirian, belonging to or leading toward Steiria; the dialogue gives the feminine dative Στειριακῇ with ὁδῷ. Στείχειν means to go or proceed, with στεῖχε, “go your way,” as the imperative in the justice inscription. The shared initial sounds of Steiria and στεῖχε do not establish an etymological relation.

**In Hipparchus.** Roads provide the practical setting for Hipparchus’ distribution of wisdom. The Herms are not described as objects hidden in a ruler’s house or as texts requiring a special journey to Delphi. They stand where people already pass up and down. Their location turns movement between town and country into an opportunity for reading, while the promised taste of wisdom is meant to prompt a new journey toward further teaching.

One road is singled out because its inscription gives Socrates the command he needs: the Steirian road bears the injunction not to deceive a friend. The specification supplies local concreteness to the quoted rule. It does not mean that the dialogue’s speakers are currently on that road, that Socrates has just read its Herm, or that the monument stood at Steiria itself. The stated network places monuments at intermediate points.

The other quoted saying turns the physical action of a passer-by into an ethical instruction. “Go your way with just thoughts” leaves the traveller travelling but asks that the mental direction of the journey be just. It is an economical fit between site and maxim. Reading the command as purely metaphorical would lose the actual road; reading it as only traffic advice would lose the moral demand.

Strabo locates Steiria in a coastal sequence in eastern Attica, between Prasia and Brauron. That helps explain the edition’s description of the route from Athens toward an east-coast deme. The dialogue itself gives no itinerary, length, specific branch road or archaeological identification of the friendship Herm.[^culture-steiria]

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228d.** κατὰ τὰς ὁδοὺς — The monuments are distributed along roads.
- **229a.** Στειριακῇ ὁδῷ — The specifically named road carries the friendship injunction.
- **229a.** στεῖχε δίκαια φρονῶν — The travelling imperative combines movement and ethical thought.

**In this edition.** “The Steirian road” reproduces the adjectival expression rather than turning it into an otherwise unspecified street called “Steiria.” The supplied note cites Strabo 9.1.22 for the deme’s location. The verb “go your way” retains the address to a moving person, which a free rendering such as “be just” would suppress.

**See also.** [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99) · [Justice and just thoughts](#entry-justice-and-just-thoughts) (p. 121) · [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80) · [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202)

## Sameness and difference {#entry-sameness-and-difference}

*ταὐτόν / τὸ αὐτό (tauton / to auto), διαφέρειν (diapherein), ὁμοίως (homoiōs), ἀμφότερα (amphotera)*

**The word.** Ταὐτόν is a contracted form of τὸ αὐτό, “the same.” Διαφέρειν means to differ. Ὁμοίως means similarly, alike or equally; the edition consistently chooses “equally” in this argument. Ἀμφότερα means both, the two taken together. None of these expressions on its own specifies whether the relevant sameness concerns kind, amount, quality or value.

The passage supplies its own restrictions: “in this respect,” “as far as being food goes,” and “in that respect ... in which it is the same.” These qualifications prevent the initial analogy from asserting total identity. Good food and bad food can differ substantially while both satisfy the description food.

**In Hipparchus.** At 230a–b Socrates obtains the companion’s agreement that good and bad food are equally food. He expands the claim to drink and other things, then to decent and base human beings. Neither person is more or less human because of moral character. The point is classificatory: differences in goodness do not, in these examples, produce degrees of membership in the relevant kind.

The same reasoning is applied to decent and base gain at 230c. At that stage the claim has a clear conditional force. If both really are gains, the bad one does not cease to count as gain simply because it is bad. This use of sameness preserves the companion’s preferred distinction rather than refuting it. It allows Socrates to ask what common description makes the two gains.

Before asking that question, however, Socrates concludes that the possessor of decent gain gains no more than the possessor of base gain. Sameness of classification is now made to support sameness in the action or outcome of gaining. That does not follow without an additional restriction: two portions can be equally food while one supplies more food or nourishment, and two profits can equally be profits while differing in size. The qualifiers that made the earlier claim reasonable do not automatically carry across to every use of “more.”

The next question partly repairs the focus by asking “What do you see in both that is the same?” The inquiry can proceed without endorsing equality in amount. A charitable reading treats “gains no more” as meaning “is no more genuinely a case of gaining”; a critical reading hears an equivocation that the later expenditure calculations expose. The Greek and the edition leave that pressure visible. An article should identify the change of respect rather than simply call every occurrence of “equally” mathematical equality.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **230b.** κατὰ τὸ σιτίον εἶναι — Sameness is expressly limited to being food.
- **230b–c.** ᾗ τὸ αὐτό ἐστιν — The claim concerns the respect in which something is the same.
- **230c.** κέρδος γε ὁμοίως ἐστὶ — Both proposed kinds are equally gain.
- **230d.** τί ταὐτὸν ἐν ἀμφοτέροις ὁρῶν — The definition must identify what is common to both.

**In this edition.** The edition’s final revision changed inconsistent renderings of ὁμοίως to “equally” throughout the food-and-gain analogy. That consistency exposes the inferential transition; it should not be taken as an editorial guarantee that every occurrence means equality of quantity. The text’s own limiting phrases remain essential to interpreting the repeated word.

**See also.** [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56) · [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112) · [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78)

## Senselessness and intelligence {#entry-senselessness-and-intelligence}

*ἀνόητος (anoētos); ἔμφρων (emphrōn); μανικός (manikos)*

**The word.** Anoētos means senseless, lacking understanding or not thinking intelligently. Emphrōn means intelligent, sensible or in possession of understanding. Manikos means mad or frenzied. The dialogue deploys these as evaluative descriptions of people; it does not identify them as medical conditions or derive an exhaustive psychological classification.

The expressions are not synonyms. A mistaken valuation may be senseless without being madness, and practical intelligence need not by itself establish moral goodness. That distinction is the reason the companion protests against Socrates’ first description of the lover of gain.

**In Hipparchus.** At 225a ignorance that one’s prospective source of gain is worthless leads Socrates to say that the companion is calling lovers of gain senseless. The companion rejects this: he intends people who understand what they are doing yet are unscrupulous and base. His accusation requires enough intelligence to make their conduct culpable in the way he has in mind. The contrast is between error and deliberate misconduct, not between the clever and the conventionally educated.

At the end of the craft sequence, Socrates gathers craftsmen together with “the other intelligent men”. The wording does not make everyone a craftsman; it treats practitioners as part of a wider class of sensible agents. They are expected to recognise that worthless means do not deliver successful ends. The resulting exclusion of knowing pursuit works only as long as the same end and beneficiary are kept in view. A shrewd person may identify one action as harmful in a respect without ceasing to calculate some other advantage.

The second definition, excessive craving for small or worthless things, is again driven toward ignorance of worth. But at 227b Socrates jokes that lovers of gain are at least not madmen, since they love gain and gain has been declared good. The compliment is pointed: the group first introduced as morally contemptible now looks ordinary and reasonable. It is also limited. Loving something good does not settle whether one loves it excessively, at another person’s expense, or without proportion to other goods.

The historical interlude supplies an adjacent but different intellectual reproach: the familiar story of Hipparchus’ death is dismissed as simple-minded. That disparagement belongs to Socrates’ rival account of cultural authority, not to a demonstrated psychological diagnosis. Throughout the dialogue, labels of intelligence can do rhetorical work before their warrant has been established. The companion’s inability to state Socrates’ alleged trick finally shows why lack of a diagnosis is not equivalent to lack of a problem.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225a.** ἀνοήτους λέγεις τοὺς φιλοκερδεῖς — Socrates identifies the ignorant branch with senselessness.
- **225a.** Ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἀνοήτους λέγω — The companion expressly rejects that intended meaning.
- **226c.** τῶν ἄλλων τῶν ἐμφρόνων ἀνδρῶν — Intelligent people extend the practical examples beyond named crafts.
- **227b.** Οὐ μανικούς γε — Socrates’ denial of madness accompanies the reclassification of gain as good.

**In this edition.** The edition distinguishes “senseless”, “intelligent” and “madmen”, allowing the changes of register to be heard. There is no reason to replace all three with “irrational”, which would obscure the companion’s refusal and Socrates’ later joking reassurance. Header forms are nominative lexical forms; the cited dialogue has accusative and genitive inflections.

**See also.** [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123) · [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204) · [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117) · [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92)

## Shamelessness and daring {#entry-shamelessness-and-daring}

*ἀναισχυντία (anaischyntia); τολμᾶν (tolman)*

**The word.** Anaischyntia is shamelessness, a lack of the shame or regard for disgrace that ordinarily restrains conduct. Tolman means to dare, venture or bring oneself to do something. Daring is not inherently admirable or blameworthy: its moral value depends on what is attempted and what inhibition is overcome.

The lover of gain’s daring is paired with shamelessness at 225b. In the third definition decent men do not dare to gain from certain sources. Their refusal need not mean timidity. It marks an ethical limit on what they can bring themselves to do.

**In Hipparchus.** The companion’s first explanation is insistently voluntary and knowing: people know the sources are worth nothing and nevertheless dare to love gain. Shamelessness supplies the motive or enabling disposition for crossing the boundary. The “nevertheless” matters because he does not intend a simple mistake about worth. He is trying to condemn pursuit that remains objectionable even if the pursuer is clever.

Socrates substitutes examples of known practical failure. Once worthlessness is interpreted as inability to serve the practitioner’s purpose, daring loses its original point. Courage or shamelessness cannot make a worthless rudder function as a good one. The issue has moved from violation of a restraint to misjudgement of an outcome. This is why the companion later defines the disputed conduct by the sources decent men avoid, restoring a moral contrast after the craft argument has dissolved the original one.

At 227d the third definition attaches earnest pursuit and thinking fit to those disallowed sources. The passage recognises that two agents may share a desire for benefit but differ in what they are willing to do for it. Socrates’ universalisation will turn on the object “good things”; the companion’s description turns on allowable means. The distinction between those questions is a central source of the dialogue’s friction.

The daring vocabulary returns unexpectedly at 229b. Having quoted Hipparchus’ injunction not to deceive a friend, Socrates says that he would surely not dare to deceive the companion and disobey such a man. He thus presents himself under a restraint structurally like the decent men’s earlier restraint. The historical appeal does not demonstrate that his arguments are free from deception, and the companion immediately says he remains unconvinced. It does show that the dialogue has not abandoned the language of prohibited conduct merely because everyone is said to love gain.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225b.** δι’ ἀναισχυντίαν — Shamelessness explains why the knowing agent ventures the conduct.
- **227d.** οἱ χρηστοὶ οὐ τολμῶσι κερδαίνειν — Decent men’s restraint supplies the third definition’s boundary.
- **229b.** οὐ δήπου τολμῴην ἂν ἐξαπατᾶν — Socrates claims he would not dare deceive a friend.

**In this edition.** The edition retains “dare” in both the initial accusation and Socrates’ later self-defence. That recurrence links ethics of acquisition with ethics of conversation. It should not be normalised to “are able” in the first case or “would never” in the second, since both would weaken the motif of an action one refuses to venture. No historical claim about a comprehensive Greek shame culture is necessary to explain this local usage.

**See also.** [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204) · [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198) · [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133)

## Simonides fees and gifts {#entry-simonides-fees-and-gifts}

*Σιμωνίδης (Simōnidēs); Κεῖος (Keios); μισθός (misthos); δῶρον (dōron)*

**The word.** Σιμωνίδης is Simonides, the poet kept in Hipparchus’ company. Κεῖος means Cean, from Ceos, and distinguishes his island of origin from Anacreon’s Teos. Μισθός means pay, remuneration or fee; δῶρον means gift. The plural datives μισθοῖς and δώροις identify the means by which Hipparchus persuades him. A fee and a gift can both transfer wealth, but they need not carry identical expectations.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates says Hipparchus kept Simonides always about him by persuading him with large fees and gifts. Unlike the enforced ordering of the rhapsodes, this relationship is described through persuasion; unlike the voyage for Anacreon, it concerns continuing proximity. The patron uses material inducements to maintain a poet’s presence.

Money consequently appears inside the central cultural narrative without being immediately condemned as base gain. The story occurs in an argument about whether the desire for gain singles out discreditable people. Simonides’ receipt of large rewards is part of the evidence for Hipparchus’ wisdom and generosity, not an explicit accusation that the poet is unscrupulous. The text does not call him a lover of gain here. Reading that label into the sentence would anticipate a connection the reader may consider but Socrates does not expressly make.

The pairing of fees and gifts prevents an overly simple opposition between commerce and benefaction. A ruler can support poetry through payment and through generosity, while the poet may be moved by both. Nothing in the account specifies contractual terms, a rate per poem or the value of the gifts. The real argumentative point is that material advantage and cultural production coexist in a narrative offered as ethical praise.

The action is then included in the wish to educate citizens. Whether the direct beneficiary is Simonides, Hipparchus or the wider city depends on which relation one considers. That distribution illustrates why counting what a person receives does not by itself determine the whole value of an exchange. The dialogue, however, does not conduct a calculation of these benefits or claim to prove patronage just by its educational aim.

Aelian’s later retelling adds an emphatic characterization of Simonides as fond of money. That belongs to the reception of the passage and should not be silently substituted for the more restrained statement in the supplied Greek.[^culture-simonides]

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228c.** Σιμωνίδην δὲ τὸν Κεῖον — The second living poet is identified as Simonides of Ceos.
- **228c.** ἀεὶ περὶ αὑτὸν εἶχεν — Hipparchus maintains his continuing company.
- **228c.** μεγάλοις μισθοῖς καὶ δώροις πείθων — Fees and gifts are explicitly means of persuasion.

**In this edition.** The edition’s “fees and gifts” keeps the two categories distinct, and “persuading” preserves the verbal link with obedience and conviction elsewhere. It does not translate the payments as “bribes,” a word that would prejudge their moral status and obscure the flattering purpose of Socrates’ narrative.

**See also.** [Anacreon and the fifty oared ship](#entry-anacreon-and-the-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 24) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154) · [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65)

## Small and great {#entry-small-and-great}

*σμικρός (smikros), μέγας (megas), ὀλίγος (oligos), πολύς (polys)*

**The word.** Σμικρός means small and μέγας great or large. Ὀλίγος means little or few, while πολύς means much or many; their genitives can qualify worth, as in “worth little” and “worth much.” These pairs overlap in ordinary comparisons but do not give one interchangeable scale. A physically small acquisition can possess great worth.

The actual endings vary: σμικρά and μεγάλα are neuter plurals at the close, matching gains; σμικρόν and μέγα are singulars in the statement about what is gainful. Ὀλίγου and πολλοῦ in expressions of worth specify valuation, not necessarily the dimensions of an object. Translating every term as “amount” would erase that distinction.

**In Hipparchus.** The companion’s revised description at 226d–e attacks people who, through insatiability, crave even very small things worth little or nothing. The excess belongs to the craving in relation to its object. A small object can therefore expose a large failure of restraint. Socrates responds that such people cannot know the object is worthless; they must think it worth much. The account shifts from disproportionate appetite to mistaken assessment.

At 231e size is detached from gainfulness in a different way. Following the gold-and-silver exchange, what has worth is gainful “whether it is small or great.” The physical contrast cannot determine the result: a small weight of valuable material can exceed a larger weight in worth. The statement reverses any easy expectation that getting more stuff necessarily means gaining more.

At 232b–c the pair becomes comprehensive. All gains, both small and great, are said to be good; decent people wish for all good things; base people are recalled as loving gains both small and great. The inclusiveness of the pair helps close the argument by leaving no quantity-based exception. The moral distinction the companion wanted cannot be restored merely by pointing to the smallness of a gain.

The retrospective description of the base requires care. The earlier speech expressly dwells on craving even very small, low-worth things. “Even” suggests that smallness does not deter them, but the final formula “both small and great” is a broader recapitulation, not a verbatim repetition of that speech. The edition’s note points back to 226d–e and identifies the movement. A lexicon should record what was actually said at each place.

Finally, being indifferent to size because genuine benefit is desirable differs from being unable to resist the slightest profit. Those can share the words small and great while describing unlike dispositions. That difference remains relevant to the ending’s attempt to remove the reproach of loving gain.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226d–e.** πάνυ σμικρὰ καὶ ὀλίγου ἄξια καὶ οὐδενὸς — The companion describes craving tiny, low-worth or worthless things.
- **226e.** πολλοῦ ἄξια εἶναι — Socrates proposes mistaken high valuation.
- **231e.** ἐάντε σμικρὸν ᾖ ἐάντε μέγα — Worth makes size irrelevant to gainfulness.
- **232b.** καὶ σμικρὰ καὶ μεγάλα — The conclusion explicitly includes both sizes of gain.

**In this edition.** The edition uses “small and great” rather than consistently modernizing μέγας to “large.” Its “worth little or nothing” is a value qualification and should not be folded into “small.” The same distinction keeps the later gold example intelligible: more weight can mean less worth.

**See also.** [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Gainful and without gain](#entry-gainful-and-without-gain) (p. 85) · [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90) · [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212)

## Socrates {#entry-socrates}

*Σωκράτης (Sōkratēs)*

**The word.** Σωκράτης is Socrates, the questioner in the dialogue. The vocative Σώκρατες is used when the companion addresses him. The dramatic speaker should be distinguished from the historical Athenian Socrates and from the unidentified author of the work. A sentence spoken by this Socrates establishes what the dialogue presents him as saying, not independently what the historical man taught.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates directs both the inquiry into gain and the episode that lends the dialogue its title. He asks for the love of gain to be defined, subjects successive answers to counterexamples, and repeatedly draws the companion toward a universal conclusion: everyone loves gain if gain is good. His authority is expressed less through a declaration of doctrine than through the sequence of questions he selects and the agreements he recalls.

That direction is not invisible to the companion. At 228a the companion accuses Socrates of turning things up and down in the arguments. Socrates answers with the story of Hipparchus, not with an immediate formal defence of every inference. He presents himself as obedient to a good and wise fellow citizen, whose injunction against deceiving a friend should guarantee his conduct. The companion refuses that guarantee, applying its terms back to the speaker.

Socrates then offers to take back an argumentative move, as in draughts. This makes his conduct more flexible than a simple exercise of authority: the interlocutor can nominate an agreement for revision. Yet the menu of alternatives and the ensuing comparisons remain Socrates’ construction. The companion eventually describes the result as compulsion rather than persuasion. A reader must therefore attend to the distinction between allowing a reply and securing genuine conviction.

The final formulation includes Socrates within the human love of good things, while the reproach against love of gain recoils on anyone who makes it. This does not erase the possibility of greed or dishonest acquisition; it shows how the conclusion follows when gain is treated as benefit. Whether Socrates deliberately exposes equivocation, strategically provokes the companion, or simply advances an imperfect argument remains a question of interpretation. His status as the familiar philosophical character is not a substitute for checking each step.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228a.** ὦ Σώκρατες — The direct address occurs in the companion’s explicit accusation.
- **228b.** οὐ πειθόμενος — Socrates explains himself through obedience to an admired authority.
- **229e.** ὥσπερ πεττεύων — He offers the limited analogy of taking back a move in draughts.
- **229e.** ἵνα μὴ οἴῃ — The stated purpose is that the companion should not think himself deceived.

**In this edition.** The speaker abbreviation ΣΩ. and the translation label “Soc.” identify dialogue turns, not separate narrative layers. The edition leaves the setting and occasion unspecified. Its Introduction explicitly cautions against assuming that every argument is sound or that every Socratic assertion records Plato’s own doctrine.

**See also.** [The unnamed companion](#entry-unnamed-companion) (p. 193) · [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80) · [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186) · [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35)

## Spending and receiving {#entry-spending-and-receiving}

*ἀναλίσκειν (analiskein), λαμβάνειν (lambanein), μηδέν (mēden)*

**The word.** Ἀναλίσκειν means to spend or expend; λαμβάνειν means to take, receive or get. Μηδέν means nothing, used here for zero expenditure. The repeated aorist participle ἀναλώσας presents spending as the outlay preceding acquisition; λάβῃ and εἴληφεν describe what is received or has been received. These forms belong to one receiving verb, not separate economic terms.

Spending and receiving are not inherently monetary in the initial definition. The object remains “every possession” until the companion later specifies gold or silver. A reader should therefore not insert money into every occurrence of “less” and “more” before the text does.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates proposes two alternative ways of obtaining gain at 231a: acquiring without spending anything, or spending less and getting more. The disjunction matters. A case can meet the first condition without involving any exchange, while the second requires a comparison between outlay and receipt. The proposal has enough structure to be tested branch by branch.

The guest who is entertained and acquires disease meets the no-expenditure condition. The source does not say that the guest paid an admission charge or bought the food; spending nothing is explicit. Yet the companion rejects the outcome as gain. A zero price therefore cannot by itself settle the worth of what one gets. The health alternative makes this judgment positive as well as negative: the same setting can provide gain when its effect is beneficial.

At 231c Socrates returns to less outlay and more acquisition. The companion attempts to specify the relevant sort of object as gold or silver. The exchange question then separates the amount received from its worth. A transaction can increase physical weight while losing value. “Receive more” consequently needs a measure and a basis of comparison; it is incomplete without them.

The examples do not amount to a developed account of commercial profit. They do not discuss labour, opportunity cost, a merchant’s overheads or legal obligations. Their target is the simple sufficiency claim that no outlay or a larger receipt guarantees gain. Reading additional economic concepts into the text would obscure how little is needed for the counterexamples.

There is also a rhetorical shift in who constructs the proposal. Socrates offers the definition and the companion accepts it tentatively. When it fails, the failure belongs to the jointly considered formulation rather than to a detailed economic theory independently expounded by the companion.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **231a.** ἢ μηδὲν ἀναλώσας — The first alternative is acquisition without any expenditure.
- **231a.** ἢ ἔλαττον ἀναλώσας πλέον λάβῃ — The second compares less spent with more received.
- **231b.** μηδὲν ἀναλώσας ἀλλ’ εὐωχηθείς — The feast retains the condition of zero outlay.
- **231d.** Καὶ μὴν πλέον γ’ εἴληφεν — Socrates insists on the physical increase after loss has been acknowledged.

**In this edition.** The translation uses “get” for λαμβάνειν in these examples. The English heading “receiving” identifies that sense without requiring a change in the edition’s wording. The numerical language of the metal exchange should be quoted and qualified as printed; resolving it by silently changing “half,” “double,” or their units would exceed a lexical explanation.

**See also.** [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161) · [Feast and hospitality](#entry-feast-and-hospitality) (p. 76) · [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207) · [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90)

## Taking back and draughts {#entry-taking-back-and-draughts}

*ἀνατίθεσθαι (anatithesthai), πεττεύειν (petteuein)*

**The word.** Ἀνατίθεσθαι is here to take back or retract a move already made. Its ordinary range is broader, but the comparison with a board game fixes the local sense. Πεττεύειν means to play a game with counters; the edition gives “playing draughts.” The participle πεττεύων describes Socrates as if engaged in such a game. The comparison does not identify every rule of the ancient game with those of modern draughts.

Taking back is distinguished from simply denying that an admission was made. Socrates accepts that the earlier argumentative steps stand on the record and offers to reopen one of them. The repeated dative σοι, “for you,” makes the retraction a concession addressed to this partner. A procedural courtesy is therefore also a way of controlling the next stage of discussion.

**In Hipparchus.** The game is introduced after the companion says that Socrates is deceiving him in some way he cannot identify. Instead of asking him to diagnose the trick, Socrates lays out the available moves: whether all people desire good things; whether loss and suffering loss are bad; whether gain and gaining oppose loss and suffering loss; and whether gaining, as the opposite of what is bad, is good (229e–230a). The offer makes the structure of the preceding argument available for inspection.

The companion refuses to relinquish the first three positions. At the fourth he says “Not all of it, at any rate. Take that back for me.” This matters: he does not assert that no gain is good. He rejects the unrestricted conclusion and restores a division between some good gain and some bad gain. Socrates expressly accepts that position for the next inquiry. The distinction between all and some is the substance of the revised move.

The apparent fresh start is limited. The retained commitments still constrain the companion, and the questioning soon returns to the goodness of gain through possession, benefit and worth. By 232a Socrates counts the conclusion as arriving for the third or fourth time. The draughts image allows two readings to coexist: a genuine willingness to test a revised account, and a contest in which a generous opponent expects to win despite allowing a take-back. The dialogue does not settle that dramatic judgment by explaining Socrates’ intention.

The image also makes the companion’s continued dissatisfaction intelligible. Permission to revise a premise does not itself guarantee that later inferences will be sound. In particular, the subsequent movement from equally being gains to equally gaining still requires examination. The courtesy answers a complaint about the conduct of conversation without automatically answering every logical complaint.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **229e.** ὥσπερ πεττεύων — The explicit comparison with playing a counter game.
- **229e.** ἀναθέσθαι ὅτι βούλει τῶν εἰρημένων — The offer to retract whichever of the things said the companion wishes.
- **230a.** Οὔτι πᾶν γε· τουτί μοι ἀνάθου — The requested retraction concerns universality.
- **230a.** Ἀνατίθεμαι τοίνυν σοὶ τοῦτο — Socrates formally grants the take-back.

**In this edition.** The edition’s note identifies a comparable offer to Polus in Gorgias 461d. That is the supplied edition’s cross-reference, not evidence that the precise game rules have been reconstructed here. “Take back” should be retained through offer, request and acceptance; replacing one occurrence with “change your mind” would obscure the shared metaphor.

**See also.** [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [All some and none](#entry-all-some-and-none) (p. 22) · [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152) · [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138)

## Text and apparatus {#entry-text-and-apparatus}

*ἀλλά (alla), ἃ (ha), ὁ (ho), πλέον κτήσηται (pleon ktēsētai), οὐ (ou), αὐτός (autos)*

**The word.** Ἀλλά means but; the elided ἀλλ’ is the supplement printed at 226d. Ἅ, written ἃ in context, is a neuter plural relative pronoun, “which” or “things which”; at 230e Burnet brackets it as spurious. Ὁ is the masculine singular article, “the,” and is proposed in the apparatus to clarify the second possessor of gain at 230c. Πλέον κτήσηται means “acquires more.” Οὐ is the negative “not.” Αὐτός means self or himself and can emphasize a second-person subject as “you yourself.” These examples show how a very small reading can change an argumentative formulation.

Text and apparatus are different layers. A reading printed in the running Greek is what this edition translates. An apparatus entry can record that reading’s witnesses, alternatives, a conjectural addition, or a deletion without adopting every proposal. The mere appearance of Greek in the apparatus does not make it part of the dialogue as printed.

**In Hipparchus.** The supplied edition reproduces Burnet’s second-edition text and apparatus from a later impression. It follows his line endings and retains Stephanus references, which identify passages independently of modern page numbers. Apparatus keys use section letter and line; when a page crosses into a new Stephanus page, the letter sequence begins again. A reader must therefore locate the page as well as the short key.

Angle brackets and square brackets do opposite jobs in the running text. At 226d ⟨ἀλλ’⟩ supplies a word absent from the manuscripts on Apelt’s conjecture, and the English translates it. At 230e [ἃ] marks a word Burnet rejects following Schleiermacher, and the English omits it. An angle-bracketed proposal inside the apparatus need not have been adopted: Stephanus’ ⟨ὁ⟩ at 230c12 is reported there but is not printed in the running text. This last distinction matters when reading the comparison between the two gain-possessors.

Three final-argument entries deserve particular attention. At 231c7 Burnet prints πλέον κτήσηται from a later hand in T; the apparatus reports κτήσηται for B and πλεονεκτήσηται for T. The edition’s “acquires more” follows the printed reading. At 231d10 the negative οὐ comes from W in the apparatus; T omits it, while B has οὗ σὺ. The statement that the greater amount of silver is “not of worth” therefore rests on an explicit editorial choice among reported readings. At 232c1 Bekker’s αὐτός gives “you yourself said”; B and T are reported with αὐτούς, “the base themselves,” and the early printed text omits the word.

The witness labels are not self-explanatory abbreviations for editions. B denotes the Bodleian Plato, T the Venice manuscript, W the Vienna manuscript, as identified in the source’s Editorial Note. Lower-case b and t mark later hands; a sequence such as BT assigns a shared reading to both witnesses, while Tb can combine T with a later hand in B. The edition warns that W’s silence in an entry is not a report of its reading. Asterisks in B’s ἐ**μὲ at 229e represent erased letters, not missing editorial prose.

Ordinary apparatus shorthand must also be read with care: om. marks omission, add. addition, del. deletion, pr. a first hand, and ut videtur a reading given with uncertainty. A scholar’s name can identify a conjecture rather than a manuscript witness. The source preserves reported spellings and apparent faults instead of silently normalizing every item. At 232a, for example, the text and the reported witness forms of the dispute verb differ in spelling.

The numerical example at 231d is a separate interpretive issue. Its printed half/double language and the edition’s explanatory ratio should both be retained; the apparatus variant διστάσιον / διστάσιμον does not itself settle the implicit units. Difficulty in interpretation is not permission to invent a manuscript correction.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226d.** ⟨ἀλλ’⟩ — An adopted conjectural supplement is translated.
- **230e.** ἃ — The running text brackets this relative pronoun for deletion.
- **230c.** ἢ τὸ πονηρόν — The text does not adopt the additional article proposed in the apparatus.
- **231c.** πλέον κτήσηται — A later-hand reading supports the quantitative wording.
- **231d.** οὐ φῂς ἄξιον εἶναι — The negative follows the reading attributed to W.
- **232c.** αὐτὸς εἶπες — Bekker’s correction underlies the emphatic attribution to the companion.

**In this edition.** This lexicon reports the supplied edition, not an independent collation. Its Note on this Edition expressly says the apparatus is Burnet’s alone, later proposals are not surveyed, and the manuscripts have not been rechecked. It also corrects earlier production notes: supposed black squares at section letters were scan artifacts, so the final account supersedes those retained block reports. Readers should preserve that hierarchy when using the edition’s record of its own making.

**See also.** [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186) · [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207) · [Memory and reminders](#entry-memory-and-reminders) (p. 135)

## The cultivated and the many {#entry-the-cultivated-and-the-many}

*χαρίεις (charieis); οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi); εὐήθης (euēthēs)*

**The word.** Χαρίεις means graceful, refined or cultivated; the comparative χαριέστερος gives “more cultivated.” Οἱ πολλοί means the many, the ordinary majority or people generally in the contrast at hand. Εὐήθης can carry the sense simple-minded or naïve; here it disparages an explanation. These are evaluative descriptions of tellers and stories, not documented memberships of named schools or political parties.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates introduces the alternative account of Hipparchus’ death by assigning it to the more cultivated. The many, he says, attributed the murder to the sister’s dishonour over basket-bearing; the refined account explains it through rivalry for intellectual admiration. This is a hierarchy of storytellers before it is an argument about evidence. The audience is invited to prefer one version partly because of the cultural standing of the people who tell it.

The dismissal “that, at any rate, is simple-minded” intensifies the invitation. No independent testimony is produced to refute the ceremonial insult. Instead the supposedly better account is told in detail, with relations of love, education, pride and contempt. Its greater psychological sophistication may make it attractive, but attractiveness and historical reliability remain separate. The narrator even says that others give the young man’s name while he himself cannot remember it.

The contrast belongs to a narrative already preoccupied with ranking wisdom. Citizens are meant to admire Hipparchus rather than Delphi; the young man comes to despise former teachers; now an audience is offered a cultivated rather than popular history. In each case someone determines what counts as the superior authority. The dialogue does not openly reject such distinctions, but its companion subsequently refuses to let the cultural performance settle his objection about deception.

It would be equally reductive to assume that the many must be right because the narrator praises refinement, or that cultivated people must be truthful because their account concerns education. The edition’s historical parallels show that ancient accounts genuinely differ. The lexical task is to make the social weighting of the speech audible while leaving its truth to be assessed by evidence. The contrast also explains why this episode is more than a neutral historical excursus: it tries to affect what kind of hearer the companion will wish to be.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **229b.** τῶν χαριεστέρων ἀνθρώπων — The preferred report is assigned to more cultivated people.
- **229c.** οἱ πολλοὶ ᾠήθησαν — The alternative is characterised as what the many believed.
- **229c.** τοῦτό γε εὔηθες — The familiar explanation is dismissed as simple-minded.
- **229d.** ἐγὼ δὲ οὐ μέμνημαι — Socrates’ lapse of memory qualifies his command of the preferred report.

**In this edition.** The edition’s “more cultivated” preserves the comparative form without silently turning it into “the historians” or “the better informed.” “The many” likewise avoids specifying the democratic assembly or an identifiable faction. “Simple-minded” makes the disparagement clear but leaves the reader free to question its justification.

**See also.** [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209) · [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35) · [Basket bearing and the sister](#entry-basket-bearing-and-the-sister) (p. 37) · [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17)

## The unnamed companion {#entry-unnamed-companion}

*ἑταῖρος (hetairos); φίλος (philos)*

**The word.** Ἑταῖρος means companion or associate. It identifies Socrates’ interlocutor in the transmitted list of speakers and underlies the abbreviation ΕΤ.; no personal name is supplied. Φίλος means friend or dear, and in the exchange over the inscription designates a relationship between the two men. Being labelled a companion in the dramatis personae does not settle the substantive question of friendship debated at 229b–e.

**In Hipparchus.** The companion begins with a socially recognisable target: unscrupulous people who pursue even worthless returns. His first response is not a random lexical guess but an attempt to identify a discreditable disposition. He repeatedly resists conclusions that flatten the difference between decent and base conduct. The successive definitions shift from worthless things, to insatiable craving, to gains that decent people will not dare pursue. Their instability is part of the inquiry.

He is also capable of diagnosing a difficulty without possessing its complete technical explanation. Twice he says that Socrates deceives him while admitting that he does not know exactly how. The text gives readers reasons to take that suspicion seriously, including Socrates’ strengthened recollection of what was agreed at 227d. Conversely, suspicion alone cannot supply the missing distinction between profit that appears advantageous and gain understood as genuine benefit. His difficulty is both argumentative and ethical.

The response to Hipparchus is particularly active. Socrates has invoked the command not to deceive a friend; the companion turns that justification into a dilemma. Either Socrates does not regard him as a friend, or he fails to obey the very authority he praises. The story has given the interlocutor a standard rather than simply silenced him.

At 230a he selects the agreement that all gaining is good for withdrawal. Later he admits being at a loss and finally says he has been compelled rather than persuaded. These are not interchangeable forms of assent. The ending records compliance with an argument whose persuasive success remains expressly incomplete. His anonymity helps keep the moral question general, but the text does not say that he represents the average Athenian, a sophist, a merchant or a particular political group.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **229d.** ἢ οὐ φίλον με — The companion challenges Socrates’ claim to friendship.
- **229e.** οὐ δύναμαι πεισθῆναι — His refusal of conviction survives the cultural narrative.
- **230a.** τουτί μοι ἀνάθου — He chooses the proposition to be withdrawn.

**In this edition.** The edition translates ΕΤ. as “Comp.” and explicitly notes that no setting or occasion is given. Calling the speaker “the unnamed companion” preserves what is known without inventing an identity. His speeches should not be reduced to answers of assent; the accusations, revised definition and closing reservation are essential evidence for how the dialogue expects its reasoning to be heard.

**See also.** [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181) · [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80) · [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154)

## The unnamed young man {#entry-unnamed-young-man}

*νεανίσκος (neaniskos); νέος (neos); γενναῖος (gennaios)*

**The word.** Νεανίσκος means a young man. Νέος means young; the plural νέων places this person among the young men of the time. Γενναῖος here means wellborn, marking inherited standing rather than proving goodness of character. Socrates describes him as young, beautiful and wellborn; those are the qualifications given, not an account of his education, family or exact age.

**In Hipparchus.** The young man is the least identified but most consequential figure in the final portion of the Hipparchus story. Harmodius is in love with him. For a time he admires both Harmodius and Aristogeiton as wise; after keeping company with Hipparchus he despises them. Their reaction to that loss of esteem ends in murder. His judgment makes visible the vulnerability of a reputation that depends on admiration from another person.

Socrates makes the missing name conspicuous. Others tell it, he says, but he does not remember. This is not the same as saying the tradition itself left the person anonymous. Nor does it authorize identifying him from some otherwise known Athenian genealogy. Within the dialogue, the gap qualifies Socrates’ access to the account even while he confidently repeats its causal explanation. The combination of forgotten detail and confident moral narrative is one reason to keep the reported story distinct from verified history.

The text says that he associated with Hipparchus, then despised the other two. It does not describe a lesson, reproduce an argument or explicitly certify that the new judgment was correct. A favourable reading sees a student recognising superior wisdom. A more cautious reading notes that admiration can migrate without providing an independent test of wisdom. Both readings fit the contrast between Hipparchus’ declared educational benevolence and his wish to outrank rival authorities.

His role also creates a possible mirror for the unnamed companion. Both encounter someone credited with wisdom, and both must respond to a relationship that includes intellectual authority. The companion, however, does not leave merely to transfer admiration elsewhere; he voices the suspicion that he is being deceived and asks to revise the argument. The correspondence is therefore suggestive rather than a complete allegorical identity.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **229d.** τῶν νέων τε καὶ καλῶν — He is introduced through age and beauty.
- **229d.** καὶ γενναίων τῶν τότε — His wellborn status belongs to the narrative’s social description.
- **229d.** ἐγὼ δὲ οὐ μέμνημαι — Socrates marks his own failure to remember the name.
- **229d.** συγγενόμενον τῷ Ἱππάρχῳ — Association with Hipparchus precedes the changed evaluation.

**In this edition.** The edition’s “wellborn” is important: “noble” could wrongly merge family status with ethical excellence. “After keeping company with Hipparchus” likewise leaves the nature of the association open. The passage supplies no historical identification, and the lexicon should preserve that limit instead of furnishing a conjectural name.

**See also.** [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94) · [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17) · [The unnamed companion](#entry-unnamed-companion) (p. 193) · [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209)

## Thinking fit {#entry-thinking-fit}

*ἀξιοῦν (axioun); δεῖν (dein)*

**The word.** Axioun means to think fit, judge worthy or claim as appropriate. It is a denominative verb related to axios, worth or deserving. Dein is the impersonal infinitive “to be necessary” or “one ought”; in the phrase oiēsthai dein it gives “to think that one ought”. These are practical judgements, not merely predictions that a profit will occur.

The opening play joins axiōsin, “think fit”, to axiōn, “worth”, in the description of gaining from things worth nothing. The repetition makes a questionable valuation sound self-exposing: the person judges gaining appropriate where the source lacks worth. It does not by itself show whether the impropriety is moral, economic or technical.

**In Hipparchus.** The companion begins with a claim about what lovers of gain regard as acceptable. He soon amplifies it into thinking one ought to gain from everything. Socrates asks him to attend to the worth of the source and, at 225d, expressly checks the meaning of “thinking fit to gain”: does it mean anything other than thinking one ought to gain? The companion says that it does not. The clarification is a substantive conversational commitment, rather than an unannounced translation choice.

In the next question the formulation shifts toward thinking that one gains from a known worthless plant. The horseman and pilot are likewise denied an expectation of gain from defective materials. The general’s example brings the two formulations together: does he think he gains, and think fit to gain? There is an intelligible connection, since practical commitment often depends on expected advantage. Yet saying “I ought to gain from every transaction” differs from expecting this particular defective instrument to yield a benefit. The latter can refute an expectation without exhausting the former’s moral or commercial intention.

The companion’s third definition at 227d returns to axioun. His lover of gain is earnestly committed to sources decent people do not dare exploit. Here the practical and normative force is unmistakable. Socrates answers through the goodness of gain, effectively making fitness depend on genuine benefit. The debate thus turns on what warrants the judgement, not simply whether the agent wants an increase.

The same practical idiom reappears in the historical encomium when Hipparchus is said not to think he ought to begrudge wisdom to anyone. It places an assessment of proper conduct beside the ruler’s desire to educate. The recurrence is useful, but does not prove that every use of dein states one ethical principle: the verb can mark the necessity internal to an argument as well as someone’s judgement about conduct.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225a.** κερδαίνειν ἀξιῶσιν — Thinking gain fitting is the companion’s first criterion.
- **225d.** οἴεσθαι δεῖν κερδαίνειν — Socrates’ explicit paraphrase supplies a practical “ought”.
- **226c.** οἴεται ἀπὸ τούτων κερδαίνειν — The general’s expectation is examined before the question adds thinking fit.
- **227d.** ἀξιοῖ κερδαίνειν ἀπ’ αὐτῶν — The third definition restores the issue of which sources are acceptable.

**In this edition.** Note 4 matters to the lexical analysis. Burnet prints Etwall’s correction to axioun, “thinking fit”; the apparatus reports ton axion in B and T. The present article follows the edition’s constituted text and its interpretation of the correction. It does not claim that the manuscripts themselves unambiguously transmit the nominalised infinitive on which the printed clarification turns. The English deliberately differentiates “think fit”, “think” and “ought”.

**See also.** [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145) · [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212) · [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46)

## Time and place {#entry-time-and-place}

*ὥρα (hōra); χώρα (chōra)*

**The word.** Hōra means a season or appropriate time; chōra means a place, region or tract of country. At 225c both stand in the dative, hōrāi kai chōrāi, in the question about where and when plants are worth planting. The lemmas name the words; the rhyming forms are their particular inflections in the text. Neither word here denotes a universal philosophical category or a fully developed theory of opportunity.

**In Hipparchus.** Socrates asks who knows the worth of plants, including the time and place in which they are worth planting. The companion answers that a farmer does. These circumstances qualify the practical evaluation: knowing a plant’s worth is not presented as recognising an isolated label independently of what is to be done with it. Suitability is related to an activity undertaken somewhere and at some time.

The question also deliberately makes itself sound clever. Socrates interrupts to say that he too is throwing in one of the wise expressions used by people clever at lawsuits. The rhyming pair therefore operates at two levels. It specifies the content of agricultural competence, and it exhibits a verbal ornament that the speaker acknowledges as borrowed. The practical point does not cease to be serious because its phrasing is playful.

This qualification helps identify what the following argument presupposes. A plant known to be worthless for planting in the relevant circumstances does not promise the farmer gain. That conclusion need not imply that the plant has no possible worth anywhere or ever. Socrates’ opening “worth nothing” is sweeping; the expert question introduces a context for applying it. The relation between absolute-sounding worthlessness and situated practical judgment deserves attention, especially when the later argument broadens the claim to all gain.

The two nouns do not return as a pair. Place nevertheless becomes important in the account of Hipparchus’ educational arrangements at 228d–229b: Herms stand on roads between town and demes, and one saying is located on the Steirian road. Those passages use other vocabulary. They show instruction organised by location, but they do not themselves renew the agricultural rhyme or establish that Hipparchus possesses the farmer’s kind of expertise.

At 231d–e worth is again distinguished from a feature that can be measured without understanding its relevance: more silver by weight need not mean more value than gold. As with planting circumstances, the crucial question is what the comparison measures. The dialogue never turns either example into a comprehensive account of how context fixes value.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225c.** ὥρᾳ καὶ χώρᾳ — The grammatical forms rhyme and specify the circumstances of planting.
- **225c.** ἄξια φυτευθῆναι — The relevant worth is worth being planted.
- **228d.** ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ ἄστεος καὶ τῶν δήμων ἑκάστων — A later arrangement of education depends on location, under different wording.

**In this edition.** The edition gives “in what time and clime,” explicitly reproducing a rhyme rather than translating chōra by the more ordinary “place.” Its note glosses the Greek as “season and place.” “Clime” should therefore not be narrowed to temperature or weather alone. Burnet’s apparatus reports the printed order “time and place” in B and the reversed order in T. Both preserve the pairing; the edition’s English follows the printed order.

**See also.** [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74) · [Lawsuits and fine speaking](#entry-lawsuits-and-fine-speaking) (p. 126) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99)

## Town country and demes {#entry-town-country-and-demes}

*ἄστυ (asty); ἀγρός (agros); δῆμος (dēmos)*

**The word.** Ἄστυ is the town or urban centre. Ἀγρός is a field or country district; the plural ἀγροί here means the countryside. Δῆμος has several Greek uses, but here denotes a local community, a deme, not the assembled people or a political party. The genitives ἄστεος and δήμων occur in the formula locating the Herms between town and demes.

**In Hipparchus.** Hipparchus’ programme is narrated in two geographical stages. Citizens around the town have already been educated and admire his wisdom. He next plans to educate those in the country. The distinction is between locations within the citizen community, not between Athenians and foreigners, or between citizens and non-citizens. What remains unequal is access to the cultural instruction concentrated near Hipparchus.

The Herms mediate that inequality without moving the whole educational enterprise into the countryside. They are set along roads halfway between the urban centre and individual demes. Travellers can read a compact saying, taste the ruler’s wisdom and then come in for further education. The movement is therefore reciprocal but asymmetrical: texts travel outward, while fuller teaching is expected to draw people inward. This is Socrates’ explanation of the project, not a surviving administrative plan.

The midpoint formula matters because it addresses people as travellers between places. A monument can tell them where they are while also telling them how to live. Its civic geography makes ethical instruction part of everyday movement, and its repeated attribution to Hipparchus makes the benefactor’s name travel with it. The text does not specify precise mileage or claim that every route was straight or equally long.

There is a chronological caution in the word “deme.” Local named communities existed before their later formal position in the democratic tribal system. Using the word in a story about Hipparchus need not itself be an anachronism; treating every occurrence as a reference to the complete Cleisthenic organisation would be. The independently preserved Kephale Herm supports the town–locality relation more directly than it supports a full institutional reconstruction.[^culture-demes]

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228c.** οἱ περὶ τὸ ἄστυ τῶν πολιτῶν — The first recipients are the citizens around the town.
- **228d.** τοὺς ἐν τοῖς ἀγροῖς — The phrase introduces the people living in the countryside.
- **228d.** τοῦ ἄστεος καὶ τῶν δήμων ἑκάστων — The midpoint is defined relative to the urban centre and each deme.
- **228e.** φοιτῷεν ἐκ τῶν ἀγρῶν — The intended result is repeated movement in from the country.

**In this edition.** The edition preserves ἄστεος, while its apparatus records Schanz’s proposal ἄστεως here and at 229a. That is a reported editorial alternative in the form of the noun, not a different geographical theory. “Town,” “country,” and “demes” keep the three spatial terms distinct.

**See also.** [Roads and Steiria](#entry-roads-and-steiria) (p. 168) · [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99) · [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65)

## Unscrupulousness {#entry-unscrupulousness}

*πανοῦργος (panourgos); ἥττων (hēttōn)*

**The word.** Panourgos means capable of every kind of deed and, in a disapproving application, unscrupulous, cunning or ready for anything. The context selects the disapproving force: the companion joins it to base character and shameless pursuit. Hēttōn means weaker, inferior or overcome by; with the genitive of gain it describes being “no match for gain”. It is a comparative adjective, not a noun naming a distinct faculty or appetite.

The pairing creates a revealing tension. These people are not supposed to be fools; they have the resourcefulness to recognise opportunities. Yet the pursuit of gain masters them. Cleverness about means and freedom from an overriding attachment are therefore separate matters in the companion’s description.

**In Hipparchus.** The accusation appears when Socrates asks whether lovers of gain know that their sources are worthless. If ignorant, they would be senseless. The companion answers that he means unscrupulous and base people, no match for gain, who know and nonetheless dare. Moral blame is located in what they allow themselves to do despite awareness, not simply in their ability to calculate.

Socrates does not directly dispute the ordinary existence of cunning conduct. Instead he tests the conjunction of knowledge, worthlessness and expected gain through examples of successful practice. If a pilot knows his rudders are defective, he foresees loss; if a horseman knows the feed is useless, he understands that he ruins his horse. These cases make the stated object of the knave’s knowledge look incompatible with an expectation of personal benefit. The companion’s intended accusation may require a distinction Socrates has not yet granted: gainful manipulation of something that is bad as a tool or service.

“No match for gain” also leaves open the phenomenon of acting against a considered judgement. The dialogue does not isolate or analyse weakness of will as such. It substitutes the alternatives of ignorant overvaluation and the universal love of good things. A lexicon should therefore resist turning the phrase into a complete doctrine either affirming or denying knowingly wrongful desire. It is evidence of the companion’s moral picture and of the pressure subsequently exerted on that picture.

The later definitions retreat from the single epithet to more explicit criteria: insatiable attention to negligible objects and willingness to use sources decent people avoid. These changes can be read as attempts to articulate what “unscrupulous” initially compressed. At the end Socrates includes base people alongside decent ones in the extension of lover of gain. That removes the label’s discriminatory force under the accepted premises, while leaving the separate moral descriptions in place.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225a.** ἀλλὰ πανούργους — The companion substitutes unscrupulousness for senselessness.
- **225b.** καὶ ἥττους τοῦ κέρδους — Gain is depicted as overpowering the people who pursue it.
- **227d.** οἱ χρηστοὶ οὐ τολμῶσι κερδαίνειν — The later definition makes moral restraint the contrast class.

**In this edition.** The rendering “unscrupulous” gives the adjective’s contextual moral force without losing sight of the intelligence the companion wishes to preserve. “No match for gain” is deliberately vivid and comparative; “addicted to profit” would introduce a modern clinical or behavioural classification not supplied by the text. The edition does not make panourgos a standing name for a formally defined character type.

**See also.** [Shamelessness and daring](#entry-shamelessness-and-daring) (p. 175) · [Senselessness and intelligence](#entry-senselessness-and-intelligence) (p. 172) · [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133) · [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117)

## Weight and exchange {#entry-weight-and-exchange}

*σταθμός (stathmos), ἥμισυς (hēmisys), διπλάσιος (diplasios), δωδεκαστάσιος (dōdekastasios), διστάσιος (distasios), ἀντί (anti)*

**The word.** Σταθμός means weight, here a weight or amount measured by weighing. Ἥμισυς means half; διπλάσιος means double or twice as much. Δωδεκαστάσιος means twelve times the weight, and διστάσιος twice the weight. Ἀντί means in place of or in exchange for. The printed forms include σταθμὸν ἥμισυν, “half a weight,” διπλάσιον, “double,” and the comparison ἀντὶ δωδεκαστασίου ... διστάσιον.

These expressions must be distinguished from ἀξία, worth. Weight measures a physical quantity, while the argument asks whether receiving more weight increases what the possessor has in value. “Exchange” describes the hypothetical giving and receiving; the text supplies no separate technical noun for an exchange market.

**In Hipparchus.** The exchange at 231d tests the revised proposal that less expenditure followed by more acquisition is gain. The metals differ, so counting or weighing without valuing is insufficient. The companion accepts that a greater silver receipt can be a loss when compared with the gold surrendered. This is the passage’s secure argumentative result, independent of a complete reconstruction of its units.

The printed English asks about spending “half a weight of gold” and receiving “twice that weight of silver.” The answer says the gold becomes twice its weight instead of twelve times its weight. The edition’s note explains this as half a gold unit, worth six silver units, exchanged for one silver unit. That model takes the silver receipt as twice the gold actually given. Socrates’ next question is printed “is the double not more than the half?” The abbreviated comparison does not repeat the baseline for each term.

A reading that instead assigns half and double to one common unstated unit would produce a silver receipt of two units for gold worth six. It would still be a loss. This alternative is useful for showing why the main inference does not depend on choosing one reconstruction; it should not be substituted into the translation as though the edition had printed it. Neither the source nor this lexicon supplies grounds to declare textual corruption or a certain arithmetical blunder merely because the compressed expressions are difficult.

The transition after the example is more consequential than the arithmetic: worth must belong to gain. Even a formally correct inequality of weights would not establish an inequality of value between different metals. The companion’s “not in worth” explicitly names the missing respect of comparison. The small-and-great conclusion at 231e then detaches gainfulness from size in either direction.

The twelvefold ratio belongs to this argument and its explanatory note. The supplied comparison with Herodotus’ thirteen-to-one reckoning is a warning against turning the example into a universal historical price schedule.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **231d.** χρυσίου σταθμὸν ἥμισυν — The outlay is expressed as half a weight of gold.
- **231d.** ἀντὶ δωδεκαστασίου — The expected twelvefold relation is contrasted with the actual receipt.
- **231d.** διστάσιον αὐτῷ καθίσταται τὸ χρυσίον — The companion describes the inferior exchange result.
- **231d.** τὸ διπλάσιον τοῦ ἡμίσεος — The double and half are compared without restating all reference quantities.

**In this edition.** The apparatus reports διστάσιον from T against B’s διστάσιμον; Burnet prints the former. That recorded variation does not itself resolve the reference units. The edition follows Burnet and supplies note 22’s model. This article keeps text, translation, explanatory model and interpretive caution distinct rather than giving a silently repaired quotation.

**See also.** [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90) · [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179)

## Wisdom {#entry-wisdom}

*σοφία (sophia); σοφός (sophos)*

**The word.** Σοφία means wisdom, knowledgeable skill or intellectual accomplishment; σοφός means wise or skilled. The dialogue does not supply one technical definition covering every use. It applies the family to clever sayings, a ruler’s cultural works and the reputations of competing educators. The superlative σοφώτατος means wisest; comparative judgments can also be expressed by μᾶλλον with σοφός.

**In Hipparchus.** The early reference to wise sayings concerns men clever at lawsuits. It puts verbal and argumentative resourcefulness within the word’s range without certifying that cleverness is morally good. By 228b wisdom is a title of authority: Socrates obeys a good and wise man, and Hipparchus is named wisest among Pisistratus’ sons. The pairing with goodness is explicit, so wisdom should not silently absorb the separate ethical predicate.

Hipparchus’ wisdom appears through achievements, patronage and the selection of maxims. He chooses both what he has learned and what he has discovered himself, judges certain things wisest, casts them in verse and publicises them as specimens of his wisdom. These stages distinguish having material, selecting it and displaying it. The text leaves the content of most of that wisdom unstated; the reader receives only the two Delphic maxims and two Hipparchan injunctions.

Public recognition is equally prominent. Urban citizens admire Hipparchus for wisdom, country people are offered a taste, and the new sayings are meant to outrank Delphi. Finally, an unnamed young man first admires Harmodius and Aristogeiton as wise, then despises them after association with Hipparchus. In each case wisdom is mediated by someone’s judgment. The narrative repeatedly reports reputation and comparative esteem without independently examining a lesson.

This is pertinent to a dialogue whose own questioner is suspected of manipulative cleverness. Socrates supplies an admired authority, but the companion refuses to mistake admiration for evidence that no deception is occurring. An ironic reading may see the story undermining easy claims to wisdom. A straightforward reading can see genuine wisdom opposed to pretension. Neither should erase the text’s distinction between a wise person, the works attributed to him and the opinions formed about him.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **228b.** ἀνδρὶ ἀγαθῷ καὶ σοφῷ — Goodness and wisdom are joined as distinct qualifications.
- **228b.** ἔργα σοφίας — The ruler’s achievements are presented as works of wisdom.
- **228d.** ἃ ἡγεῖτο σοφώτατα εἶναι — The selection depends on Hipparchus’ own judgment of what is wisest.
- **229d.** ὡς σοφούς — The young man initially admires the pair as wise.

**In this edition.** The edition keeps “wise,” “wisdom” and “wisest” across the narrative, allowing its repeated evaluative claims to remain visible. Its Introduction and Key Words place these repetitions beside education and suspicion of argument. No global replacement of “wisdom” by “philosophy,” “learning” or “cunning” would preserve all the uses.

**See also.** [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Discovery and learning](#entry-discovery-and-learning) (p. 60) · [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17) · [Delphi and its maxims](#entry-delphi-and-its-maxims) (p. 58) · [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181)

## Wishing and desire {#entry-wishing-and-desire}

*βούλεσθαι (boulesthai); ἐπιθυμεῖν (epithymein); ἐθέλειν (ethelein)*

**The word.** Boulesthai means to wish or want; epithymein means to desire or have an appetite for; ethelein means to be willing or wish. In this dialogue the words overlap without being organised into a formal division between rational wish and irrational appetite. Their particular objects and conversational functions are more informative than a rigid imported taxonomy.

Boulesthai can introduce intended meaning, as when the companion says what he wishes to say, as well as desired acquisition. Ethelein marks Socrates’ willingness to grant a retraction. Epithymein formulates the general desire for good things in the list of premises that might be taken back.

**In Hipparchus.** The early companion wants to identify a discreditable orientation toward gain. His second and third attempts add excessive craving and earnest commitment. Socrates progressively reduces the issue to whether people want good things. At 227d he says the speakers agreed that everyone wishes for good things always. The prior passage had explicitly agreed that all people love good things, not this newly worded and temporally strengthened proposition. The universal “always” therefore belongs to the retrospective restatement, not to a quoted earlier premise.

The next sentence is conditional: good people wish to have all gains, if they are indeed good things. The companion resists gains from which they will be harmed. This is not a denial that people generally seek advantage; it challenges the identification of every gain with a genuinely desirable outcome. The scope of “all” and the standard of goodness are doing more work than any fine distinction between wish and desire.

When Socrates offers to take back a move at 229e, he first asks whether he should retract that all men desire good things. The verb is now epithymein. The companion refuses that retraction and chooses instead the universal goodness of gaining. The exchange confirms that the shared orientation toward good remains a retained premise even after the complaint of deception. It does not establish that the two verbs have precisely identical connotations in every context.

Socrates’ willingness, expressed with ethelein, has a different object: he will reopen the argument as a courtesy. At 232b–c, willing all good things supplies the good person’s side of the final universalisation, while loving gains supplies the base person’s. The conclusion slides across related attitudes in order to apply one label. A careful reader can accept their family resemblance while still asking whether every wish for a benefit makes someone gain-loving in the reproachful everyday sense.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **226d.** βούλομαι λέγειν — Wishing here concerns what the companion intends to mean.
- **227d.** βούλεσθαι — The infinitive appears in Socrates’ strengthened summary of the earlier agreement.
- **229e.** ἐθέλω σοι — Socrates expresses willingness to take back an argumentative move.
- **229e.** τῶν ἀγαθῶν πάντες ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ἄνθρωποι — Desire for good things is retained when retraction is offered.

**In this edition.** The English distinguishes “wish”, “desire” and “am willing” where the contexts call for them. Note 8 identifies the change of wording at 227d; it should not be erased by paraphrasing the entire sequence as one already established desire principle. Nothing in the supplied text licenses assigning these occurrences to a fully articulated tripartite psychology.

**See also.** [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130) · [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198)

## Worth and worthlessness {#entry-worth-and-worthlessness}

*ἄξιος (axios); ἀξία (axia); ἀνάξιος (anaxios)*

**The word.** Axios means worth, of a certain value, or deserving. In the dialogue it can take a genitive specifying the value: worth nothing, little or much. Axia is worth or value itself. Anaxios means not worth, unworthy or of no worth. The English “worthless” can suggest either lack of practical usefulness or moral contempt; the argument requires those possibilities to be kept distinguishable.

“Of no worth” and “worth little” are not equivalents. A small positive value remains a value, and small physical size is not itself low value. The companion’s second description combines small things, things worth little and things worth nothing; Socrates’ immediate reply isolates the last category. That narrowing is important to what the preceding craft examples have actually excluded.

**In Hipparchus.** The opening joins thinking fit to gain with things worth nothing. The common Greek stem makes the juxtaposition audible, but a judgement that an action is fitting and a judgement of an object’s value remain different claims. Socrates turns from the moral suspicion of profit to a practitioner’s knowledge of materials. A plant’s worth depends on when and where it can be planted; food is assessed as nourishment for a horse; sails, rudders and instruments are assessed by their work. This is situated value, not a claim that each object carries an unchanging monetary price.

At 226e a person ignorant of worth can think valueless things highly valuable. That mistaken assessment explains pursuit without requiring knowingly self-defeating calculation. But it does not establish that the pursuit of every low-value object is ignorance. The complaint about excessive attention to trifles remains a different possible criticism.

Worth returns explicitly at 231d after “more” proves insufficient. The companion distinguishes the weight of silver from its value relative to gold. Socrates then moves from the comparative question, which exchange yields more worth, to “of worth” and “worth possessing” without an expressed comparator. This allows the beneficial to enter as the criterion. It also requires caution: silver that is a bad return for a particular gold payment is not thereby worthless in every respect. The edition’s wording “not of worth” preserves the compression rather than explaining it away.

The final conclusion covers valuable things small or great and excludes what is of no worth. On a charitable reading, the gold example teaches that genuine gain requires benefit, not bulk. On a critical reading, comparative exchange value has become unqualified desirability, enabling goodness to re-enter by a shift of standard. Both readings must attend to the recurrence of the same word family.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **225a.** ἀπὸ τῶν μηδενὸς ἀξίων — The original definition locates the problem in sources alleged to have no worth.
- **226e.** τὰ οὐδενὸς ἄξια πολλοῦ ἄξια εἶναι — Ignorance permits a false estimate of value.
- **231d.** Οὔτι τῇ ἀξίᾳ γε ἀργύριον χρυσίου. — The companion distinguishes worth from the larger quantity.
- **231e.** ἄξιον εἶναι ἄλλο τι ἢ κεκτῆσθαι — Worth is reformulated as worth possessing.

**In this edition.** The edition’s note 22 takes the half-weight of gold as worth six corresponding units of silver, with one unit received; the loss is therefore substantial despite an increase in physical weight. Its English “twice that weight” and the subsequent “double” should be read with that explanatory note, not converted without comment into two full units of silver. Note 23 identifies the printed negative at 231d as W’s reading. The interpretive move from relative worth to “of worth” remains visible whichever practical scale is used.

**See also.** [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117)

## Worth possessing {#entry-worth-possessing}

*ἄξιος κεκτῆσθαι (axios kektēsthai), ὠφέλιμος (ōphelimos), ἀνωφελής (anōphelēs)*

**The word.** Ἄξιος means worth or worthy of something; κεκτῆσθαι is the perfect infinitive of acquiring, here “to possess.” The phrase ἄξιος κεκτῆσθαι is given as a lexical construction: the passage itself uses the neuter τὸ ἄξιον and asks whether it is worth possessing. Ὠφέλιμος means beneficial or useful, and ἀνωφελής means of no benefit. The negative word denies benefit without necessarily asserting active harm.

The complement “possessing” supplies what worth is worth for. That is more specific than saying a thing has a high price. It directs attention to whether having the thing is advantageous to its possessor. The subsequent question makes benefit the proposed answer to that practical assessment.

**In Hipparchus.** At 231d the gold-and-silver exchange establishes that physical amount is insufficient for judging gain. Worth must be considered as well. The next move treats what is of worth as gainful irrespective of size, and what is of no worth as without gain. Socrates then asks whether “of worth” means anything other than worth possessing (231e). The companion accepts the completion.

This short question is a major bridge. The metal example initially concerns relative exchange value: a smaller weight of gold can be worth more than a larger weight of silver. Worth possessing asks instead whether holding an acquisition is desirable. These assessments can be related, but they are not identical merely because English and Greek both use the same worth-family. A costly object might not benefit a particular possessor; a useful thing might have little sale value.

The next alternative, of no benefit or beneficial, guides the companion toward usefulness. What is beneficial is then agreed good at 232a, and Socrates announces that the goodness of the gainful has returned. Read charitably, the passage clarifies that genuine gain is an improvement in what it is good for one to have. Read critically, it shifts from financial value to a comprehensive benefit without defending every link. The reader should be able to see both possibilities.

The earlier disease case supports the need for some qualification: an acquisition at zero cost can still be bad to possess. It does not establish that every possession with positive exchange value must be beneficial in all respects. The distinction between a market measure and an assessment of one’s good remains the central interpretive issue.

The question’s syntax is also important. It expects agreement, and the companion’s “Yes: possessing” accepts the intended complement. That is not a separate assertion that people in fact desire to own every priced object; it is assent to Socrates’ proposed explanation of worth in the current argument.

**The places.** Selected exact attestations and annotated passages.

- **231e.** ἄξιον εἶναι ἄλλο τι ἢ κεκτῆσθαι — The question completes worth with possessing.
- **231e.** Ναί, κεκτῆσθαι — The companion expressly accepts the complement.
- **231e.** τὸ ἀνωφελὲς ἢ τὸ ὠφέλιμον — The next question asks whether what is worth having is without benefit or beneficial.
- **232a.** τὸ ὠφέλιμον ἀγαθόν ἐστιν — Benefit is connected with goodness.

**In this edition.** The edition preserves “worth possessing,” “of no benefit” and “beneficial” as separate steps. A paraphrase such as “valuable things are obviously good” would obscure both the grammatical completion and the shift in evaluative perspective. The source’s explanatory materials invite attention to that shift rather than silently harmonizing the senses of worth.

**See also.** [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161) · [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39)

# Defined vocabulary register {#defined-register}

These shorter records define words and constructions in their local setting. Lemmas and transliterations identify the lexical family; the separately labelled attestation gives the exact printed form. The register is selective about elementary inflection, but includes ordinary vocabulary wherever it helps follow the dialogue.

### Acquire {#reg-acquire}

*κτάομαι (ktaomai)*

To acquire or obtain. The verb is deliberately broad enough to take both possessions and disease as objects. Acquiring something describes a change in what one has or experiences, while gaining already suggests an advantageous change under the argument's eventual interpretation.

**Attestation.** **231a:** κτήσηται.

### Admire {#reg-admire}

*θαυμάζω (thaumazō)*

To wonder at or admire. The town citizens admire Hipparchus for wisdom; the inscriptions aim to redirect admiration from Delphi to him. The repeated verb tracks a change in public regard rather than proving which object actually deserves it.

**Attestation.** **228d:** ἐθαύμαζον.

### After all {#reg-after-all}

*ποτέ (pote)*

An enclitic which, in a question such as this, gives the inquiry an insistent or puzzled force: what is the thing, after all? It does not ask for a date. The opening presses for an account of the expression that has apparently already been in use.

**Attestation.** **225a:** τί ποτέ ἐστιν.

### Again {#reg-again}

*πάλιν (palin)*

Back again or once more. Socrates restarts the question as though asking from the beginning. Later recurrence can signal the argument returning to the same conclusion, rather than the simple repetition of a word.

**Attestation.** **225c:** πάλιν.

### All {#reg-all}

*πᾶς (pas)*

Every or all, with scope determined by the noun and construction. Here it quantifies gains, not people: good men are said to want all gains if these are good. The distinction between all men and all gains is essential to tracing the generalisation.

**Attestation.** **227d:** πάντα τὰ κέρδη.

### Always {#reg-always}

*ἀεί (aei)*

At all times or always. The adverb intensifies the retrospective claim that everyone wishes for good things. The earlier agreement concerned loving good things and did not expressly add this unrestricted temporal claim.

**Attestation.** **227d:** πάντας καὶ ἀεί.

### Answer {#reg-answer}

*ἀποκρίνομαι (apokrinomai)*

To answer a question; the imperative asks for a responsive, considered reply. Answering here is subject to attention and sincerity, not merely the provision of any grammatical response. At 231a Socrates supplies a model for how an answer should identify a common character.

**Attestation.** **225c:** ἀπόκριναι.

### Archer {#reg-archer}

*τοξότης (toxotēs)*

A bowman. He extends the sequence from farming, horsemanship and military command to a specific practiced skill. His bow is judged by its fitness for that activity, which gives the phrase 'worth nothing' a practical standard.

**Attestation.** **226c:** τοξότης.

### Argument {#reg-argument}

*λόγος (logos)*

A statement, account or argument, according to context. Here it is the reasoning through which the speakers say they have refuted themselves. It names the articulated sequence of claims, not an infallible authority independent of their admissions.

**Attestation.** **226e:** τῷ λόγῳ.

### Arms {#reg-arms}

*ὅπλον (hoplon)*

Weapons or arms, here the army's equipment. The general's expertise is assumed to disclose the inadequacy of worthless arms. The word should not be narrowed to a particular weapon or treated as a claim that every item has zero resale value.

**Attestation.** **226c:** ὅπλα.

### Army {#reg-army}

*στρατιά (stratia)*

An army or body of troops. Burnet prints this reading rather than B's στρατεία, which can mean a campaign or military service. The example locates the deficiency in the arms the general's army possesses.

**Attestation.** **226c:** ἡ στρατιὰ.

### As far as being food {#reg-as-far-as-being-food}

*κατὰ τὸ σιτίον εἶναι (kata to sition einai)*

In respect of being food. This qualifying phrase isolates membership of a kind from goodness or badness within that kind. Its restriction must be retained: equal status as food does not establish equality in nutrition, quantity or consequences.

**Attestation.** **230b:** κατὰ τὸ σιτίον εἶναι.

### Ask {#reg-ask}

*ἐρωτάω (erōtaō)*

To ask or question. The companion's question about how Socrates is asking makes explicit that he has not yet understood the intended comparison. A request for clarification is different from an admission of the proposed proposition.

**Attestation.** **230a:** ἐρωτᾷς.

### At a loss {#reg-at-a-loss}

*ἀπορέω (aporeō)*

To be perplexed or unable to find a way forward, here to find what to say. This is the source of the English idiom 'at a loss'; it is not ζημία, financial or practical loss, despite the coincidence in English.

**Attestation.** **231c:** Ἀπορῶ.

### At least {#reg-at-least}

*γοῦν (goun)*

At any rate or at least, drawing out a limited conclusion that remains available. Socrates accepts uncertainty about the companion's conviction but insists that he does concur. The particle helps preserve the gap between assent and persuasion.

**Attestation.** **232b:** σύμφῃς γοῦν.

### Attempt {#reg-attempt}

*ἐπιχειρέω (epicheireō)*

To try, attempt or undertake. In the prohibition against trying to deceive, Socrates attributes a possible intention to the companion. The accusation is part of the drama and is not an independently established diagnosis of the companion's motives.

**Attestation.** **225d:** ἐπιχείρει.

### Attention {#reg-attention}

*προσέχω τὸν νοῦν (prosechō ton noun)*

To direct one's mind or attention to something or someone. Socrates opposes attentive answering to a resentful, unconsidered response. Νοῦς here is ordinary mind or attention, not a separately introduced technical faculty with a developed theory.

**Attestation.** **225c:** προσέχων ἐμοὶ τὸν νοῦν.

### Bad {#reg-bad}

*κακός (kakos)*

Bad, harmful or defective, depending on what is evaluated. Here loss has been associated with being harmed. The reasoning then treats gain as good because it is the opposite of bad loss; the broad adjective does not itself license that inference.

**Attestation.** **227a:** Κακὸν ἄρα ἡ ζημία.

### Base {#reg-base}

*πονηρός (ponēros)*

Base, wicked or of bad character in the opening description of people. Later it qualifies gain and drink. The edition keeps 'base' distinct from 'bad' so that a moral judgement is not silently merged with an assessment of practical benefit.

**Attestation.** **225b:** πονηροὺς.

### Basket bearing {#reg-basket-bearing}

*κανηφορία (kanēphoria)*

Carrying a ritual basket in a procession, treated as an honour in the background supplied by the edition. Socrates rejects the sister's dishonour in connection with this role as the explanation of Hipparchus' death. The source does not name the sister.

**Attestation.** **229c:** τῆς κανηφορίας.

### Be {#reg-be}

*εἰμί (eimi)*

To be. The opening asks what the love of gain is, moving toward an account of its character. Later uses distinguish what an item is from how good it is, particularly when both good and bad food are said to be food.

**Attestation.** **225a:** τί ποτέ ἐστιν.

### Be able {#reg-be-able}

*δύναμαι (dynamai)*

To be able or have the capacity to do something. The companion cannot be persuaded that he is not being deceived. His stated inability concerns conviction at this point, not an assertion that he is incapable of all reasoning.

**Attestation.** **229e:** οὐ δύναμαι πεισθῆναι.

### Be about to {#reg-be-about-to}

*μέλλω (mellō)*

To be going or about to do or undergo something. The companion excludes gains from which people will be harmed. The future consequence matters: something conventionally called a gain may lead to a subsequent loss.

**Attestation.** **227e:** μέλλουσιν.

### Be beneficial {#reg-be-beneficial}

*ὠφέλιμος (ōphelimos)*

Beneficial or useful to someone. The neuter expression names what is beneficial and connects worth possessing with goodness. The dialogue does not separately specify a beneficiary or timescale at this point, which leaves the breadth of the equivalence open to scrutiny.

**Attestation.** **231e:** τὸ ὠφέλιμον.

### Be benefited {#reg-be-benefited}

*ὠφελέομαι (ōpheleomai)*

To receive benefit. Socrates claims that gaining has just been agreed to be this, although the earlier exchange explicitly established that gain is good. The shift from a value predicate to this verbal identity deserves independent notice.

**Attestation.** **227d:** ὠφελεῖσθαι.

### Be ignorant {#reg-be-ignorant}

*ἀγνοέω (agnoeō)*

Not to know or to be ignorant of something. The construction specifies ignorance that the proposed sources of gain are worthless. This is a determinate lack of knowledge, not a general verdict about every ability the people in question possess.

**Attestation.** **225a:** ἀγνοοῦντες.

### Be willing {#reg-be-willing}

*ἐθέλω (ethelō)*

To be willing or ready. Socrates offers to take back a statement at the companion's request. Willingness to concede a move is a conversational act; it need not mean that Socrates has been persuaded that the withdrawn proposition is false.

**Attestation.** **229e:** ἐθέλω σοι.

### Beginning {#reg-beginning}

*ἀρχή (archē)*

A beginning or starting point. 'From the beginning' describes a restart of the questioning. It should not be confused with ἄρχω, to rule, which becomes important in the Hipparchus narrative; the local meanings differ despite the family resemblance.

**Attestation.** **225c:** ἐξ ἀρχῆς.

### Begrudge {#reg-begrudge}

*φθονέω (phthoneō)*

To begrudge, envy or withhold from another out of jealousy. Hipparchus is said not to think he should begrudge wisdom to anyone. The generous motive is attributed to him by the speaker, alongside a programme that also promotes admiration of his own wisdom.

**Attestation.** **228c:** σοφίας φθονεῖν.

### Belong to {#reg-belong-to}

*πρόσειμι (proseimi)*

To be present in addition or belong to something. The more and less are said not to belong to good and bad gain considered as gains; later worth must belong to gain. The term links the degree argument and the value argument without itself proving either claim.

**Attestation.** **230d:** πρόσεστιν.

### Beloved {#reg-beloved}

*παιδικά (paidika)*

A substantivised plural used of someone's male beloved. The phrase presents Harmodius as Aristogeiton's beloved in Socrates' story. It is not a reliable numerical age statement, and it does not by itself establish every educational or political detail subsequently narrated.

**Attestation.** **229c:** παιδικὰ τοῦ Ἀριστογείτονος.

### Better and best {#reg-better-and-best}

*βελτίων, βέλτιστος (beltiōn, beltistos)*

Comparative and superlative expressions for better and best. Hipparchus wants to rule citizens who are as good as possible. The standard of improvement is represented through his educational project, without the narrative proving the goodness of his rule.

**Attestation.** **228c:** ὡς βελτίστων.

### Body {#reg-body}

*σῶμα (sōma)*

The body, presented as what food nourishes. The bodily reference provides a common account of good and bad food. The analogy is practical and classificatory; no theory of body and soul is developed in this dialogue.

**Attestation.** **230e:** τροφὴ σώματός.

### Both {#reg-both}

*ἀμφότερος (amphoteros)*

Both of two specified alternatives. The companion refuses the choice between gain and loss as exclusive causes of harm, saying people suffer by both loss and base gain. Later 'both' supports the attempt to define good and bad gain together.

**Attestation.** **227e:** Ὑπὸ ἀμφοτέρων.

### Bow {#reg-bow}

*τόξον (toxon)*

A bow, the archer's working implement. It is grouped with flutes and a lyre as a tool whose practical inadequacy a competent user recognises. The concrete object helps make knowledge of value relative to use intelligible.

**Attestation.** **226c:** τόξον.

### Bring {#reg-bring}

*κομίζω (komizō)*

To convey or bring. Socrates says Hipparchus brought Homer's epics into the land; the verb recurs for bringing Anacreon to the city. These are narrated cultural acts, not evidence that the dialogue has demonstrated the historical priority it claims.

**Attestation.** **228b:** ἐκόμισεν.

### Brother {#reg-brother}

*ἀδελφός (adelphos)*

A brother, here Hippias in relation to Hipparchus. The relationship is stated in the dialogue, while questions of relative seniority and political supremacy require comparison with other ancient accounts. Kinship alone does not establish who ruled first.

**Attestation.** **229b:** τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἱππίου.

### Call {#reg-call}

*καλέω (kaleō)*

To call or name something. Socrates asks why the same name applies to good and bad gain. The inquiry goes beyond what sound is used: it asks what shared feature warrants the common name.

**Attestation.** **230d:** κέρδος καλεῖς.

### Carry {#reg-carry}

*ἄγω (agō)*

To lead or carry; here to transport cargo in a ship. The pilot risks everything being carried as well as his life and vessel. The example therefore covers several kinds of loss rather than merely failure to make a trading profit.

**Attestation.** **226b:** ἃ ἂν ἄγῃ πάντα.

### Certainly or surely {#reg-certainly-or-surely}

*δήπου (dēpou)*

An expression of presumed obviousness, rendered 'surely' in the answer about the exchange. It marks the speaker's expectation of agreement. Such a particle reinforces an assertion's conversational status without supplying an additional proof.

**Attestation.** **231d:** Ζημίαν δήπου.

### Choose {#reg-choose}

*ἐκλέγομαι (eklegomai)*

To select from a larger field. Hipparchus chooses what he regards as the wisest items of learned and discovered wisdom for his inscriptions. The selection is his own judgement, and the story makes that judgement part of his public self-presentation.

**Attestation.** **228d:** ἐκλεξάμενος.

### Citizen {#reg-citizen}

*πολίτης (politēs)*

A member of a city or civic community. Calling Hipparchus a fellow citizen of both speakers identifies the unnamed companion as Athenian within the dialogue. It does not tell us the companion's name, family or public career.

**Attestation.** **228b:** Πολίτῃ μὲν ἐμῷ τε καὶ σῷ.

### City {#reg-city}

*πόλις (polis)*

A city or political community. Here Anacreon is brought into Athens. The related words for citizen and town allow the narrative to distinguish membership in a political community from residence near its urban centre.

**Attestation.** **228c:** εἰς τὴν πόλιν.

### Clever {#reg-clever}

*δεξιός (dexios)*

Skilful, clever or dexterous, here in relation to lawsuits. Socrates parodies the verbal sophistication of such men with a rhyme. The praise can carry irony; rhetorical elegance is not identified with sound knowledge of plants.

**Attestation.** **225c:** οἱ δεξιοὶ περὶ τὰς δίκας.

### Come round {#reg-come-round}

*ἥκω (hēkō)*

To have arrived or be present. The agreement that what is gainful is good has come back to the speakers for the third or fourth time. The repeated arrival is a feature of the argument's structure, not proof that the conclusion has gained independent support each time.

**Attestation.** **232a:** ἥκει ἡμῖν ὁμολογούμενον.

### Companion {#reg-companion}

*ἑταῖρος (hetairos)*

A companion or associate; the speaker label is ΕΤΑΙΡΟΣ. The person conversing with Socrates is unnamed. Hipparchus is the subject of the central story and should never be substituted as the living interlocutor.

**Attestation.** **227b:** ὦ ἑταῖρε.

### Compel {#reg-compel}

*ἀναγκάζω (anankazō)*

To constrain or compel. The companion says the argument has compelled him rather than persuaded him. The contrast separates an admission extracted through the accepted premises from an inward conviction that the result is satisfactory.

**Attestation.** **232b:** ἠνάγκακε.

### Concur {#reg-concur}

*σύμφημι (symphēmi)*

To say together with or concur. Socrates presses for continued assent despite the companion's reservation about persuasion. Concurrence here names a shared verbal position, not the demonstrated disappearance of the reservation.

**Attestation.** **232b:** σύμφῃς.

### Contempt {#reg-contempt}

*καταφρονέω (kataphroneō)*

To look down on or despise. In the story the young man changes from admiration for Harmodius and Aristogeiton to contempt after associating with Hipparchus. This reversal makes perceived intellectual status the claimed cause of resentment.

**Attestation.** **229d:** καταφρονῆσαι.

### Contrary {#reg-contrary}

*ἐναντίος (enantios)*

Opposite or contrary. Gain is set against loss, and that relation is used to infer goodness from loss's badness. A relation of opposition between terms does not, without further argument, determine every evaluative property of their instances.

**Attestation.** **227a:** Ἐναντίον δὲ τῇ ζημίᾳ τὸ κέρδος.

### Country {#reg-country}

*ἀγρός (agros)*

A field or rural area, here the countryside. The country audience is reached through roadside Herms after the town citizens have been educated. Rural location is not represented as an absence of citizenship.

**Attestation.** **228d:** ἐν τοῖς ἀγροῖς.

### Courageous {#reg-courageous}

*ἀνδρεῖος (andreios)*

Brave or courageous; the superlative address means 'most courageous of all'. Applied to the resistant companion, it can sound teasing. It is not an argued definition of courage or evidence that the dialogue has changed its subject to a military virtue.

**Attestation.** **232a:** ὦ ἀνδρειότατε πάντων.

### Craftsman {#reg-craftsman}

*δημιουργός (dēmiourgos)*

A skilled worker or practitioner of a craft. The plural collects the preceding occupational examples and leaves the class open to others. It does not mean that all gain-seeking people are professional artisans, which is an issue for the reach of the analogy.

**Attestation.** **226c:** τῶν δημιουργῶν.

### Crave {#reg-crave}

*γλίχομαι (glichomai)*

To cling to or long insistently for something. The companion uses it for the lover of gain's appetite even for tiny worthless things. It contributes intensity and persistence beyond the bare verb 'love'.

**Attestation.** **226e:** γλίχονται.

### Cultivated {#reg-cultivated}

*χαρίεις (charieis)*

Graceful, refined or cultivated; the comparative marks a supposedly more discerning group. Socrates credits them with a version of Hipparchus' death different from the common account. Their description is a rhetorical credential, not an independent test of historical accuracy.

**Attestation.** **229b:** τῶν χαριεστέρων ἀνθρώπων.

### Dare {#reg-dare}

*τολμάω (tolmaō)*

To have the boldness to do something. Here it is readiness to pursue gain from worthless sources, whereas decent men later do not dare gain from certain sources. The verb identifies a boundary of conduct, not simply the ability to calculate profit.

**Attestation.** **225b:** τολμῶσι.

### Deceive {#reg-deceive}

*ἐξαπατάω (exapataō)*

To deceive or mislead. The companion turns Socrates' accusation back on him and cannot explain how the arguments are being twisted. This charge motivates the Hipparchus story and the later offer of a retraction.

**Attestation.** **228a:** ἐξαπατᾷς.

### Decent {#reg-decent}

*χρηστός (chrēstos)*

Useful or serviceable in a broad range, and decent or respectable of people. The companion contrasts decent men with the lover of gain. The edition keeps this evaluative vocabulary distinct from ἀγαθός, 'good', because their relationship is at issue.

**Attestation.** **227d:** οἱ χρηστοὶ.

### Deme {#reg-deme}

*δῆμος (dēmos)*

A local Attic community or district. The Herms are described as standing midway between the town and each deme. The word here should not be translated as an undifferentiated 'people', since the geography is essential to the placement of the inscriptions.

**Attestation.** **228d:** τῶν δήμων ἑκάστων.

### Desire {#reg-desire}

*ἐπιθυμέω (epithymeō)*

To desire or long for. Socrates offers to withdraw the claim that everyone desires good things, but the companion refuses that revision. The verb enters a recap that also uses loving and wishing elsewhere; those verbs should not automatically be treated as a formal theory of distinct faculties.

**Attestation.** **229e:** ἐπιθυμοῦσιν.

### Die {#reg-die}

*ἀποθνῄσκω (apothnēskō)*

To die. Hipparchus' death divides Socrates' idealised period of civic life from the explicitly tyrannical period under Hippias. The historical chronology and political interpretation of that division remain different questions.

**Attestation.** **229b:** ἀποθανόντος.

### Different {#reg-different}

*διαφέρω (diapherō)*

To differ, here with an explicit qualification of respect. Good and bad food do not differ in being food, although they do differ in quality. Suppressing the qualification would turn a limited identity into a false claim of complete sameness.

**Attestation.** **230b:** οὐδὲν διαφέρει.

### Disbelieve or disobey {#reg-disbelieve-or-disobey}

*ἀπιστέω (apisteō)*

To distrust, refuse belief or fail to obey. Socrates says he would not deceive a friend and disobey Hipparchus. The edition's 'disobey' gives the moral maxim practical authority rather than presenting only an opinion about its truth.

**Attestation.** **229b:** ἀπιστεῖν.

### Discover {#reg-discover}

*ἐξευρίσκω (exeuriskō)*

To find out or discover. Hipparchus' wisdom includes both what he learned and what he discovered himself. The distinction allows originality without implying that every displayed saying originated with him.

**Attestation.** **228d:** ἐξηῦρεν.

### Disease {#reg-disease}

*νόσος (nosos)*

Illness or disease. A guest may acquire it at a feast without spending anything. The example defeats the idea that acquiring any item at no expense counts as gain, because the acquisition can make the recipient worse off.

**Attestation.** **231b:** νόσον κτήσηται.

### Dishonour {#reg-dishonour}

*ἀτιμία (atimia)*

Lack of honour or an affront to someone's standing. Here the rivals feel dishonoured when the young man despises them. The narrative use does not mean the formal Athenian legal status of civic disenfranchisement.

**Attestation.** **229d:** ταύτῃ τῇ ἀτιμίᾳ.

### Display {#reg-display}

*ἀποδείκνυμι (apodeiknymi)*

To show forth or display. Hipparchus displayed works of wisdom, according to Socrates. In this setting the verb refers to cultural achievements; it should not be made to imply a deductive proof of his wisdom.

**Attestation.** **228b:** ἀπεδείξατο.

### Dispute {#reg-dispute}

*ἀμφισβητέω (amphisbēteō)*

To contest, dispute or maintain a contrary position. Socrates recalls the companion's resistance to good men's wanting all gains. The recollection returns to the dispute about harmful gain, not merely the dialogue's literal first question.

**Attestation.** **232a:** ἠμφεσβήτησάς.

### Do {#reg-do}

*ποιέω (poieō)*

To do or make. Paired here with undergoing, it extends the comparison of more and less to acting and being affected. Elsewhere it is an ordinary verb of carrying out an action, including recitation practice and patronage.

**Attestation.** **230d:** ποιοῖ.

### Double {#reg-double}

*διπλάσιος (diplasios)*

Twice as much or double. The implicit comparison must be read alongside the half-weight of gold, the following exchange-rate words and the edition's note. A larger amount of silver is not therefore a more valuable receipt.

**Attestation.** **231d:** διπλάσιον.

### Draughts {#reg-draughts}

*πεττεύω (petteuō)*

To play a board game with counters, conventionally rendered 'playing draughts'. The dialogue draws on taking a move back. It does not supply enough rules to identify the game exactly with modern draughts or reconstruct a complete ancient game.

**Attestation.** **229e:** πεττεύων.

### Drink {#reg-drink}

*ποτόν (poton)*

Something drunk, or drink as a kind. Socrates defines it as the body's wet nourishment, whether decent or base. Its sameness as drink is separated from quality, providing a model for a proposed common definition of gain.

**Attestation.** **231a:** ποτόν.

### Dry {#reg-dry}

*ξηρός (xēros)*

Dry, contrasted with wet or liquid. Dry nourishment of the body is offered as the account common to good and bad food. The phrase is a working classification within the analogy, not a comprehensive modern nutritional definition.

**Attestation.** **230e:** ξηρὰ τροφὴ.

### Earnest {#reg-earnest}

*σπουδάζω (spoudazō)*

To be serious or in earnest about something. The third definition concerns the person intent on profiting from sources that decent people reject. Earnest pursuit introduces a manner of conduct, beyond mere possession of something beneficial.

**Attestation.** **227d:** σπουδάζῃ ἐπὶ τούτοις.

### Educate {#reg-educate}

*παιδεύω (paideuō)*

To educate, train or form a person's character and abilities. Hipparchus' poetic patronage is explained through civic education; later Harmodius is said to have been educated by Aristogeiton. The same verb links a ruler's programme and personal rivalry.

**Attestation.** **228c:** παιδεύειν τοὺς πολίτας.

### Elegiac verse {#reg-elegiac-verse}

*ἐλεγεῖον (elegeion)*

An elegiac verse form, in the edition's explanation a hexameter followed by a pentameter. The quoted maxims are pentameters, not entire surviving couplets. The name describes metre and does not require the poems to lament a death.

**Attestation.** **228d:** εἰς ἐλεγεῖον.

### Entertain {#reg-entertain}

*ἑστιάω (hestiaō)*

To entertain at a meal; the passive means to be entertained or given a feast. The guest's lack of monetary expenditure is stipulated, so that disease can serve as a clear counterexample to cost-free acquisition as sufficient for gain.

**Attestation.** **231b:** ἑστιαθείς.

### Equally {#reg-equally}

*ὁμοίως (homoiōs)*

In the same or a similar way, here equally as gains. Equality concerns how the name or kind applies. The ensuing movement toward equal degrees of gaining should not be silently treated as already established by that classificatory equality.

**Attestation.** **230d:** ὁμοίως ἐστὶν ἀμφότερα.

### Equipment {#reg-equipment}

*παρασκευή (paraskeuē)*

Preparation, resources or equipment. Here any other equipment joins the craftsmen's instruments in the generalisation. The word broadens the list beyond its named examples without saying that a specific technical apparatus is shared by every craft.

**Attestation.** **226c:** παρασκευὴν.

### Every time {#reg-every-time}

*ἑκάστοτε (hekastote)*

On each occasion or every time. It marks the repeated, habitual character of the second definition's grasping appetite. It is stronger than an isolated instance of obtaining something small or valueless.

**Attestation.** **226d:** οἳ ἑκάστοτε.

### Evident {#reg-evident}

*δῆλος (dēlos)*

Clear or evident; 'plainly' introduces the inferred alternative to knowing. If people do not know the worthlessness, Socrates says, they are ignorant of it. The phrase signals the supposed transparency of the inference rather than adding evidence.

**Attestation.** **226e:** δῆλον ὅτι.

### Excessively {#reg-excessively}

*ὑπερφυῶς (hyperphyōs)*

Beyond the ordinary measure, extraordinarily or prodigiously. It intensifies the craving of the grasping person. The excess applies to the manner of desire even when its objects are extremely small.

**Attestation.** **226e:** γλίχονται ὑπερφυῶς.

### Exchange instead of {#reg-exchange-instead-of}

*ἀντί (anti)*

In place of or in exchange for, with the genitive. The phrase states the comparison of what gold should command and what it becomes for the exchanger. It helps shift the question from gross received weight to what has been surrendered.

**Attestation.** **231d:** ἀντὶ δωδεκαστασίου.

### Explain {#reg-explain}

*φράζω (phrazō)*

To tell or explain. Socrates responds to the companion's request for clarification by giving the food example. His promised explanation is an analogy before it is a definition of gain itself.

**Attestation.** **230a:** Ἐγὼ φράσω.

### Farmer {#reg-farmer}

*γεωργός (geōrgos)*

A cultivator of the land. The farmer knows whether a plant can yield something worth having. Burnet's apparatus distinguishes γεωργός from a manuscript's γεωργικός; both remain within the agricultural example, rather than naming a theory of wealth.

**Attestation.** **225b:** γεωργὸς ἀνὴρ.

### Farming {#reg-farming}

*γεωργικός (geōrgikos)*

Concerned with or knowledgeable about farming. This adjective describes a man whose competence makes knowingly expecting gain from a worthless plant implausible. It reinforces a domain of expertise rather than merely recording rural residence.

**Attestation.** **226a:** γεωργικὸν ἄνδρα.

### Feast richly {#reg-feast-richly}

*εὐωχέομαι (euōcheomai)*

To enjoy a plentiful or pleasant feast. The agreeable character of the experience sharpens the counterexample: pleasurable entertainment and zero expense do not guarantee a beneficial result if illness is acquired.

**Attestation.** **231b:** εὐωχηθείς.

### Few or little {#reg-few-or-little}

*ὀλίγος (oligos)*

Small in number or amount; with worth it means worth little. The companion groups things worth little with things worth nothing, but those descriptions are not identical. Small positive value remains different from complete worthlessness.

**Attestation.** **226e:** ὀλίγου ἄξια.

### Fifty oared ship {#reg-fifty-oared-ship}

*πεντηκόντορος (pentēkontoros)*

A ship named for fifty oars. Socrates says Hipparchus sent one for Anacreon. The term describes the vessel, not a statement that fifty passengers, fifty poets or fifty talents were involved.

**Attestation.** **228c:** πεντηκόντορον.

### Fine {#reg-fine}

*καλός (kalos)*

Fine, beautiful or admirable, depending on the object. Here it praises works of wisdom; elsewhere it describes poems, persons and the young beloved. Its range should not be compressed into the single modern sense 'morally good'.

**Attestation.** **228b:** πολλὰ καὶ καλὰ ἔργα.

### Fine and good {#reg-fine-and-good}

*καλὸς κἀγαθός (kalos kagathos)*

A conventional combination of 'fine' and 'good' used in praise of a person's standing and character. Applied to Hipparchus, it participates in Socrates' elevated portrait. Whether that praise is ironic remains an interpretive question, not something the formula resolves.

**Attestation.** **228c:** καλός τε κἀγαθός.

### Flute {#reg-flute}

*αὐλός (aulos)*

A reed-pipe conventionally called a flute in the edition. Its practical value is tested by the player who uses it. The conventional English name should not imply that the ancient instrument was identical to a modern transverse concert flute.

**Attestation.** **226c:** αὐλοὺς.

### Flute player {#reg-flute-player}

*αὐλητής (aulētēs)*

A performer on the aulos. The example asks whether a skilled musician with worthless instruments expects to gain from them. Musical expertise is treated alongside agricultural, navigational and military competence.

**Attestation.** **226c:** αὐλητὴς.

### Food {#reg-food}

*σιτίον (sition)*

Food or provisions, here fodder given to a horse. Later the same word supplies the defining comparison of good and bad food. Repetition connects a practical example of harmful supplies to the later inquiry into a common kind.

**Attestation.** **226a:** σιτία τῷ ἵππῳ.

### Friend {#reg-friend}

*φίλος (philos)*

A friend or someone dear. The maxim forbids deceiving a friend, and Socrates invokes it because the companion is his friend. The companion then questions either that friendship or Socrates' obedience, showing that naming the relationship does not settle the charge.

**Attestation.** **229b:** μὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα.

### From everything {#reg-from-everything}

*ἀπὸ παντός (apo pantos)*

From every source. The phrase attributes unrestricted readiness to gain to the lover of gain. 'From' matters: the initial concern is the source and propriety of acquisition, which later reasoning can replace with the goodness of the outcome.

**Attestation.** **225b:** Ἀπὸ παντὸς.

### Gain {#reg-gain}

*κέρδος (kerdos)*

Gain, profit or advantage. The dialogue tests whether it can be bad or base, or whether genuine gain is necessarily beneficial. The noun may refer to the result or object gained as well as profit as such; that flexibility matters to the argument.

**Attestation.** **226e:** τὸ κέρδος.

### Gainful {#reg-gainful}

*κερδαλέος (kerdaleos)*

Bringing gain, profitable or gainful. It qualifies what is of worth regardless of size. The adjective helps carry the argument from the exchange example toward the conclusion that what is gainful is good.

**Attestation.** **231e:** κερδαλέον.

### General {#reg-general}

*στρατηγός (stratēgos)*

A military commander. He is expected to recognise the inadequacy of his army's worthless arms. The dialogue does not analyse his constitutional appointment or equate command itself with an entitlement to profit.

**Attestation.** **226c:** στρατηγὸς.

### Get {#reg-get}

*λαμβάνω (lambanō)*

To take, receive or get. The acquisition formula compares receiving more with spending less. The verb is neutral about whether the thing received benefits the recipient; disease and disadvantageous exchanges show why quantity is insufficient.

**Attestation.** **231a:** πλέον λάβῃ.

### Gift {#reg-gift}

*δῶρον (dōron)*

A gift or present. Gifts join large fees as the means by which Hipparchus keeps Simonides near him. The context is poetic patronage, so the word need not be turned into a claim of bribery or a legally defined corruption offence.

**Attestation.** **228c:** δώροις.

### Go through {#reg-go-through}

*διέρχομαι (dierchomai)*

To pass through or recount in sequence. Socrates has gone through examples of competent practitioners. In the rhapsodic passage the corresponding infinitive describes going through the poems in order, with a different concrete setting.

**Attestation.** **226d:** διεληλύθαμεν.

### Go your way {#reg-go-your-way}

*στείχω (steichō)*

To walk or proceed; the imperative tells the traveller to go on his way. Joined with 'thinking just things', it turns a road inscription into an instruction for conduct beyond the moment of reading.

**Attestation.** **229a:** στεῖχε.

### Gold {#reg-gold}

*χρυσίον (chrysion)*

Gold, here weighed and compared with silver. The monetary example distinguishes value from bulk. The source gives a particular exchange comparison; it does not establish a timeless or uniform ancient market rate.

**Attestation.** **231d:** χρυσίου.

### Good {#reg-good}

*ἀγαθός (agathos)*

Good, beneficial or excellent of its kind. The first argument concludes that gain is good after treating loss as harmful and bad. The word's breadth makes it important to ask which sense of goodness is operating at each transition.

**Attestation.** **227a:** Ἀγαθὸν ἄρα τὸ κέρδος.

### Grow or rear {#reg-grow-or-rear}

*ἐκτρέφω (ektrephō)*

To rear or bring to maturity; the passive participle describes the plant when grown. The imagined gain lies in the later yield, so the example already depends on judging a process over time rather than simply possessing a plant now.

**Attestation.** **225b:** ἐκτραφέντος.

### Half {#reg-half}

*ἥμισυς (hēmisys)*

One half, here a half-weight of gold. The chosen weight must not be confused with value: at the stipulated gold-silver ratio a smaller gold amount can be worth more than a larger silver amount.

**Attestation.** **231d:** σταθμὸν ἥμισυν.

### Happen to be {#reg-happen-to-be}

*τυγχάνω (tynchanō)*

To happen to be or turn out to be, often with a participle. At the conclusion the reproacher is himself such a person. The construction asserts the fact about him; it does not advance a theory that his character is caused by random chance.

**Attestation.** **232c:** τυγχάνει γὰρ.

### Harm {#reg-harm}

*βλάπτω (blaptō)*

To damage or harm; the passive is to be harmed. Loss harms people, and later the companion says certain gains will harm them. Whether harm is excluded from the meaning of genuine gain is precisely part of the dispute.

**Attestation.** **227a:** Βλάπτονται.

### Hate {#reg-hate}

*μισέω (miseō)*

To hate or dislike. The universalisation pairs loving good things with hating bad ones. The dialogue accepts this general formulation without investigating people who knowingly pursue harmful objects or disagree about what is good.

**Attestation.** **227c:** μισεῖν.

### Health {#reg-health}

*ὑγίεια (hygieia)*

Health, the beneficial bodily state contrasted with disease. Acquiring health from a feast counts as gain in the exchange. The example depends on the judgement of the acquired state, not on whether the guest paid for the meal.

**Attestation.** **231b:** Ὑγίειαν.

### Hear {#reg-hear}

*ἀκούω (akouō)*

To hear, including learning something from others. Socrates says the companion could have heard the favourable account from the men of old. This appeal to remembered testimony is part of the narrative's claim to credibility, not direct contemporary documentation.

**Attestation.** **229b:** ἤκουσας.

### Here and now {#reg-here-and-now}

*νῦν (nyn)*

Now, with ἔτι adding 'still'. The rhapsodes are said still to follow the order Hipparchus imposed. The present is that of the dramatic conversation; it does not identify the date when the dialogue was composed.

**Attestation.** **228b:** ὥσπερ νῦν ἔτι.

### Herm {#reg-herm}

*Ἑρμῆς (Hermēs)*

A Herm, a pillar bearing a head of Hermes. The name can refer to the god or to the inscribed monument representing him. The speaking Herm mediates the founder's instruction to travellers along the road.

**Attestation.** **228d:** Ἑρμᾶς.

### Horse {#reg-horse}

*ἵππος (hippos)*

A horse, whose condition is damaged by worthless food. The object of the supposed profit is also a living creature whose ruin makes the practical cost visible. No price or racing context is specified.

**Attestation.** **226a:** τὸν ἵππον.

### Horseman {#reg-horseman}

*ἱππικός (hippikos)*

Skilled in horses or horsemanship. The adjective qualifies the man who knows what his horse is being fed. It should not be inflated into a claim that he belongs to a specified cavalry regiment or wealth class in this scene.

**Attestation.** **226a:** ἱππικὸν ἄνδρα.

### Human being {#reg-human-being}

*ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos)*

A human being or person. A decent and a base person are equally human, supplying an analogy for a common kind that survives moral difference. The statement concerns their humanity, not equality of virtue, behaviour or benefit.

**Attestation.** **230c:** ἄνθρωπός.

### If indeed {#reg-if-indeed}

*εἴπερ (eiper)*

If indeed or if it is really the case. The condition explicitly ties good men's wishing for all gains to gains' being good. Omitting it would conceal a premise the companion continues to contest by invoking harmful gains.

**Attestation.** **227d:** εἴπερ ἀγαθά γέ ἐστιν.

### Imitate {#reg-imitate}

*μιμέομαι (mimeomai)*

To imitate or follow a model. Socrates invites the companion to reproduce the manner of his answer about food and drink. The requested imitation is methodological: identify what is common to the two cases bearing one name.

**Attestation.** **231a:** μιμεῖσθαι.

### Impossible {#reg-impossible}

*ἀδύνατος (adynatos)*

Impossible or not capable of being done. Socrates declares the first model of knowingly gaining from worthless sources refuted as impossible. The verdict depends on his treatment of expertise and value; it is not offered as an independently demonstrated psychological law.

**Attestation.** **226e:** ἀδύνατον.

### In order {#reg-in-order}

*ἐφεξῆς (ephexēs)*

In sequence or successively. The rhapsodes are to perform the epics in an ordered succession. Together with 'taking up', it describes continuity between reciters rather than simply several unrelated performances at the same festival.

**Attestation.** **228b:** ἐφεξῆς.

### In sum {#reg-in-sum}

*συλλήβδην (syllēbdēn)*

Taken together or in sum. Socrates gathers the particular experts into craftsmen and other intelligent people. It marks a generalisation, whose scope is broader than the individually tested examples but not thereby unlimited without argument.

**Attestation.** **226c:** συλλήβδην.

### Insatiability {#reg-insatiability}

*ἀπληστία (aplēstia)*

An inability to be filled or satisfied. The companion presents it as the motive for craving even tiny worthless objects. The proposed defect concerns appetite's excess, not merely an error in estimating an item's exchange value.

**Attestation.** **226d:** ὑπὸ ἀπληστίας.

### Inscription {#reg-inscription}

*ἐπίγραμμα (epigramma)*

Something written upon a surface, here an inscription. The printed crasis and dual refer to two inscriptions on each Herm. It need not mean an 'epigram' in the modern sense of a self-contained witty literary poem.

**Attestation.** **228e:** τὠπιγράμματε.

### Instrument {#reg-instrument}

*ὄργανον (organon)*

A tool or instrument, a means used in performing a task. The common category embraces the musicians' and other practitioners' equipment. It is used concretely here, not as the title of a formal logical treatise.

**Attestation.** **226c:** ὄργανα.

### Intelligent {#reg-intelligent}

*ἔμφρων (emphrōn)*

Possessing sense or understanding. 'Other intelligent men' expands the knowledgeable examples beyond named craftsmen. The phrase helps generalise the practical expectation that a person with sense does not knowingly profit through useless means.

**Attestation.** **226c:** τῶν ἐμφρόνων ἀνδρῶν.

### Intentionally {#reg-intentionally}

*ἐπίτηδες (epitēdes)*

On purpose or deliberately. Socrates describes the companion's contrary statements as intentional deception. The adverb sharpens the accusation, which the companion then reverses, and should not be treated as an established authorial verdict.

**Attestation.** **228a:** ἐπίτηδες ἐναντία λέγων.

### Judge or think {#reg-judge-or-think}

*ἡγέομαι (hēgeomai)*

To regard, consider or take someone to be something. The companion proposes how the lover of gain should correctly be classified. The same verb marks judgements of wisdom, friendship and rivalry in the central narrative.

**Attestation.** **227d:** ἡγεῖσθαι φιλοκερδῆ.

### Just {#reg-just}

*δίκαιος (dikaios)*

Just or right. The neuter plural is the object of thinking in the inscription: proceed with just thoughts. The maxim does not define justice, but it makes reflective orientation part of conduct along one's way.

**Attestation.** **229a:** δίκαια φρονῶν.

### Kill {#reg-kill}

*ἀποκτείνω (apokteinō)*

To kill. The story explains the murder through the rivals' pain at perceived dishonour. That proposed motive belongs to Socrates' narrative and must be distinguished from the different accounts supplied by historians.

**Attestation.** **229d:** ἀποκτεῖναι τὸν Ἵππαρχον.

### Know {#reg-know}

*γιγνώσκω (gignōskō)*

To know or recognise. The opening question specifies knowing that things are worth nothing. Such knowledge is then paired with practical expertise, which is used to challenge the possibility of expecting gain from worthless means.

**Attestation.** **225a:** γιγνώσκοντες.

### Know thyself {#reg-know-thyself}

*Γνῶθι σαυτόν (Gnōthi sauton)*

The Delphic command to know oneself. It appears as a celebrated inscription with which Hipparchus wants his own maxims to compete. Quoting it does not mean that the dialogue has supplied the detailed account of self-knowledge found in other dialogues.

**Attestation.** **228e:** Γνῶθι σαυτόν.

### Knowledgeable {#reg-knowledgeable}

*ἐπιστήμων (epistēmōn)*

Knowing, skilled or expert concerning something. Socrates secures the claim that the lover of gain knows the worth of his intended source. The object of expertise is explicit; general cleverness and moral goodness are not thereby established.

**Attestation.** **225c:** ἐπιστήμονα.

### Land {#reg-land}

*γῆ (gē)*

Land or country, here this land into which Homeric poetry was allegedly brought. The demonstrative gives the story an Athenian standpoint. It is not a claim about introducing epic to all Greek-speaking communities.

**Attestation.** **228b:** εἰς τὴν γῆν ταυτηνί.

### Lawsuit {#reg-lawsuit}

*δίκη (dikē)*

A lawsuit or legal case in this context. The men clever at lawsuits supply the model for an ornamental rhyme. The common noun is related to a wider vocabulary of justice, but the local reference is forensic practice.

**Attestation.** **225c:** περὶ τὰς δίκας.

### Learn {#reg-learn}

*μανθάνω (manthanō)*

To learn. Some of Hipparchus' wisdom was learned, some found out by himself. The distinction prevents his inscriptions from being treated as wholly original merely because they advertise his wisdom.

**Attestation.** **228d:** ἔμαθεν.

### Less {#reg-less}

*ἐλάττων (elattōn)*

Less or a smaller amount. The proposed profit formula combines a smaller outgoing amount with a larger receipt. Without a common measure of value, that relation alone cannot establish gain.

**Attestation.** **231a:** ἔλαττον ἀναλώσας.

### Look into {#reg-look-into}

*ἐπισκέπτομαι (episkeptomai)*

To examine or look into a matter. Socrates redirects the discussion to why both kinds are called gain. The inquiry seeks a shared account, rather than yet another example of a gain conventionally labelled good or bad.

**Attestation.** **230d:** ἐπισκέψασθαι.

### Loss {#reg-loss}

*ζημία (zēmia)*

Loss, damage or, in other contexts, a penalty. Here it is treated as harmful and bad, opposed to gain. The companion challenges the exclusiveness of that opposition when he says base gain can also cause loss.

**Attestation.** **227a:** ἡ ζημία.

### Love {#reg-love}

*φιλέω (phileō)*

To love, like or be fond of. Expanding the compound 'lover of gain' into 'loves gain' looks simple but enables the argument to connect this blamed character with everyone who loves good things.

**Attestation.** **226e:** φιλοῦσι τὸ κέρδος.

### Love erotically {#reg-love-erotically}

*ἐράω (eraō)*

To be in love with or desire erotically. Harmodius loves an unnamed young man in Socrates' story. The verb is not the same as φιλεῖν in the general claim that people love good things.

**Attestation.** **229d:** ἐρῶντά.

### Lover of gain {#reg-lover-of-gain}

*φιλοκερδής (philokerdēs)*

Someone fond of gain, conventionally a grasping or greedy person. The companion begins with a reproachful category; the argument ends by applying the description to everyone. The dispute concerns what is lost when the ordinary reproach is reduced to its components.

**Attestation.** **225a:** οἱ φιλοκερδεῖς.

### Lyre {#reg-lyre}

*λύρα (lyra)*

A stringed instrument, here the musician's working tool. The Greek names a lyre even though the performer is called a κιθαριστής. The edition preserves that wording rather than silently replacing the instrument name.

**Attestation.** **226c:** λύραν.

### Lyre player {#reg-lyre-player}

*κιθαριστής (kitharistēs)*

A player of the kithara family of stringed instruments, conventionally the edition's lyre-player. The line pairs this performer with a λύρα. The lexical pairing should be reported before making broader claims about instrument taxonomy.

**Attestation.** **226c:** κιθαριστὴς.

### Mad {#reg-mad}

*μανικός (manikos)*

Mad or crazed. Socrates says lovers of the good are not madmen, after identifying lovers of gain as lovers of the good. The remark is pointed and colloquial; it is not a clinical classification or the dialogue's main psychological argument.

**Attestation.** **227b:** μανικούς.

### Many {#reg-many}

*πολύς (polys)*

Many; substantivised with the article it means the many or majority. Socrates contrasts their explanation of the murder with that of the supposedly more cultivated. Numerical popularity and historical truth are not the same criterion.

**Attestation.** **229c:** οἱ πολλοὶ.

### Memorial {#reg-memorial}

*μνῆμα (mnēma)*

A reminder, memorial or monument. The inscription names Hipparchus as the person commemorated. Such a memorial need not be a grave marker: here it is a roadside monument bearing a rule for living.

**Attestation.** **229a:** μνῆμα τόδ’ Ἱππάρχου.

### Middle {#reg-middle}

*μέσος (mesos)*

The middle or midway position. It locates the Herms between the town and the demes. The spatial midpoint provides a practical setting for travellers to encounter instruction and the founder's name.

**Attestation.** **228d:** ἐν μέσῳ.

### Mind or think {#reg-mind-or-think}

*φρονέω (phroneō)*

To think or have a disposition of mind. In the maxim it governs just things; in μέγα φρονεῖν it can mean to think highly of oneself. The two uses connect reflection and self-estimation without making them synonyms.

**Attestation.** **229a:** φρονῶν.

### More {#reg-more}

*πλείων (pleiōn)*

More or a larger amount. At first the object of comparison is unspecified; the monetary example then shows why a greater weight of a different material need not have greater worth. The appropriate measure is part of the problem.

**Attestation.** **231a:** πλέον λάβῃ.

### Much or very {#reg-much-or-very}

*σφόδρα (sphodra)*

Strongly or very much. The companion emphatically confirms the value comparison before the argument turns from worth to benefit. Strong assent at one step should not be confused with his eventual reservation about the entire argument.

**Attestation.** **231e:** Σφόδρα.

### Name {#reg-name}

*ὄνομα (onoma)*

A name or designation. 'Drink' is the name given to wet nourishment whether decent or base. The discussion asks for the common feature that makes the same designation appropriate to different instances.

**Attestation.** **231a:** τοῦτο τὸ ὄνομά.

### Nearly {#reg-nearly}

*ἐγγύς (engys)*

Near or nearly, with τι softening the comparison. The Athenians are said to have lived nearly as under Cronus. This is an idealising comparison qualified by the speaker, not a literal chronological placement in mythical time.

**Attestation.** **229b:** ἐγγύς τι.

### Necessary {#reg-necessary}

*ἀνάγκη (anankē)*

Necessity or what must follow. As a short reply it grants that good and bad gain are equally gain. The dramatic assent must be checked against what the preceding analogy actually supports.

**Attestation.** **230c:** Ἀνάγκη.

### Neither {#reg-neither}

*οὐδέτερος (oudeteros)*

Neither of two. The decent and base person is neither more nor less human than the other. The repeated negatives carefully delimit the comparison and prepare the corresponding statement about gains.

**Attestation.** **230c:** οὐδέτερος οὐδετέρου.

### No benefit {#reg-no-benefit}

*ἀνωφελής (anōphelēs)*

Unhelpful or of no benefit. The companion rejects it as the meaning of what is worth possessing. This exclusion pushes the value-language toward benefit, rather than permitting neutral possession as the final standard.

**Attestation.** **231e:** τὸ ἀνωφελὲς.

### No gain {#reg-no-gain}

*ἀκερδής (akerdēs)*

Without gain or unprofitable. It is paired with the worthless, against what is gainful and of worth. The negative does not by itself specify an amount of loss: failing to gain and incurring a deficit need not be identical in ordinary usage.

**Attestation.** **231e:** ἀκερδές.

### No match for {#reg-no-match-for}

*ἥττων (hēttōn)*

Weaker than or overmastered by something. Being no match for gain means yielding to its attraction, not having less profit than someone else. The same comparative family can concern lesser degree in the later more-and-less argument, with a changed application.

**Attestation.** **225b:** ἥττους τοῦ κέρδους.

### No one {#reg-no-one}

*οὐδείς (oudeis)*

No person or no one, here reinforced in a negative construction. The first treatment of the companion's account leaves no human lover of gain. The stark result contrasts with the later assertion that everyone is one.

**Attestation.** **226d:** οὐκ ἔστ’ ἀνθρώπων οὐδεὶς.

### Nothing too much {#reg-nothing-too-much}

*Μηδὲν ἄγαν (Mēden agan)*

The Delphic instruction to avoid excess, literally 'nothing too much'. In the story Hipparchus wants his sayings admired above this familiar maxim. The dialogue quotes it but does not develop an independent account of moderation.

**Attestation.** **228e:** Μηδὲν ἄγαν.

### Now just recently {#reg-now-just-recently}

*ἄρτι (arti)*

Just now or a short time ago. It gives Socrates' appeal to agreement apparent immediacy. The edition's note warns that the alleged agreement was not stated in those words, so the temporal cue must not replace checking the earlier exchange.

**Attestation.** **227d:** ἄρτι ὡμολογήσαμεν.

### Old {#reg-old}

*παλαιός (palaios)*

Of old, ancient or belonging to an earlier generation. 'All the men of old' are invoked as witnesses to the favourable picture of pre-Hippias Athens. The expression does not identify named informants whose testimony can be independently evaluated.

**Attestation.** **229b:** τῶν παλαιῶν.

### Older and eldest {#reg-older-and-eldest}

*πρεσβύτερος, πρεσβύτατος (presbyteros, presbytatos)*

Older and oldest or eldest. The superlative describes Hipparchus within Socrates' portrait; historians cited by the edition instead make Hippias the elder. Socrates' own older age relative to the companion is a separate, dramatic comparison at 225d–226a.

**Attestation.** **228b:** πρεσβύτατος καὶ σοφώτατος.

### Opponent {#reg-opponent}

*ἀνταγωνιστής (antagōnistēs)*

A rival or competitor. Aristogeiton regards Hipparchus as a rival in the story's setting of education and admired wisdom. The word supplies a contest metaphor without establishing an actual institutional teaching competition.

**Attestation.** **229c:** ἀνταγωνιστὴν.

### Or {#reg-or}

*ἤ (ē)*

Or, joining alternatives. Asking whether health is gain or loss supplies an evaluative choice, whereas asking whether harm comes from gain or loss is resisted by 'both'. The alternatives' exclusiveness must be judged in each exchange.

**Attestation.** **231b:** κέρδος ἂν κτήσαιτο ἢ ζημίαν.

### Ought {#reg-ought}

*δεῖ (dei)*

It is necessary or one ought. Here it occurs inside what the lover of gain thinks: he thinks he ought to gain from everything. The dialogue does not endorse that unrestricted requirement merely by reporting his attitude.

**Attestation.** **225b:** οἴεται δεῖν κερδαίνειν.

### Pass by {#reg-pass-by}

*πάρειμι (pareimi)*

To go past or pass by, here of travellers along the roads. The participle belongs to the going-by verb, not simply the similarly spelled verb meaning 'be present'. Movement creates repeated opportunities to read the inscriptions.

**Attestation.** **228e:** παριόντες.

### Pay or fee {#reg-pay-or-fee}

*μισθός (misthos)*

Payment, wages or a fee. Large fees are part of the means used to attract or retain Simonides. The material detail makes poetic wisdom and the dialogue's question about gain sit close together without proving a charge against the poet.

**Attestation.** **228c:** μεγάλοις μισθοῖς.

### Perhaps {#reg-perhaps}

*ἴσως (isōs)*

Perhaps or possibly. Socrates allows that persuasion might follow later, after compelled agreement. The word leaves that future open; the dialogue does not show the promised conviction actually occurring.

**Attestation.** **232b:** ἴσως μετὰ τοῦτο.

### Perish {#reg-perish}

*ἀπόλλυμι (apollymi)*

To destroy or lose in the active, and to perish in the middle. The pilot may perish himself and lose the vessel and cargo. The grammatical change makes personal death and the loss of property distinct consequences of bad equipment.

**Attestation.** **226b:** ἀπολέσθαι.

### Persuade {#reg-persuade}

*πείθω (peithō)*

To persuade or bring someone to belief; related middle forms can mean obey. The final contrast with compulsion shows that agreeing under argumentative pressure is not necessarily the same as being persuaded.

**Attestation.** **232b:** πέπεικεν.

### Pilot {#reg-pilot}

*κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs)*

A steersman or pilot. He knows the risk created by worthless sails and rudders. The noun describes practical navigational responsibility, and the passage does not turn it into a stated metaphor for political rule.

**Attestation.** **226b:** κυβερνήτην.

### Place or region {#reg-place-or-region}

*χώρα (chōra)*

A place, district or region, here the location appropriate for planting. Its rhyme with ὥρα motivates the edition's 'clime'. Climate is a suggestive English equivalent, but the Greek word's ordinary geographical range is broader.

**Attestation.** **225c:** χώρᾳ.

### Plant {#reg-plant}

*φυτόν (phyton)*

A plant or something grown. Its worth is judged in relation to planting and eventual growth. The example assumes a competent evaluator and a recognised lack of productive value, which is stronger than observing a currently low market price.

**Attestation.** **225b:** τὸ φυτόν.

### Planting {#reg-planting}

*φυτεύω (phyteuō)*

To plant. The activity supplies the setting for the farmer's calculation of expected gain. The later question about season and place makes competence include knowing the conditions under which planting is worth doing.

**Attestation.** **225b:** φυτεύων.

### Plot {#reg-plot}

*ἐπιβουλεύω (epibouleuō)*

To plan against or devise a scheme; the edition pointedly uses 'plotting' for educating country people. The choice can create irony within the praise of Hipparchus without proving that the programme is described as hostile in a literal political sense.

**Attestation.** **228d:** ἐπιβουλεύων.

### Poem {#reg-poem}

*ποίημα (poiēma)*

Something made, here a poem. Hipparchus inscribes chosen wisdom as his own poems and specimens. The term foregrounds composition and display rather than implying that every maxim is a wholly unprecedented thought.

**Attestation.** **228d:** ποιήματα.

### Possess {#reg-possess}

*κτάομαι in the perfect (ktaomai)*

To have acquired and hence possess. The perfect infinitive expresses an established holding, unlike the acquisition event. 'Worth possessing' leads the argument from exchange worth to what is beneficial to hold.

**Attestation.** **231e:** κεκτῆσθαι.

### Possession {#reg-possession}

*κτῆμα (ktēma)*

A possession or something acquired. The proposed definition makes any cost-free or favourable acquisition a gain. The disease counterexample tests the breadth of 'any', including an acquired state that ordinary English might not initially call property.

**Attestation.** **231a:** πᾶν κτῆμα.

### Prepare or equip {#reg-prepare-or-equip}

*παρασκευάζω (paraskeuazō)*

To make ready or equip. The pilot has equipped the ship with sails and rudders. The completed preparation sets up a foreseeable future danger: inadequate equipment has been chosen before the voyage's result is realised.

**Attestation.** **226b:** παρεσκευασμένον.

### Pride {#reg-pride}

*μέγα φρονεῖν (mega phronein)*

To think highly of oneself or take pride. Aristogeiton prides himself on having educated a man. The idiom concerns self-esteem attached to an achievement, not the literal size of a thought.

**Attestation.** **229c:** μέγα δ’ ἐφρόνει.

### Provide {#reg-provide}

*παρέχω (parechō)*

To furnish, provide or give. The horseman supplies food to the horse, and his knowledge of its quality underlies the judgement that he is ruining it. The relation is one of care and use, not merely ownership.

**Attestation.** **226a:** παρέχει.

### Put into verse {#reg-put-into-verse}

*ἐντείνω (enteinō)*

Literally to stretch or draw into, here to cast selected sayings into elegiac verse. The expression marks the work of fitting thought to a metrical form. It does not mean the maxims were merely copied as unshaped prose.

**Attestation.** **228d:** ἐντείνας εἰς ἐλεγεῖον.

### Randomly {#reg-randomly}

*εἰκῇ (eikē)*

At random, carelessly or without due consideration. Socrates asks the companion not to answer as though smarting from an injury. The contrast is with attending to the question, not with eliminating all ordinary emotional responses from thought.

**Attestation.** **225b:** οὕτως εἰκῇ.

### Read {#reg-read}

*ἀναγιγνώσκω (anagignōskō)*

To read, here the roadside inscriptions. The public writing is designed to be encountered by passers-by and to draw them toward further education. The text does not state whether each reader reads silently or aloud.

**Attestation.** **228e:** ἀναγιγνώσκοντες.

### Refute {#reg-refute}

*ἐξελέγχω (exelenchō)*

To refute, expose or show a claim untenable. Socrates says 'we have refuted ourselves', sharing ownership of the earlier test. The form does not guarantee that the argument has answered every morally distinct interpretation of the companion's original complaint.

**Attestation.** **226e:** ἐξηλέγξαμεν.

### Remember {#reg-remember}

*μιμνῄσκομαι (mimnēskomai)*

To remember or call to mind. Socrates says he cannot remember the young man's name while relating the story. That admission leaves the person unidentified; later speculation must not fill in the missing name as though the dialogue supplied it.

**Attestation.** **229d:** οὐ μέμνημαι.

### Remind {#reg-remind}

*ὑπομιμνῄσκω (hypomimnēskō)*

To remind or prompt another's memory. Socrates offers to reconstruct the starting disagreement. The resulting summary should be checked against the earlier words, because the dialogue has already made retrospective agreement a contested matter.

**Attestation.** **232a:** ὑπομνήσω.

### Reproach {#reg-reproach}

*ὀνειδίζω (oneidizō)*

To reproach, blame or cast something in someone's teeth. The final argument challenges the propriety of blaming someone as a lover of gain when the accuser belongs to the same supposed class. Whether this dissolves the original moral distinction is the reader's remaining question.

**Attestation.** **232c:** ὀνειδίζει.

### Return in a circle {#reg-return-in-a-circle}

*περιτρέχω (peritrechō)*

To run around and return to the same point. Socrates uses the movement image for the renewed result that gain is good. The image can register recurrence and frustration without being the formal name of a circular fallacy.

**Attestation.** **231c:** περιτρέχεις εἰς τὸ αὐτό.

### Rhapsode {#reg-rhapsode}

*ῥαψῳδός (rhapsōdos)*

A professional reciter of epic verse. Hipparchus is credited with imposing sequential recitation at the Panathenaea. The claim concerns performance order and attribution of a rule, not an assertion that the reciters composed Homer's poems.

**Attestation.** **228b:** τοὺς ῥαψῳδοὺς.

### Rightly {#reg-rightly}

*ὀρθῶς (orthōs)*

Correctly or rightly. The companion wants the lover of gain correctly understood, and the ending denies that reproach is correctly applied. The adverb can concern classification or conduct; its meaning must follow the particular verb it modifies.

**Attestation.** **227c:** ὀρθῶς λαμβάνοι.

### Risk and likelihood {#reg-risk-and-likelihood}

*κινδυνεύω (kindyneuō)*

To run a risk or be in danger, literally of the pilot here. At 229d Κινδυνεύεις introduces 'it looks as though' Socrates fails in friendship or obedience. The same verb moves from real physical peril to an idiomatic tentative assessment.

**Attestation.** **226b:** κινδυνεύσει.

### Road {#reg-road}

*ὁδός (hodos)*

A road or route. Here it is the physical setting of the Herms, and one specified route is the Steirian road. Although road language may invite associations with moral direction, the dialogue first describes actual movement and public monuments.

**Attestation.** **228d:** κατὰ τὰς ὁδοὺς.

### Rudder {#reg-rudder}

*πηδάλιον (pēdalion)*

A steering oar or rudder. It is a crucial item of ship equipment whose worthlessness creates danger. The plural should not be silently modernised into an engineering claim about a single central rudder.

**Attestation.** **226b:** πηδάλια.

### Ruin {#reg-ruin}

*διαφθείρω (diaphtheirō)*

To ruin, destroy or spoil. Worthless food ruins the horse, a concrete harmful outcome. The passage does not describe political corruption of a person, although that broader sense of the family occurs elsewhere in Greek.

**Attestation.** **226a:** διαφθείρει.

### Rule {#reg-rule}

*ἄρχω (archō)*

To rule or govern. Socrates attributes the educational project to Hipparchus' wish to rule the best possible citizens. Education and political authority are deliberately joined in this explanation, even though the historians disagree about his actual governing position.

**Attestation.** **228c:** ἄρχοι.

### Sail {#reg-sail}

*ἱστίον (histion)*

A sail. Alongside rudders it represents the means needed to conduct a ship safely. The danger from worthless sails is intelligible without supposing that their material has literally no sale or salvage value whatsoever.

**Attestation.** **226b:** ἱστία.

### Same {#reg-same}

*αὐτός (autos)*

The same, when used with the article or in the corresponding crasis. Socrates seeks the identical feature in good and bad gain. In other constructions αὐτός means self or the very person, so not every occurrence carries the classificatory sense.

**Attestation.** **230d:** τί ταὐτὸν ἐν ἀμφοτέροις.

### Sayings {#reg-sayings}

*ῥῆμα (rhēma)*

Words, expressions or sayings. The term links the courtroom verbal display near the start and Hipparchus' admired maxims. Its use does not guarantee that the saying is wise merely because someone calls it a wise saying.

**Attestation.** **228e:** ῥήματα.

### See {#reg-see}

*ὁράω (horaō)*

To see, here to discern a common feature. The question uses visual language for intellectual recognition. Elsewhere 'you see' can press home an argumentative point; neither use introduces a separate theory of perception.

**Attestation.** **230d:** τί ταὐτὸν ἐν ἀμφοτέροις ὁρῶν.

### Senseless {#reg-senseless}

*ἀνόητος (anoētos)*

Without understanding or senseless. Socrates says that, if the supposed lovers of gain do not recognise the worthlessness, this would be the kind of person the companion is naming. The companion rejects that characterization in favour of knowing unscrupulousness.

**Attestation.** **225a:** ἀνοήτους.

### Shamelessness {#reg-shamelessness}

*ἀναισχυντία (anaischyntia)*

Lack of shame or restraint before disgrace. The companion gives it as the reason people knowingly dare pursue improper gain. Socrates' tests of mistaken value must be compared with this original claim about moral inhibition.

**Attestation.** **225b:** δι’ ἀναισχυντίαν.

### Ship {#reg-ship}

*ναῦς (naus)*

A ship or vessel; inflected forms include νηί. The pilot may lose the ship as well as himself and the cargo. The sequence makes the costs of defective equipment larger than a simple accounting shortfall.

**Attestation.** **226b:** τὴν ναῦν.

### Silver {#reg-silver}

*ἀργύριον (argyrion)*

Silver, and often money in a monetary context. Here the material is explicitly weighed against gold, so the comparison requires attention to both amount and relative worth. It is not merely a larger count of identical coins.

**Attestation.** **231d:** ἀργυρίου.

### Simple minded {#reg-simple-minded}

*εὐήθης (euēthēs)*

Naive, simple or simple-minded. Socrates dismisses the familiar basket-bearing explanation with this word. The dismissal belongs to his rhetorical presentation; the label itself supplies no historical argument against the alternative account.

**Attestation.** **229c:** εὔηθες.

### Sister {#reg-sister}

*ἀδελφή (adelphē)*

A sister, here Harmodius' sister in the disputed account of the assassination. She is not named in the dialogue. Her rejected ceremonial honour must be described as the alternative story being discussed, not confused with the unnamed young man in Socrates' preferred version.

**Attestation.** **229c:** τῆς ἀδελφῆς.

### Small {#reg-small}

*σμικρός (smikros)*

Small in size, amount or importance. The companion originally combines smallness with little or no worth. Later the argument speaks of gains both small and great, which is a broader description than that initial disparaging cluster.

**Attestation.** **226e:** σμικρὰ.

### Some {#reg-some}

*τις, τι (tis, ti)*

An indefinite someone or something; here some gain or a certain gain. The companion's retraction introduces a division within the class, some good and some bad. It does not deny that any good gain exists.

**Attestation.** **230a:** κέρδος τι.

### Son or child {#reg-son-or-child}

*παῖς (pais)*

A child or offspring, here Pisistratus' sons. The word does not imply that these figures are minors at the narrated date. Hipparchus is further called eldest and wisest, claims that need to be separated and historically checked.

**Attestation.** **228b:** τῶν Πεισιστράτου παίδων.

### Speak auspiciously {#reg-speak-auspiciously}

*εὐφημέω (euphēmeō)*

To speak words of good omen, often an instruction to stop an ill-omened utterance. Socrates uses the imperative after the accusation of deception. The elevated reaction adds dramatic colour before his appeal to the wise man's maxim.

**Attestation.** **228b:** Εὐφήμει.

### Speak finely {#reg-speak-finely}

*καλλιεπέομαι (kalliepeomai)*

To speak in fine or elegant language. Socrates' rhyming expression imitates forensic verbal polish. Fine phrasing can entertain without making the underlying claim more reliable, a distinction relevant to the dialogue's later displays of wisdom.

**Attestation.** **225c:** καλλιεποῦνται.

### Specimen {#reg-specimen}

*ἐπίδειγμα (epideigma)*

A display, example or specimen. The inscriptions present selected sayings as specimens of Hipparchus' wisdom. The word makes the public display of his wisdom explicit; its quality still depends on what the sayings are and how they are used.

**Attestation.** **228d:** ἐπιδείγματα τῆς σοφίας.

### Spend {#reg-spend}

*ἀναλίσκω (analiskō)*

To expend or spend. The aorist participle sets the outgoing amount against what is acquired. Spending nothing is one proposed sufficient condition of gain, but the illness example shows that absence of expenditure is insufficient.

**Attestation.** **231a:** ἀναλώσας.

### Stand or set up {#reg-stand-or-set-up}

*ἵστημι (histēmi)*

To set something standing in the causative form, or stand in other forms. Hipparchus sets up Herms; each Herm declares where it stands. The verbal family relates the founder's action to the monument's enduring location.

**Attestation.** **228d:** ἔστησεν.

### Stay or associate {#reg-stay-or-associate}

*συγγίγνομαι (syngignomai)*

To come together or associate with someone. The young man changes his evaluation after keeping company with Hipparchus. The word identifies association without specifying a formal course of instruction or all the personal details of their relationship.

**Attestation.** **229d:** συγγενόμενον.

### Steirian {#reg-steirian}

*Στειριακός (Steiriakos)*

Belonging to or leading toward Steiria. The named road locates the Herm bearing the prohibition on deceiving a friend. Its specificity gives the appeal a local Athenian setting rather than an anonymous proverbial source.

**Attestation.** **229a:** Στειριακῇ ὁδῷ.

### Still {#reg-still}

*ἔτι (eti)*

Still or yet. In the rhapsodic passage it claims persistence of the practice into the dramatic present; at other moments it can add one further question. Duration and argumentative addition are related but contextually distinct uses.

**Attestation.** **228b:** νῦν ἔτι.

### Strongly pained {#reg-strongly-pained}

*περιαλγέω (perialgeō)*

To feel intense pain or distress. Socrates' story makes the perceived dishonour deeply painful to Harmodius and Aristogeiton and then connects that pain with the killing. The psychological explanation remains a reported narrative motive.

**Attestation.** **229d:** περιαλγήσαντας.

### Suffer loss {#reg-suffer-loss}

*ζημιόομαι (zēmioomai)*

To incur loss, be damaged or suffer a penalty according to context. Here the pilot will suffer loss through bad equipment. Later the companion applies the family to harmful gain, reopening the question whether gain and loss are strictly exclusive.

**Attestation.** **226b:** ζημιωθήσεται.

### Tackle {#reg-tackle}

*σκεῦος (skeuos)*

Equipment, gear or tackle. The term sums up the pilot's sails and rudders. It names material means needed for the activity and should not be mistaken for all cargo carried aboard the vessel.

**Attestation.** **226b:** τῶν σκευῶν.

### Take back {#reg-take-back}

*ἀνατίθεμαι (anatithemai)*

To put back or retract. In the game analogy it is taking a move back; in argument it is withdrawing an agreed statement. The offer permits one premise to be revised while the rest of the earlier commitments remain in force.

**Attestation.** **229e:** ἀναθέσθαι.

### Taking up {#reg-taking-up}

*ὑπόληψις (hypolēpsis)*

Taking up or continuing from another. Combined with 'in sequence', it describes the rhapsodic practice of each performer taking up where the last left off. The phrase concerns continuity of recitation rather than a philosophical opinion or hypothesis.

**Attestation.** **228b:** ἐξ ὑπολήψεως.

### Taste {#reg-taste}

*γεῦμα (geuma)*

A taste or sample, here a figurative taste of wisdom from reading the inscriptions. The sample is meant to entice rural citizens into further education. The metaphor does not establish that the displayed material exhausts the ruler's wisdom.

**Attestation.** **228e:** γεῦμα λαμβάνοντες.

### The remaining things {#reg-the-remaining-things}

*λοιπός (loipos)*

What remains or the rest. Travellers are meant to come for instruction in the rest after sampling the roadside wisdom. The content of this additional education is left unspecified, so the lexicon should not invent a curriculum.

**Attestation.** **228e:** τὰ λοιπὰ.

### Then in an opening question {#reg-then-in-an-opening-question}

*γάρ (gar)*

Usually explanatory 'for', here a connective opening 'what, then'. It creates the impression of joining a conversation already in progress. The implied earlier context is not preserved and should not be filled with an invented dramatic episode.

**Attestation.** **225a:** Τί γὰρ.

### Think fit {#reg-think-fit}

*ἀξιόω (axioō)*

To deem worthy, think fit or claim. The initial phrase plays on the related adjective meaning worth. Socrates later asks whether thinking fit to gain means thinking that one ought to gain, making this interpretation part of the questioning.

**Attestation.** **225a:** ἀξιῶσιν.

### Think or suppose {#reg-think-or-suppose}

*οἴομαι (oiomai)*

To think, suppose or believe. The farmer or lover of gain is described through what he thinks he ought to do. The verb permits a distinction between an agent's belief about value and the value actually stipulated in the example.

**Attestation.** **225b:** οἴεται.

### Throw in {#reg-throw-in}

*ἐμβάλλω (emballō)*

To put or throw into, here to insert a clever expression into the conversation. The joking purpose clause accompanies the rhyme about time and clime. It presents verbal ornament as consciously added rather than indispensable to the farming example.

**Attestation.** **225c:** ἐμβάλωμεν.

### Time or season {#reg-time-or-season}

*ὥρα (hōra)*

Season, fitting time or period. Joined with χώρα in a conspicuous rhyme, it describes knowing when and where a plant is worth planting. The edition's 'time and clime' attempts an analogous English sound-effect.

**Attestation.** **225c:** ὥρᾳ.

### Town {#reg-town}

*ἄστυ (asty)*

The town or urban centre, contrasted with the country and demes. The narrative first educates citizens around the town and then extends instruction into the countryside. The distinction is geographical rather than a division into citizens and non-citizens.

**Attestation.** **228c:** τὸ ἄστυ.

### True {#reg-true}

*ἀληθής (alēthēs)*

True; the reply means 'what you say is true'. It endorses the proposition that moral difference does not make one person more human than another. Its assent should not be retroactively extended to every subsequent inference.

**Attestation.** **230c:** Ἀληθῆ λέγεις.

### Truly {#reg-truly}

*ἀληθῶς (alēthōs)*

Truly or in truth. Socrates demands an answer that corresponds to what the companion actually thinks. The adverb is part of a demand for sincerity, not a guarantee that the answer will be correct.

**Attestation.** **226a:** ὡς ἀληθῶς.

### Turn or twist {#reg-turn-or-twist}

*στρέφω (strephō)*

To turn, twist or redirect. The companion says Socrates twists things up and down in the arguments. The physical image expresses his sense of manipulation even before he can identify its logical mechanism.

**Attestation.** **228a:** στρέφεις.

### Twelvefold weight {#reg-twelvefold-weight}

*δωδεκαστάσιος (dōdekastasios)*

Of twelve times the weight, used in the comparison between gold and silver. The edition interprets the example through gold valued at twelve times silver's weight. This is the stipulated ratio of the passage, not a universal claim about ancient prices.

**Attestation.** **231d:** δωδεκαστασίου.

### Twice the weight {#reg-twice-the-weight}

*διστάσιος (distasios)*

Of twice the weight. It contrasts with twelvefold weight in describing what the gold becomes for the exchanger. Burnet prints T's form against B's διστάσιμον; the larger received amount remains insufficient in worth.

**Attestation.** **231d:** διστάσιον.

### Tyranny {#reg-tyranny}

*τυραννίς (tyrannis)*

The rule of a tyrant or autocratic dominion. Socrates' story limits the label to the years after Hipparchus' death. That favourable restriction must be distinguished from the historians' accounts of the Pisistratid regime.

**Attestation.** **229b:** τυραννὶς.

### Undergo {#reg-undergo}

*πάσχω (paschō)*

To undergo, be affected or experience something. Paired with doing, it extends the question of more and less beyond names of kinds. The preceding equality of classification does not by itself establish equal effects upon people.

**Attestation.** **230d:** πάσχοι.

### Understand or consider {#reg-understand-or-consider}

*διανοέομαι (dianoeomai)*

To think through or conceive a matter. Socrates proposes that gain be considered in the same way as people: good and bad are equally members of a kind. The invitation is to adopt a comparison, whose further consequences still require examination.

**Attestation.** **230c:** διανοώμεθα.

### Unjustly {#reg-unjustly}

*ἀδίκως (adikōs)*

Unjustly or without right; negated here, 'not unjustly'. Socrates treats the companion's perplexity as fitting or understandable in the circumstances. The brief phrase does not establish a separate theory of deserved intellectual punishment.

**Attestation.** **231c:** Οὐκ ἀδίκως.

### Unscrupulous {#reg-unscrupulous}

*πανοῦργος (panourgos)*

Ready for anything, cunning or unscrupulous. The companion expressly substitutes this description for senselessness. It makes the alleged fault knowing moral opportunism, so a refutation aimed only at ignorance may not dispose of the original complaint.

**Attestation.** **225a:** πανούργους.

### Use {#reg-use}

*χράομαι (chraomai)*

To use or employ. Socrates asks which of the two arguments one could use without error after producing nobody and everybody as rival results. The phrase makes arguments instruments whose reliability is still to be assessed.

**Attestation.** **227c:** τῷ λόγῳ χρώμενος.

### Value or worth {#reg-value-or-worth}

*ἀξία (axia)*

Worth or value. The dative specifies the respect in which silver is not more than gold, despite its greater amount. This explicit measure redirects the acquisition formula from bulk toward evaluative comparison.

**Attestation.** **231d:** τῇ ἀξίᾳ.

### Visit repeatedly {#reg-visit-repeatedly}

*φοιτάω (phoitaō)*

To go to and fro, frequent or keep visiting a place. The inscriptions are meant to encourage country people to come for further education. The repeated movement expands the initial roadside encounter into sustained attendance.

**Attestation.** **228e:** φοιτῷεν.

### Want or wish {#reg-want-or-wish}

*βούλομαι (boulomai)*

To want, wish or intend. Good men are said to wish for every gain on the condition that gains are good things. The verb also expresses intentions and requests elsewhere; its occurrences do not all name an identical kind of appetite.

**Attestation.** **227d:** βούλονται.

### Way or manner {#reg-way-or-manner}

*τρόπος (tropos)*

A manner, way or mode. 'In this way' qualifies the result that everyone appears a lover of gain. It reminds the reader that the conclusion has arisen through a particular treatment of the terms, contrasted with the earlier treatment.

**Attestation.** **227c:** τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον.

### Weight {#reg-weight}

*σταθμός (stathmos)*

A weight or weighed amount. The example specifies a half-weight of gold against a greater silver weight. Measuring matter and appraising worth are distinct operations, which is why the common word 'more' cannot do all the work.

**Attestation.** **231d:** σταθμὸν.

### Wellborn {#reg-wellborn}

*γενναῖος (gennaios)*

Of good birth, noble or wellborn in this description. It joins youth and beauty in identifying the unnamed beloved's social attractiveness. It is not evidence that the author supplies his ancestry or name.

**Attestation.** **229d:** γενναίων.

### Wet {#reg-wet}

*ὑγρός (hygros)*

Wet or liquid. With nourishment it supplies the defining feature of drink. The adjective's physical distinction from dry food is kept separate from the moral-quality pair 'decent or base'.

**Attestation.** **230e:** ὑγρᾷ τροφῇ.

### Where from {#reg-where-from}

*ὅθεν (hothen)*

From where or from what source. In the early argument it directs attention to the source of gain; in the closing recollection it concerns where the argument began. The source of an acquisition and the starting point of a discussion are different applications.

**Attestation.** **225c:** ὅθεν κερδαίνειν ἀξιοῖ.

### Wisdom {#reg-wisdom}

*σοφία (sophia)*

Wisdom, skill or cultivated understanding. Hipparchus displays what he regards as his wisdom through verse and education. Admiration, originality and public display are narrated as marks of it, but the story does not independently establish a criterion of true wisdom.

**Attestation.** **228d:** τῆς σοφίας τῆς αὑτοῦ.

### Wise {#reg-wise}

*σοφός (sophos)*

Wise or skilled; the superlative means wisest. Hipparchus is praised as wisest among Pisistratus' sons. This judgement belongs to the dramatic encomium and should not be converted into a historical ranking of their intellectual abilities.

**Attestation.** **228b:** σοφώτατος.

### Without spending anything {#reg-without-spending-anything}

*μηδὲν ἀναλώσας (mēden analōsas)*

Having spent nothing. This is one limb of Socrates' proposed acquisition definition, distinct from spending less and receiving more. The disease acquired at a free feast directly tests this limb rather than relying on an exchange of different metals.

**Attestation.** **231a:** μηδὲν ἀναλώσας.

### Wonderfully addressed {#reg-wonderfully-addressed}

*θαυμάσιος (thaumasios)*

Wonderful or remarkable, used as a courteous or teasing form of address. Socrates deploys it while concluding that no one fits the offered definition. The literal praise should not be mistaken for a settled assessment of the companion's character.

**Attestation.** **226d:** ὦ θαυμάσιε.

### Worth nothing {#reg-worth-nothing}

*οὐδενὸς ἄξιος (oudenos axios)*

Worth nothing. The phrase is stronger than 'worth little', and the dialogue's examples often give it a practical standard of usefulness. A worthless tool for its intended job need not be literally unsaleable as raw material.

**Attestation.** **226e:** οὐδενὸς ἄξια.

### Worthless {#reg-worthless}

*ἀνάξιος (anaxios)*

Not of worth or unworthy. Here it contrasts with what is of worth and is said to be without gain. The negative adjective belongs to the closing value argument, while the opening commonly says 'worth nothing' through a genitive construction.

**Attestation.** **231e:** τὸ δὲ ἀνάξιον.

### Wronged {#reg-wronged}

*ἀδικέω (adikeō)*

To wrong or act unjustly toward someone; the perfect passive describes someone who has been wronged. Socrates likens the companion's answer to a grievance. The simile does not tell us that an actual offender or transaction lies behind the conversation.

**Attestation.** **225b:** ἠδικημένος.

### Young {#reg-young}

*νέος (neos)*

Young or new. Socrates contrasts the companion's youth with his own greater age. The relative description establishes neither an exact age nor the companion's identity; a separate young man appears only inside the later story.

**Attestation.** **226a:** οὕτω νέος.

### Zeus {#reg-zeus}

*Ζεύς (Zeus)*

Zeus, named through an oath formula. The oath strengthens a denial; it does not introduce Zeus as a participant or give the argument a divine revelation. The dialogue also invokes mythic Cronus in a different, historical-comparative role.

**Attestation.** **226a:** Μὰ Δί’.

# Contextual phrase glosses {#contextual-glosses}

These glosses follow the text in order. They explain the construction and local force of selected phrases; a gloss is not a new critical reading of the source.

### An opening that already answers someone {#gloss-phrase-opening-question}

**225a.** *Τί γὰρ τὸ φιλοκερδές; τί ποτέ ἐστιν, καὶ τίνες οἱ φιλοκερδεῖς;* (ti gar to philokerdes? ti pote estin, kai tines hoi philokerdeis?)

“What, then, is the love of gain?” The opening γάρ normally links a remark to something already said. Here no earlier exchange is supplied: the reader enters an inquiry apparently under way. The edition's “then” preserves that conversational effect without inventing the missing occasion. In the next question ποτέ does not mean “at some time”; with τί it sharpens the demand for an explanation, “what is it, after all?”

The neuter singular article in τὸ φιλοκερδές turns an adjective into the name of a characteristic. The masculine plural οἱ φιλοκερδεῖς then identifies people possessing that characteristic. The two questions therefore ask for a nature and its bearers, not simply two English synonyms. The companion answers the second by describing a class; Socrates will test whether the description identifies anybody, and later whether it includes everybody.

### Thinking fit to gain from what is worth nothing {#gloss-phrase-think-fit-worth}

**225a.** *οἳ ἂν κερδαίνειν ἀξιῶσιν ἀπὸ τῶν μηδενὸς ἀξίων* (hoi an kerdainein axiōsin apo tōn mēdenos axiōn)

The relative clause means “those who think fit to gain from things worth nothing”. Its ἄν with the subjunctive ἀξιῶσιν describes an indefinite class of people. The infinitive κερδαίνειν supplies what they think fit to do; ἀπό with the genitive gives the source from which the gain is expected. The substantivised phrase τῶν μηδενὸς ἀξίων leaves “things” to be understood.

The genitive μηδενός belongs to the valuation construction with ἀξίων: worth nothing. It does not negate the act of thinking. The repeated ἀξι- sound makes the definition pointed: they judge gaining appropriate precisely where the source lacks worth. English “think fit” and “worth” cannot reproduce that family resemblance. At 225d Socrates explicitly replaces “think fit” with “think that one ought”, securing the companion's assent before the examples put pressure on what this expectation involves.

### Being weaker than gain {#gloss-phrase-no-match-for-gain}

**225b.** *ἥττους τοῦ κέρδους* (hēttous tou kerdous)

The comparative ἥττους takes the genitive τοῦ κέρδους: literally, “weaker than gain”, rendered “no match for gain”. The accusative plural continues the companion's description of the people he calls lovers of gain. Gain is pictured as a force that overmasters them. The phrase thus describes their relation to an attraction, not the size of the profit they receive.

This matters because the surrounding participle γιγνώσκοντας insists that they know the worthlessness of the things involved, while ὅμως, “nevertheless”, says that they dare to pursue gain anyway. The companion is proposing a conflict between knowledge and motivation. Socrates' craft examples answer by showing that informed practitioners do not expect a beneficial outcome from useless means. That reply changes the test: understanding an object's practical uselessness is easier to expose than the moral failure expressed by being unable to resist gain.

### The paired datives of time and place {#gloss-phrase-time-and-clime}

**225c.** *ἐν ὁποίᾳ ἄξια φυτευθῆναι καὶ ὥρᾳ καὶ χώρᾳ* (en hopoiāi axia phyteuthēnai kai hōrāi kai chōrāi)

The sense is “in what time and clime they are worth planting”. The paired datives ὥρᾳ and χώρᾳ complete the opening ἐν ὁποίᾳ, with καί ... καί coordinating season and location. The plants remain the understood subject of ἄξια; the passive infinitive φυτευθῆναι specifies what they are suitable for: being planted. Worth here is relative to circumstances and a proposed use, rather than simply a price attached permanently to the plant.

The closely matching sounds make the pair conspicuous. Socrates immediately explains that he too is throwing in the fine expressions used by clever speakers in lawsuits. The edition answers this with “time and clime”. The verbal joke interrupts but does not remove the practical question: a farmer's competence includes judging when and where a plant will succeed. The wording gives “worth” a contextual standard before the later financial example supplies another.

### A question shaped to obtain agreement {#gloss-phrase-anything-other-than}

**225d.** *Τὸ οὖν ἀξιοῦν κερδαίνειν ἄλλο τι λέγεις ἢ οἴεσθαι δεῖν κερδαίνειν;* (to oun axioun kerdainein allo ti legeis ē oiesthai dein kerdainein?)

“By thinking fit to gain do you mean anything other than thinking that one ought to gain?” The article τὸ makes the infinitive phrase ἀξιοῦν κερδαίνειν the expression under examination. The construction ἄλλο τι ... ἤ supplies the alternative: something other than the proposed paraphrase. Socrates expects the companion to reject a difference, not to produce a new example of gain.

The nested infinitives matter. Οἴεσθαι introduces a belief, δεῖν its claim of necessity or propriety, and κερδαίνειν the action thought necessary. Socrates is not yet asserting that gaining is objectively obligatory. He is determining what the supposed lover of gain thinks he ought to do. The companion's “That is what I mean” accepts this analysis. Later uses of the shorter question-form can be translated “is it not ...?”; here the full alternative is important because an expression is being explicitly redefined.

### An argument that has refuted its own speakers {#gloss-phrase-refuted-ourselves}

**226e.** *τοῦτο μὲν γὰρ ἤδη ἡμᾶς αὐτοὺς τῷ λόγῳ ἐξηλέγξαμεν ὅτι ἀδύνατον* (touto men gar ēdē hēmas autous tōi logōi exēlenxamen hoti adynaton)

The edition renders this “we have already refuted ourselves on this point by the argument: it is impossible”. The first-person plural ἐξηλέγξαμεν has the emphatic reflexive object ἡμᾶς αὐτούς, “ourselves”. Socrates makes both speakers answerable for the result, even though he has led the questions. The dative τῷ λόγῳ identifies the means, the argument, rather than another person who has defeated them.

Τοῦτο points forward to what the ὅτι clause specifies: the impossibility of knowingly pursuing gain from things recognised as worthless, as the preceding examples have construed that claim. The word “already” lets Socrates treat this issue as settled when the companion offers insatiability as a new definition. Readers should keep the precise scope in view. The accepted craft examples supply the result being recalled; “the argument” is not independent proof that every possible case of knowing greed has been examined.

### A participial alternative with the verb understood {#gloss-phrase-if-not-knowing}

**226e.** *εἰ μὴ γιγνώσκοντες, δῆλον ὅτι ἀγνοοῦντες, οἰόμενοι δὲ τὰ οὐδενὸς ἄξια πολλοῦ ἄξια εἶναι* (ei mē gignōskontes, dēlon hoti agnoountes, oiomenoi de ta oudenos axia pollou axia einai)

“If not knowing it, plainly being ignorant of it, and thinking that things worth nothing are worth a great deal.” The participles describe the people just discussed; their craving and pursuit of gain remain understood from the exchange. Μή is the negative appropriate to the conditional phrase, not evidence that Socrates is issuing a prohibition. Δῆλον ὅτι, “plainly” or “it is clear that”, presents the second alternative as following immediately.

The final participle adds a positive belief to the absence of knowledge. These people do not merely fail to assign a value: they think the worthless things highly valuable. The two genitives, οὐδενός and πολλοῦ, set contrary valuations around the repeated ἄξια. This makes the next move possible. Their desire can now be interpreted as desire for what they take to be valuable, even though the companion had meant to condemn excessive craving for negligible things.

### From a dative of opposition to a new conclusion {#gloss-phrase-opposite-and-conclusion}

**227a.** *Ἐναντίον δὲ τῇ ζημίᾳ τὸ κέρδος.* (enantion de tēi zēmiāi to kerdos.)

“And gain is the opposite of loss.” The article marks τὸ κέρδος as the subject; ἐναντίον is its predicate, and τῇ ζημίᾳ is the dative complement naming what it is opposed to. The copula is omitted, as it often is in compact statements of definition or relation. The companion repeats the predicate, “The opposite”, before Socrates concludes that gain is good.

Keep the relational statement distinct from the inference following it. The dative establishes the opposition of gain and loss. It does not grammatically supply the further premise that the opposite of this bad thing must be good. The preceding questions have identified loss as harmful and bad, so Socrates uses the opposition to transfer the discussion to good gain. The particles track the steps efficiently, but their smoothness should not make the additional logical commitment disappear.

### What a claim to prior agreement includes {#gloss-phrase-strengthened-recap}

**227d.** *τὸ κερδαίνειν ἄρτι ὡμολογήσαμεν εἶναι ὠφελεῖσθαι* (to kerdainein arti hōmologēsamen einai ōpheleisthai)

“We agreed just now that to gain is to be benefited.” The article turns κερδαίνειν into the subject of an infinitival statement governed by ὡμολογήσαμεν. The second infinitive, ὠφελεῖσθαι, gives its proposed equivalent; the passive form means receiving benefit. This is stronger than saying that gain is a good thing.

The temporal ἄρτι presents the equation as a fresh recollection. Earlier, however, the speakers explicitly agreed that gain was good, not in these words that gaining and being benefited were identical. Socrates immediately adds another claimed agreement, that everyone always wishes for good things. The earlier exchange concerned loving good things and did not expressly include “always”. The construction is therefore a useful checkpoint: a grammatical report of agreement can subtly enlarge what the conversation actually secured. The companion's next resistance concerns harmful gains, precisely where that enlargement matters.

### The condition attached to all gains {#gloss-phrase-if-indeed-good}

**227d.** *πάντα τὰ κέρδη βούλονται ἔχειν, εἴπερ ἀγαθά γέ ἐστιν* (panta ta kerdē boulontai echein, eiper agatha ge estin)

Good men “wish to have all gains, if indeed they are good”. Πάντα belongs to τὰ κέρδη: the sentence concerns all gains, not simply all good men. The infinitive ἔχειν completes βούλονται, giving the possession they wish for. Εἴπερ introduces an emphatic condition, “if indeed” or “if, as maintained”; γε focuses attention on their being good.

The condition must remain visible. Socrates can appeal to the preceding universal claim about wishing for good things only if the items called gains fall within that description. The companion immediately excludes gains that will harm their recipients. He is challenging the application of the condition, not straightforwardly confessing that good men reject what is good. The indicative ἐστιν does not remove the logical dependence: the sentence can press a premise already accepted in the discussion while still exposing exactly where resistance can arise.

### Turning an accusation back on its speaker {#gloss-phrase-the-opposite-you}

**228a.** *ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον σύ με ἐξαπατᾷς* (alla tounantion sy me exapatāis)

“It is the opposite: it is you who are deceiving me.” Τοὐναντίον is the contracted form of τὸ ἐναντίον, used here adverbially to reverse the preceding accusation. Socrates had charged the companion with deliberately saying things contrary to their agreements. The companion answers by shifting the roles of deceiver and deceived.

The expressed pronoun σύ is emphatic because the verb already identifies its subject as “you”; με identifies the person allegedly being deceived. This is not a denial that the conversation has become inconsistent. The companion adds that he cannot explain how Socrates twists matters in the arguments. The reversal therefore separates recognition of a disturbing effect from possession of an analysis of it. It also prepares the appeal to Hipparchus: Socrates responds to the accusation through a friend's obligation not to deceive, before returning to the disputed premises.

### Taking up a recital from the preceding performer {#gloss-phrase-recital-in-sequence}

**228b.** *ἐξ ὑπολήψεως ἐφεξῆς αὐτὰ διιέναι* (ex hypolēpseōs ephexēs auta diienai)

The rhapsodes are compelled to “go through them in order, each taking up from the last”. The infinitive διιέναι is governed by ἠνάγκασε, “compelled”, with the rhapsodes as its accusative subject. Αὐτά refers to Homer's epics. Ἐφεξῆς supplies succession or order; ἐξ ὑπολήψεως explains the taking-up by which that succession is maintained.

The two expressions work together. “Taking up” should not be reduced to answering someone in an argument, and “in order” need not be expanded into a detailed reconstruction of festival procedure absent from the passage. The immediate claim is coordinated performance rather than disconnected selection. Within Socrates' praise, authority organises the transmission of poetry. The edition notes that a comparable rule is elsewhere attributed to Solon; that historical comparison does not change the grammar or warrant silently replacing Hipparchus as the subject of this narrative.

### A purpose clause about educated citizens {#gloss-phrase-rule-the-best}

**228c.** *ἵν’ ὡς βελτίστων ὄντων αὐτῶν ἄρχοι* (hin’ hōs beltistōn ontōn autōn archoi)

Hipparchus educated the citizens “so that he might rule over them as men who were as good as could be”. The purpose clause begins with ἵνα, elided before the following vowel; ἄρχοι is an optative in the past narrative. The genitive αὐτῶν names the people over whom he rules; βελτίστων ὄντων is a participial description of their condition. The ὡς with a superlative gives the maximal force, “as good as possible”.

This is not a claim that Hipparchus wished to surrender rule to the best citizens. He remains the subject of ruling, while their improvement describes the circumstances in which he wants to rule. The construction holds education and government together without stating whether one is merely a means to the other. That distinction is important to the tone of the encomium: the text credits a public benefit while leaving the ruler's place at its centre grammatically unmistakable.

### A character-description presented as a reason {#gloss-phrase-fine-and-good}

**228c.** *ἅτε ὢν καλός τε κἀγαθός* (hate ōn kalos te kagathos)

The phrase means “since he was a fine and good man”. The particle ἅτε with the participle presents the character-description as the narrator's explanation for Hipparchus' behaviour. Κἀγαθός contracts καὶ ἀγαθός; τε ... καί joins the two adjectives into the familiar commendatory pair. The grammar places the praise inside the account Socrates is giving, rather than introducing an independently verified judgment.

It explains Hipparchus' refusal to begrudge wisdom to anyone. Immediately before, his wish to educate the citizens has been tied to ruling over them when they are as good as possible. The expression thus supplies a generous motive at a point where civic improvement and the ruler's interests coincide. One can hear the conventional dignity of the formula without assuming that the dialogue guarantees every part of the encomium. The later rivalry for admiration gives the same praise a context in which its sincerity can be weighed.

### A sample intended to produce further study {#gloss-phrase-taste-of-wisdom}

**228e.** *γεῦμα λαμβάνοντες αὐτοῦ τῆς σοφίας* (geuma lambanontes autou tēs sophias)

The country people are to be “getting a taste of his wisdom”. The participle λαμβάνοντες belongs to the same series as passing along the roads and reading the inscriptions. Its object γεῦμα is the taste or sample obtained; τῆς σοφίας identifies what is sampled, while αὐτοῦ assigns that wisdom to Hipparchus. The expression is an intellectual use of the language of tasting.

The participles lead into the intended result that these readers would keep coming from the country for further education. A short roadside maxim is therefore an introduction, not the whole curriculum. This purpose follows the wish that citizens should admire Hipparchus' sayings more than Delphi's inscriptions. The taste metaphor makes the attraction gradual and experiential: people encounter something on a familiar journey and are drawn toward more. It also helps explain why the physical placement and brevity of the inscriptions matter to the story.

### The dual marks the pair {#gloss-phrase-two-inscriptions}

**228e.** *ἐστὸν δὲ δύο τὠπιγράμματε* (eston de dyo tōpigrammate)

“And the inscriptions are two.” Both ἐστόν, the verb “are”, and τὠπιγράμματε, the noun phrase “the two inscriptions”, are dual forms. The latter contracts τὼ ἐπιγράμματε. Greek can mark an exact pair grammatically where English ordinarily needs “both” or “two”; here δύο also makes the number explicit.

The following explanation distributes the pair over the left and right of each Herm. One side locates the marker midway between the town and the deme; the other carries Hipparchus' saying. These are not simply the two moral verses quoted in the surrounding narrative. Socrates first gives one right-side maxim, then mentions another on the Steirian road. Following the dual into the left–right explanation prevents a misleading identification of “the two inscriptions” with the two memorable quotations selected for the reader.

### A monument speaks to the passer-by {#gloss-phrase-memorial-and-journey}

**229a.** *μνῆμα τόδ’ Ἱππάρχου· στεῖχε δίκαια φρονῶν* (mnēma tod’ Hipparchou; steiche dikaia phronōn)

“This is Hipparchus' memorial: go your way with just thoughts.” The first clause has no expressed “is”: τόδε, elided as τόδ’, points to the inscribed object, μνῆμα names it as a memorial, and the genitive identifies Hipparchus. The imperative στεῖχε addresses the traveller. The participle φρονῶν describes how that person is to proceed, while the neuter plural δίκαια supplies the content of the thoughts: just things.

The line joins a permanent marker to a moving reader. Its injunction fits a roadside setting without limiting justice to conduct on the road. The edition identifies the quoted line as a pentameter, the second line of an elegiac couplet; it should not be mistaken for the entire couplet. “Memorial” also need not make this a gravestone: in the narrative Hipparchus himself had arranged the inscriptions before the account reaches his death.

### A negative command used in self defence {#gloss-phrase-do-not-deceive-friend}

**229b.** *μνῆμα τόδ’ Ἱππάρχου· μὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα.* (mnēma tod’ Hipparchou; mē philon exapata.)

“This is Hipparchus' memorial: do not deceive a friend.” The opening repeats the memorial formula of the preceding verse. Μή introduces the prohibition, and ἐξαπάτα is a singular imperative addressed to a person reading or hearing it. Φίλον is the object, “a friend”; nothing in the wording restricts the maxim to Hipparchus' own friends.

Socrates turns the command into an argument about the present conversation. He identifies the companion as his friend and says he would not dare to deceive him while disobeying such an authority. The inference requires his actual obedience, not merely the existence of the inscription. The companion will expose that dependence by proposing two alternatives: either Socrates does not regard him as a friend or he fails to obey Hipparchus. The compact imperative thus supplies the terms of an immediate dispute about conduct and trust.

### Thinking greatly of an educational achievement {#gloss-phrase-pride-in-educating}

**229c.** *μέγα δ’ ἐφρόνει ἄρα καὶ ὁ Ἀριστογείτων ἐπὶ τῷ παιδεῦσαι ἄνθρωπον* (mega d’ ephronei ara kai ho Aristogeitōn epi tōi paideusai anthrōpon)

Aristogeiton “prided himself on having educated a man”. Μέγα is adverbial with ἐφρόνει: to think greatly, hence to entertain a high opinion of oneself. The construction ἐπί with the dative identifies the ground of his pride. The article τῷ makes the aorist infinitive παιδεῦσαι a noun-like expression for the achievement of educating someone.

The aorist presents that educational achievement as a whole, while the imperfect ἐφρόνει describes his continuing attitude in the narrative. Καί includes Aristogeiton too among those whose standing is connected with education; ἄρα gives the telling a note of discovery, rendered “as it turns out”. The next clause makes Hipparchus his opponent. The syntax helps explain the transition from public praise to rivalry: an educational accomplishment becomes a claim to personal distinction, vulnerable when the admiration of a young man moves elsewhere.

### An appearance rather than literal danger {#gloss-phrase-it-looks-as-though}

**229d.** *Κινδυνεύεις τοίνυν, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἢ οὐ φίλον με ἡγεῖσθαι* (kindyneueis toinyn, ō Sōkrates, ē ou philon me hēgeisthai)

The companion begins “It looks, then, Socrates, as though either you do not think me a friend”. Κινδυνεύεις with the infinitive here expresses an apparent or likely conclusion. Translating it as literal danger would misdirect the exchange: the companion is diagnosing Socrates' position after hearing the maxim, not warning him of a physical hazard.

The quoted phrase opens a disjunction. The second branch is that, if Socrates does regard him as a friend, he does not obey Hipparchus. The alternatives test the two supports of Socrates' reassurance: friendship and obedience. Τοίνυν links this diagnosis to the preceding story, making the long encomium relevant to the accusation rather than simply changing the subject. The companion still cannot identify the precise argumentative trick; his complaint is that he cannot be persuaded he is not being deceived.

### A retraction offered as a courtesy {#gloss-phrase-take-back-a-move}

**229e.** *ὥσπερ πεττεύων ἐθέλω σοι ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἀναθέσθαι ὅτι βούλει τῶν εἰρημένων* (hōsper petteuōn ethelō soi en tois logois anathesthai hoti boulei tōn eirēmenōn)

“Just as when playing draughts, I am willing to take back for you, in the arguments, whatever you wish of what has been said.” The participle πεττεύων supplies the game comparison, not a claim that counters are actually on the table. The infinitive ἀναθέσθαι completes ἐθέλω; σοι marks the person for whose benefit the retraction is offered.

Here ὅτι is “whatever”, followed by the partitive genitive τῶν εἰρημένων, “of the things said”. It does not introduce an explanation meaning “because you wish”. Socrates then itemises possible withdrawals, allowing the companion to preserve several premises and reject the universal goodness of gain. The game language makes revisability a concession within an orderly exchange. It need not imply that Socrates has admitted fraud, since his expressed purpose is to remove the companion's belief that he is being deceived.

### Restricting a universal without rejecting every case {#gloss-phrase-not-all-of-it}

**230a.** *Οὔτι πᾶν γε· τουτί μοι ἀνάθου.* (outi pan ge; touti moi anathou.)

“Not all of it, at any rate. Take that back for me.” Πᾶν refers to gaining in the preceding question; the companion is refusing the unrestricted claim that all gaining is good. He is not claiming that no gaining is good. Γε focuses the restriction, while τουτί, the emphatic demonstrative, singles out this particular move for withdrawal.

The imperative ἀνάθου answers Socrates' offer to take back an agreed step, and μοι repeats the personal interest in that concession. Socrates immediately interprets the reply as dividing gain into something good and something bad. That division supplies the next inquiry: what must the two share if both are gain? The small difference between “not all” and “none” is therefore structurally decisive. The companion retains a positive kind of gain, making a common definition necessary rather than permitting the whole subject to be dismissed as bad.

### Keeping a comparison within its stated respect {#gloss-phrase-in-respect-of-being}

**230b.** *κατὰ τὸ σιτίον εἶναι* (kata to sition einai)

The expression means “as far as being food goes”. Κατά with the accusative introduces the respect under consideration; the article τὸ turns the infinitive phrase into its complement. Σιτίον is the predicate within that phrase: being food. Good food and bad food differ in quality, but neither is more or less an instance of food simply because of that difference.

The surrounding ταύτῃ, “in this respect”, and ᾗ, “insofar as”, reinforce the restriction. These are not expendable conversational fillers. They keep sameness of kind distinct from equality of goodness, quantity or effect. The subsequent examples of drink and human beings apply the same discrimination. When the argument returns to gain, a reader should check whether the restriction is retained: two acquisitions being equally describable as gain does not, on that ground alone, make their amount or benefit equal.

### Extending a comparison to action and experience {#gloss-phrase-do-or-undergo}

**230d.** *πῶς ἄν τις μᾶλλον ἢ ἧττον ὁτιοῦν ἂν ποιοῖ ἢ πάσχοι* (pōs an tis mallon ē hētton hotioun an poioi ē paschoi)

The question asks how anyone could “do or undergo anything more or less” by means of the thing being considered. Ποιοῖ and πάσχοι form a familiar active–passive range: what one does and what one experiences. The optatives with ἄν make this a question about possibility, while μᾶλλον ἢ ἧττον tests degrees. The preceding dative supplies the means or thing through which the doing or undergoing occurs.

The premise is that neither “more” nor “less” belongs to the gains as gains. This follows the comparison of membership in a kind: good and bad men are equally human. The new question extends that comparison to effects or activities. Its breadth is philosophically important. Equal entitlement to a description does not by itself establish equal power to produce benefit or harm. The companion's “Impossible” accepts the extension, clearing the way for a search for the common character of gain.

### A definition requested through a shared feature {#gloss-phrase-what-same-do-you-see}

**230d.** *διὰ τί ποτε ἀμφότερα αὐτὰ κέρδος καλεῖς, τί ταὐτὸν ἐν ἀμφοτέροις ὁρῶν;* (dia ti pote amphotera auta kerdos kaleis, ti tauton en amphoterois horōn?)

“Why ever do you call both of them gain, seeing what same thing in both?” The first question asks for the ground of a shared name. The participle ὁρῶν then sharpens that request: what common feature does the speaker recognise when applying it? Ταὐτόν contracts τὸ αὐτό, “the same”; ἐν ἀμφοτέροις places that feature in both supposed kinds of gain.

Socrates is no longer asking merely whether bad gain exists. He asks what makes the adjective “bad” modify gain rather than change the subject altogether. The food and drink examples model an answer in terms of nourishment, with quality treated separately. “Seeing” need not imply literal visual perception or a fully stated theory of abstract forms. Here it is the recognition required to explain why one description covers two cases. The companion's difficulty answering prompts Socrates to propose an acquisition-based definition.

### Two routes into the proposed definition of gain {#gloss-phrase-spending-and-receiving}

**231a.** *πᾶν κτῆμα ὃ ἄν τις κτήσηται ἢ μηδὲν ἀναλώσας, ἢ ἔλαττον ἀναλώσας πλέον λάβῃ* (pan ktēma ho an tis ktēsētai ē mēden analōsas, ē elatton analōsas pleon labē)

Socrates proposes “every possession that one acquires either without spending anything, or by spending less and getting more”. The indefinite relative clause makes the definition general. Its paired ἤ ... ἤ gives two routes: costless acquisition and a return exceeding expenditure. The aorist participles ἀναλώσας state the expenditure accompanying the acquisition; the second branch expressly adds λάβῃ, “gets”.

The proposed account deliberately leaves the character of the possession unrestricted. Πᾶν, “every”, makes the next test possible: disease can be acquired after a feast at which one spends nothing. Likewise, “less” and “more” initially lack an explicit standard of comparison. The later gold-and-silver example will show why quantity alone is insufficient. Readers should resist silently improving the definition to “every beneficial possession” or “greater value”. Those additions are what the subsequent questions seek to establish.

### When acquiring something is not gaining {#gloss-phrase-acquiring-disease}

**231b.** *μηδὲν ἀναλώσας ἀλλ’ εὐωχηθείς, νόσον κτήσηται* (mēden analōsas all’ euōchētheis, noson ktēsētai)

The hypothetical guest, “without spending anything, but having feasted”, acquires a disease. The participles establish that he meets the definition's first condition: his acquisition required no expenditure. Κτήσηται is the aorist subjunctive in the conditional scenario begun with ἐάν, and νόσον is its object. Greek can speak of acquiring an illness without treating it as a desirable possession.

The counterexample therefore exploits the breadth of acquisition language rather than a special sense of financial profit. The companion refuses to call the result gain, but accepts health acquired from a feast as gain. The difference is what has been acquired and its effect on the recipient. This response narrows the apparently neutral definition: absence of cost is insufficient. It also anticipates the final appeal to what is worth possessing, where beneficial possession again supplies the criterion that the original formula omitted.

### Supplying the missing standard of more {#gloss-phrase-not-in-worth}

**231d.** *Οὔτι τῇ ἀξίᾳ γε ἀργύριον χρυσίου.* (outi tēi axiāi ge argyrion chrysiou.)

“Not in worth, at any rate, is silver more than gold.” The reply is elliptical: the preceding question supplies the comparative “more” and the verb. The dative τῇ ἀξίᾳ specifies the respect in which the comparison must be made. Χρυσίου is the genitive of comparison, while ἀργύριον is the subject whose supposed superiority is denied.

Socrates has insisted that the exchange yields more material. The companion answers that this is not more in the relevant sense. The phrase isolates the central point without requiring a new reconstruction of the implicit weights: increased quantity need not be increased worth. Γε keeps the correction targeted. The reply does not say that silver has no worth whatever, and it does not deny the stated weight comparison. It changes the standard needed for deciding whether the transaction counts as gain or loss.

### A perfect infinitive names the state of possession {#gloss-phrase-worth-possessing}

**231e.** *Τὸ δὲ ἄξιον λέγεις ἄξιον εἶναι ἄλλο τι ἢ κεκτῆσθαι;* (to de axion legeis axion einai allo ti ē kektēsthai?)

“When you say that something is of worth, you mean that it is worth possessing, don't you?” The first τὸ ἄξιον is substantivised, “what is of worth”; the second ἄξιον predicates worth and receives a specification through the infinitive κεκτῆσθαι. The familiar “anything other than” question invites agreement with that completion.

Κεκτῆσθαι is the perfect infinitive of the acquisition verb. Its force here is the resulting state, possessing or having, rather than the event of acquiring. The shift matters because the preceding exchange compared the worth of quantities received and spent. Socrates now asks what is worth holding, then identifies it as beneficial and therefore good. The grammar makes the added specification explicit. It should not be flattened into a timeless dictionary equation in which exchange value, acquisition and beneficial possession were identical from the beginning.

### What agreement has and has not achieved {#gloss-phrase-compelled-not-persuaded}

**232b.** *Ἠνάγκακε γάρ, ὦ Σώκρατες, μᾶλλον ἐμέ γε ἢ πέπεικεν.* (ēnankake gar, ō Sōkrates, mallon eme ge ē pepeiken.)

“It has compelled, yes, Socrates, me at any rate, rather than persuaded.” The subject remains the argument from Socrates' question. Both ἠνάγκακε and πέπεικεν are perfects, presenting its present result: the companion stands compelled but not correspondingly convinced. Μᾶλλον ... ἤ makes the contrast, and ἐμέ γε narrows the response to his own experience after Socrates had spoken of compelling “us”.

The distinction is not between replying and remaining silent: the companion does explicitly agree. He distinguishes the pressure of accepted premises from persuasion. Socrates responds with the possibility that the argument might persuade later, then relies on the agreement available now. Readers should preserve both facts. The ending is neither a simple refusal of the conclusion nor an unqualified announcement of conversion. Its grammar records an assent whose psychological and intellectual completion is still deferred.

### A conclusion located within accepted commitments {#gloss-phrase-by-your-argument}

**232c.** *κατὰ τὸν σὸν λόγον πάντες ἄνθρωποι φιλοκερδεῖς ἂν εἶεν* (kata ton son logon pantes anthrōpoi philokerdeis an eien)

“By your argument all men would be lovers of gain.” Κατά with the accusative identifies the account or reasoning according to which the conclusion follows. The possessive σόν makes the attribution pointed: Socrates returns the result to the companion whose admissions have sustained the exchange. Πάντες includes every person, and the following words expressly include both decent and base people.

The optative εἶεν with ἄν presents the result as what would follow under that account. It is stronger than a detached guess, but the qualifying phrase still matters: the conclusion is attached to the argument the speakers have accepted. This need not settle whether the original reproach has been represented adequately. The subsequent judgment against reproaching someone as gain-loving extends the universal result into a judgment about blame. Tracking that final step requires remembering which sense of loving gain has actually been made universal.

### The final participle brings the reproach home {#gloss-phrase-turns-out-to-be}

**232c.** *τυγχάνει γὰρ καὶ ὁ ταῦτα ὀνειδίζων αὐτὸς τοιοῦτος ὤν* (tynchanei gar kai ho tauta oneidizōn autos toioutos ōn)

“For even the one who casts this reproach is himself, in fact, such a man.” Τυγχάνει with a supplementary participle is an idiom for being in a certain condition, often conveyed by “happens to be” or “is in fact”. Here ὤν supplies the being, and τοιοῦτος refers back to the lover of gain. The construction does not require accidental gain-seeking or chance moral character.

The article turns ὀνειδίζων into a description of a person, “the one reproaching”; αὐτός stresses that very person's inclusion. Καί adds “even” or “also”, making the conclusion rebound on its user. Γάρ supplies the reason offered for saying the reproach is improper. That reason depends on the preceding universal classification. The sentence completes the dialogue's personal reversal, though shared membership in a broad category still leaves the reader to ask whether every possible distinction in manner or motive has been answered.

# Lexical index {#lexical-index}

## English headwords

Full articles and shorter records are labelled separately. Printed locators refer to the matching PDF layout; electronic links work independently of pagination.

- [Acquire](#reg-acquire) (p. 220) · Register
- [Action and undergoing](#entry-action-and-undergoing) (p. 15) · Full article
- [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17) · Full article
- [Admire](#reg-admire) (p. 220) · Register
- [After all](#reg-after-all) (p. 220) · Register
- [Again](#reg-again) (p. 221) · Register
- [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · Full article
- [All](#reg-all) (p. 221) · Register
- [All some and none](#entry-all-some-and-none) (p. 22) · Full article
- [Always](#reg-always) (p. 221) · Register
- [Anacreon and the fifty oared ship](#entry-anacreon-and-the-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 24) · Full article
- [Answer](#reg-answer) (p. 222) · Register
- [Archer](#reg-archer) (p. 222) · Register
- [Archer and bow](#entry-archer-and-bow) (p. 26) · Full article
- [Argument](#reg-argument) (p. 222) · Register
- [Arms](#reg-arms) (p. 222) · Register
- [Army](#reg-army) (p. 223) · Register
- [As far as being food](#reg-as-far-as-being-food) (p. 223) · Register
- [Ask](#reg-ask) (p. 223) · Register
- [At a loss](#reg-at-a-loss) (p. 224) · Register
- [At least](#reg-at-least) (p. 224) · Register
- [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28) · Full article
- [Attempt](#reg-attempt) (p. 224) · Register
- [Attention](#reg-attention) (p. 224) · Register
- [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30) · Full article
- [Auspicious speech](#entry-auspicious-speech) (p. 33) · Full article
- [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35) · Full article
- [Bad](#reg-bad) (p. 225) · Register
- [Base](#reg-base) (p. 225) · Register
- [Basket bearing](#reg-basket-bearing) (p. 225) · Register
- [Basket bearing and the sister](#entry-basket-bearing-and-the-sister) (p. 37) · Full article
- [Be](#reg-be) (p. 226) · Register
- [Be able](#reg-be-able) (p. 226) · Register
- [Be about to](#reg-be-about-to) (p. 226) · Register
- [Be beneficial](#reg-be-beneficial) (p. 226) · Register
- [Be benefited](#reg-be-benefited) (p. 227) · Register
- [Be ignorant](#reg-be-ignorant) (p. 227) · Register
- [Be willing](#reg-be-willing) (p. 227) · Register
- [Beginning](#reg-beginning) (p. 228) · Register
- [Begrudge](#reg-begrudge) (p. 228) · Register
- [Belong to](#reg-belong-to) (p. 228) · Register
- [Beloved](#reg-beloved) (p. 228) · Register
- [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · Full article
- [Better and best](#reg-better-and-best) (p. 229) · Register
- [Body](#entry-body) (p. 42) · Full article
- [Body](#reg-body) (p. 229) · Register
- [Both](#reg-both) (p. 229) · Register
- [Bow](#reg-bow) (p. 230) · Register
- [Bring](#reg-bring) (p. 230) · Register
- [Brother](#reg-brother) (p. 230) · Register
- [Call](#reg-call) (p. 230) · Register
- [Carry](#reg-carry) (p. 231) · Register
- [Certainly or surely](#reg-certainly-or-surely) (p. 231) · Register
- [Choose](#reg-choose) (p. 231) · Register
- [Citizen](#reg-citizen) (p. 232) · Register
- [City](#reg-city) (p. 232) · Register
- [Clever](#reg-clever) (p. 232) · Register
- [Come round](#reg-come-round) (p. 232) · Register
- [Companion](#reg-companion) (p. 233) · Register
- [Compel](#reg-compel) (p. 233) · Register
- [Concur](#reg-concur) (p. 233) · Register
- [Contempt](#reg-contempt) (p. 234) · Register
- [Contrary](#reg-contrary) (p. 234) · Register
- [Country](#reg-country) (p. 234) · Register
- [Courage and courteous addresses](#entry-courage-and-courteous-addresses) (p. 44) · Full article
- [Courageous](#reg-courageous) (p. 234) · Register
- [Craftsman](#reg-craftsman) (p. 235) · Register
- [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46) · Full article
- [Crave](#reg-crave) (p. 235) · Register
- [Cronus and the golden age](#entry-cronus-and-the-golden-age) (p. 49) · Full article
- [Cultivated](#reg-cultivated) (p. 235) · Register
- [Dare](#reg-dare) (p. 236) · Register
- [Deceive](#reg-deceive) (p. 236) · Register
- [Decent](#reg-decent) (p. 236) · Register
- [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · Full article
- [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · Full article
- [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56) · Full article
- [Delphi and its maxims](#entry-delphi-and-its-maxims) (p. 58) · Full article
- [Deme](#reg-deme) (p. 236) · Register
- [Desire](#reg-desire) (p. 237) · Register
- [Die](#reg-die) (p. 237) · Register
- [Different](#reg-different) (p. 237) · Register
- [Disbelieve or disobey](#reg-disbelieve-or-disobey) (p. 238) · Register
- [Discover](#reg-discover) (p. 238) · Register
- [Discovery and learning](#entry-discovery-and-learning) (p. 60) · Full article
- [Disease](#reg-disease) (p. 238) · Register
- [Dishonour](#reg-dishonour) (p. 238) · Register
- [Display](#reg-display) (p. 239) · Register
- [Dispute](#reg-dispute) (p. 239) · Register
- [Do](#reg-do) (p. 239) · Register
- [Double](#reg-double) (p. 239) · Register
- [Draughts](#reg-draughts) (p. 240) · Register
- [Drink](#reg-drink) (p. 240) · Register
- [Drink and wetness](#entry-drink-and-wetness) (p. 62) · Full article
- [Dry](#reg-dry) (p. 240) · Register
- [Earnest](#reg-earnest) (p. 241) · Register
- [Educate](#reg-educate) (p. 241) · Register
- [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · Full article
- [Elegiac verse](#reg-elegiac-verse) (p. 241) · Register
- [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67) · Full article
- [Entertain](#reg-entertain) (p. 241) · Register
- [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69) · Full article
- [Equally](#reg-equally) (p. 242) · Register
- [Equipment](#reg-equipment) (p. 242) · Register
- [Error and correctness](#entry-error-and-correctness) (p. 71) · Full article
- [Every time](#reg-every-time) (p. 242) · Register
- [Evident](#reg-evident) (p. 243) · Register
- [Excessively](#reg-excessively) (p. 243) · Register
- [Exchange instead of](#reg-exchange-instead-of) (p. 243) · Register
- [Explain](#reg-explain) (p. 243) · Register
- [Farmer](#reg-farmer) (p. 244) · Register
- [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74) · Full article
- [Farming](#reg-farming) (p. 244) · Register
- [Feast and hospitality](#entry-feast-and-hospitality) (p. 76) · Full article
- [Feast richly](#reg-feast-richly) (p. 244) · Register
- [Few or little](#reg-few-or-little) (p. 245) · Register
- [Fifty oared ship](#reg-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 245) · Register
- [Fine](#reg-fine) (p. 245) · Register
- [Fine and good](#reg-fine-and-good) (p. 245) · Register
- [Flute](#reg-flute) (p. 246) · Register
- [Flute player](#reg-flute-player) (p. 246) · Register
- [Food](#reg-food) (p. 246) · Register
- [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78) · Full article
- [Friend](#reg-friend) (p. 247) · Register
- [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80) · Full article
- [From everything](#reg-from-everything) (p. 247) · Register
- [Gain](#reg-gain) (p. 247) · Register
- [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · Full article
- [Gainful](#reg-gainful) (p. 247) · Register
- [Gainful and without gain](#entry-gainful-and-without-gain) (p. 85) · Full article
- [General](#reg-general) (p. 248) · Register
- [General and arms](#entry-general-and-arms) (p. 87) · Full article
- [Get](#reg-get) (p. 248) · Register
- [Gift](#reg-gift) (p. 248) · Register
- [Go through](#reg-go-through) (p. 249) · Register
- [Go your way](#reg-go-your-way) (p. 249) · Register
- [Gold](#reg-gold) (p. 249) · Register
- [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90) · Full article
- [Good](#reg-good) (p. 249) · Register
- [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · Full article
- [Grow or rear](#reg-grow-or-rear) (p. 250) · Register
- [Half](#reg-half) (p. 250) · Register
- [Happen to be](#reg-happen-to-be) (p. 250) · Register
- [Harm](#reg-harm) (p. 251) · Register
- [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94) · Full article
- [Hate](#reg-hate) (p. 251) · Register
- [Health](#reg-health) (p. 251) · Register
- [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97) · Full article
- [Hear](#reg-hear) (p. 251) · Register
- [Here and now](#reg-here-and-now) (p. 252) · Register
- [Herm](#reg-herm) (p. 252) · Register
- [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99) · Full article
- [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101) · Full article
- [Hippias and tyranny](#entry-hippias-and-tyranny) (p. 103) · Full article
- [Homer and rhapsodes](#entry-homer-and-rhapsodes) (p. 106) · Full article
- [Honour dishonour and rivalry](#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry) (p. 108) · Full article
- [Horse](#reg-horse) (p. 252) · Register
- [Horseman](#reg-horseman) (p. 253) · Register
- [Horseman and horse](#entry-horseman-and-horse) (p. 110) · Full article
- [Human being](#reg-human-being) (p. 253) · Register
- [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112) · Full article
- [If indeed](#reg-if-indeed) (p. 253) · Register
- [Imitate](#reg-imitate) (p. 253) · Register
- [Impossible](#reg-impossible) (p. 254) · Register
- [In order](#reg-in-order) (p. 254) · Register
- [In sum](#reg-in-sum) (p. 254) · Register
- [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115) · Full article
- [Insatiability](#reg-insatiability) (p. 255) · Register
- [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117) · Full article
- [Inscription](#reg-inscription) (p. 255) · Register
- [Inscriptions and memorials](#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials) (p. 119) · Full article
- [Instrument](#reg-instrument) (p. 255) · Register
- [Intelligent](#reg-intelligent) (p. 255) · Register
- [Intentionally](#reg-intentionally) (p. 256) · Register
- [Judge or think](#reg-judge-or-think) (p. 256) · Register
- [Just](#reg-just) (p. 256) · Register
- [Justice and just thoughts](#entry-justice-and-just-thoughts) (p. 121) · Full article
- [Kill](#reg-kill) (p. 257) · Register
- [Know](#reg-know) (p. 257) · Register
- [Know thyself](#reg-know-thyself) (p. 257) · Register
- [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123) · Full article
- [Knowledgeable](#reg-knowledgeable) (p. 257) · Register
- [Land](#reg-land) (p. 258) · Register
- [Lawsuit](#reg-lawsuit) (p. 258) · Register
- [Lawsuits and fine speaking](#entry-lawsuits-and-fine-speaking) (p. 126) · Full article
- [Learn](#reg-learn) (p. 258) · Register
- [Less](#reg-less) (p. 259) · Register
- [Look into](#reg-look-into) (p. 259) · Register
- [Loss](#reg-loss) (p. 259) · Register
- [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128) · Full article
- [Love](#reg-love) (p. 259) · Register
- [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130) · Full article
- [Love erotically](#reg-love-erotically) (p. 260) · Register
- [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133) · Full article
- [Lover of gain](#reg-lover-of-gain) (p. 260) · Register
- [Lyre](#reg-lyre) (p. 260) · Register
- [Lyre player](#reg-lyre-player) (p. 260) · Register
- [Mad](#reg-mad) (p. 261) · Register
- [Many](#reg-many) (p. 261) · Register
- [Memorial](#reg-memorial) (p. 261) · Register
- [Memory and reminders](#entry-memory-and-reminders) (p. 135) · Full article
- [Middle](#reg-middle) (p. 262) · Register
- [Mind or think](#reg-mind-or-think) (p. 262) · Register
- [More](#reg-more) (p. 262) · Register
- [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · Full article
- [Much or very](#reg-much-or-very) (p. 262) · Register
- [Musicians and instruments](#entry-musicians-and-instruments) (p. 140) · Full article
- [Name](#reg-name) (p. 263) · Register
- [Nearly](#reg-nearly) (p. 263) · Register
- [Necessary](#reg-necessary) (p. 263) · Register
- [Necessity and impossibility](#entry-necessity-and-impossibility) (p. 143) · Full article
- [Neither](#reg-neither) (p. 264) · Register
- [No benefit](#reg-no-benefit) (p. 264) · Register
- [No gain](#reg-no-gain) (p. 264) · Register
- [No match for](#reg-no-match-for) (p. 264) · Register
- [No one](#reg-no-one) (p. 265) · Register
- [Nothing too much](#reg-nothing-too-much) (p. 265) · Register
- [Now just recently](#reg-now-just-recently) (p. 265) · Register
- [Old](#reg-old) (p. 266) · Register
- [Older and eldest](#reg-older-and-eldest) (p. 266) · Register
- [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145) · Full article
- [Opponent](#reg-opponent) (p. 266) · Register
- [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147) · Full article
- [Or](#reg-or) (p. 266) · Register
- [Ought](#reg-ought) (p. 267) · Register
- [Panathenaea](#entry-panathenaea) (p. 150) · Full article
- [Pass by](#reg-pass-by) (p. 267) · Register
- [Pay or fee](#reg-pay-or-fee) (p. 267) · Register
- [Perhaps](#reg-perhaps) (p. 268) · Register
- [Perish](#reg-perish) (p. 268) · Register
- [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152) · Full article
- [Persuade](#reg-persuade) (p. 268) · Register
- [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154) · Full article
- [Pilot](#reg-pilot) (p. 268) · Register
- [Pilot and ship](#entry-pilot-and-ship) (p. 156) · Full article
- [Pisistratus and Philaidae](#entry-pisistratus-and-philaidae) (p. 159) · Full article
- [Place or region](#reg-place-or-region) (p. 269) · Register
- [Plant](#reg-plant) (p. 269) · Register
- [Planting](#reg-planting) (p. 269) · Register
- [Plot](#reg-plot) (p. 269) · Register
- [Poem](#reg-poem) (p. 270) · Register
- [Possess](#reg-possess) (p. 270) · Register
- [Possession](#reg-possession) (p. 270) · Register
- [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161) · Full article
- [Prepare or equip](#reg-prepare-or-equip) (p. 271) · Register
- [Pride](#reg-pride) (p. 271) · Register
- [Provide](#reg-provide) (p. 271) · Register
- [Put into verse](#reg-put-into-verse) (p. 271) · Register
- [Quantity and quality](#entry-quantity-and-quality) (p. 163) · Full article
- [Randomly](#reg-randomly) (p. 272) · Register
- [Read](#reg-read) (p. 272) · Register
- [Refute](#reg-refute) (p. 272) · Register
- [Remember](#reg-remember) (p. 273) · Register
- [Remind](#reg-remind) (p. 273) · Register
- [Reproach](#reg-reproach) (p. 273) · Register
- [Reproach and the ending](#entry-reproach-and-the-ending) (p. 166) · Full article
- [Return in a circle](#reg-return-in-a-circle) (p. 273) · Register
- [Rhapsode](#reg-rhapsode) (p. 274) · Register
- [Rightly](#reg-rightly) (p. 274) · Register
- [Risk and likelihood](#reg-risk-and-likelihood) (p. 274) · Register
- [Road](#reg-road) (p. 275) · Register
- [Roads and Steiria](#entry-roads-and-steiria) (p. 168) · Full article
- [Rudder](#reg-rudder) (p. 275) · Register
- [Ruin](#reg-ruin) (p. 275) · Register
- [Rule](#reg-rule) (p. 275) · Register
- [Sail](#reg-sail) (p. 276) · Register
- [Same](#reg-same) (p. 276) · Register
- [Sameness and difference](#entry-sameness-and-difference) (p. 170) · Full article
- [Sayings](#reg-sayings) (p. 276) · Register
- [See](#reg-see) (p. 277) · Register
- [Senseless](#reg-senseless) (p. 277) · Register
- [Senselessness and intelligence](#entry-senselessness-and-intelligence) (p. 172) · Full article
- [Shamelessness](#reg-shamelessness) (p. 277) · Register
- [Shamelessness and daring](#entry-shamelessness-and-daring) (p. 175) · Full article
- [Ship](#reg-ship) (p. 277) · Register
- [Silver](#reg-silver) (p. 278) · Register
- [Simonides fees and gifts](#entry-simonides-fees-and-gifts) (p. 177) · Full article
- [Simple minded](#reg-simple-minded) (p. 278) · Register
- [Sister](#reg-sister) (p. 278) · Register
- [Small](#reg-small) (p. 279) · Register
- [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179) · Full article
- [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181) · Full article
- [Some](#reg-some) (p. 279) · Register
- [Son or child](#reg-son-or-child) (p. 279) · Register
- [Speak auspiciously](#reg-speak-auspiciously) (p. 279) · Register
- [Speak finely](#reg-speak-finely) (p. 280) · Register
- [Specimen](#reg-specimen) (p. 280) · Register
- [Spend](#reg-spend) (p. 280) · Register
- [Spending and receiving](#entry-spending-and-receiving) (p. 183) · Full article
- [Stand or set up](#reg-stand-or-set-up) (p. 281) · Register
- [Stay or associate](#reg-stay-or-associate) (p. 281) · Register
- [Steirian](#reg-steirian) (p. 281) · Register
- [Still](#reg-still) (p. 281) · Register
- [Strongly pained](#reg-strongly-pained) (p. 282) · Register
- [Suffer loss](#reg-suffer-loss) (p. 282) · Register
- [Tackle](#reg-tackle) (p. 282) · Register
- [Take back](#reg-take-back) (p. 283) · Register
- [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186) · Full article
- [Taking up](#reg-taking-up) (p. 283) · Register
- [Taste](#reg-taste) (p. 283) · Register
- [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188) · Full article
- [The cultivated and the many](#entry-the-cultivated-and-the-many) (p. 191) · Full article
- [The remaining things](#reg-the-remaining-things) (p. 283) · Register
- [The unnamed companion](#entry-unnamed-companion) (p. 193) · Full article
- [The unnamed young man](#entry-unnamed-young-man) (p. 195) · Full article
- [Then in an opening question](#reg-then-in-an-opening-question) (p. 284) · Register
- [Think fit](#reg-think-fit) (p. 284) · Register
- [Think or suppose](#reg-think-or-suppose) (p. 284) · Register
- [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198) · Full article
- [Throw in](#reg-throw-in) (p. 285) · Register
- [Time and place](#entry-time-and-place) (p. 200) · Full article
- [Time or season](#reg-time-or-season) (p. 285) · Register
- [Town](#reg-town) (p. 285) · Register
- [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202) · Full article
- [True](#reg-true) (p. 285) · Register
- [Truly](#reg-truly) (p. 286) · Register
- [Turn or twist](#reg-turn-or-twist) (p. 286) · Register
- [Twelvefold weight](#reg-twelvefold-weight) (p. 286) · Register
- [Twice the weight](#reg-twice-the-weight) (p. 287) · Register
- [Tyranny](#reg-tyranny) (p. 287) · Register
- [Undergo](#reg-undergo) (p. 287) · Register
- [Understand or consider](#reg-understand-or-consider) (p. 287) · Register
- [Unjustly](#reg-unjustly) (p. 288) · Register
- [Unscrupulous](#reg-unscrupulous) (p. 288) · Register
- [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204) · Full article
- [Use](#reg-use) (p. 288) · Register
- [Value or worth](#reg-value-or-worth) (p. 289) · Register
- [Visit repeatedly](#reg-visit-repeatedly) (p. 289) · Register
- [Want or wish](#reg-want-or-wish) (p. 289) · Register
- [Way or manner](#reg-way-or-manner) (p. 289) · Register
- [Weight](#reg-weight) (p. 290) · Register
- [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207) · Full article
- [Wellborn](#reg-wellborn) (p. 290) · Register
- [Wet](#reg-wet) (p. 290) · Register
- [Where from](#reg-where-from) (p. 291) · Register
- [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209) · Full article
- [Wisdom](#reg-wisdom) (p. 291) · Register
- [Wise](#reg-wise) (p. 291) · Register
- [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212) · Full article
- [Without spending anything](#reg-without-spending-anything) (p. 291) · Register
- [Wonderfully addressed](#reg-wonderfully-addressed) (p. 292) · Register
- [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · Full article
- [Worth nothing](#reg-worth-nothing) (p. 292) · Register
- [Worth possessing](#entry-worth-possessing) (p. 217) · Full article
- [Worthless](#reg-worthless) (p. 292) · Register
- [Wronged](#reg-wronged) (p. 293) · Register
- [Young](#reg-young) (p. 293) · Register
- [Zeus](#reg-zeus) (p. 293) · Register

## Greek words and forms

Greek strings identify the printed heading or dictionary family; the destination distinguishes lemmas from attested forms. Order ignores accents for navigation.

- ἀγαθός (agathos) — [Good](#reg-good) (p. 249)
- ἀγαθός (agathos); κακός (kakos) — [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92)
- ἀγνοέω (agnoeō) — [Be ignorant](#reg-be-ignorant) (p. 227)
- ἀγρός (agros) — [Country](#reg-country) (p. 234)
- ἄγω (agō) — [Carry](#reg-carry) (p. 231)
- ἀδελφή (adelphē) — [Sister](#reg-sister) (p. 278)
- ἀδελφός (adelphos) — [Brother](#reg-brother) (p. 230)
- ἀδικέω (adikeō) — [Wronged](#reg-wronged) (p. 293)
- ἀδίκως (adikōs) — [Unjustly](#reg-unjustly) (p. 288)
- ἀδύνατος (adynatos) — [Impossible](#reg-impossible) (p. 254)
- ἀεί (aei) — [Always](#reg-always) (p. 221)
- Ἀθῆναι (Athēnai); Ἀθηναῖος (Athēnaios); πολίτης (politēs); πόλις (polis) — [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28)
- ἀκερδής (akerdēs) — [No gain](#reg-no-gain) (p. 264)
- ἀκούω (akouō) — [Hear](#reg-hear) (p. 251)
- ἀληθής (alēthēs) — [True](#reg-true) (p. 285)
- ἀληθῶς (alēthōs) — [Truly](#reg-truly) (p. 286)
- ἀλλά (alla), ἃ (ha), ὁ (ho), πλέον κτήσηται (pleon ktēsētai), οὐ (ou), αὐτός (autos) — [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188)
- ἀμφισβητέω (amphisbēteō) — [Dispute](#reg-dispute) (p. 239)
- ἀμφότερος (amphoteros) — [Both](#reg-both) (p. 229)
- ἀναγιγνώσκω (anagignōskō) — [Read](#reg-read) (p. 272)
- ἀναγκάζω (anankazō) — [Compel](#reg-compel) (p. 233)
- ἀνάγκη (anankē) — [Necessary](#reg-necessary) (p. 263)
- ἀνάγκη (anankē), ἀδύνατος (adynatos), δεῖ (dei), δύνασθαι (dynasthai) — [Necessity and impossibility](#entry-necessity-and-impossibility) (p. 143)
- ἀναισχυντία (anaischyntia) — [Shamelessness](#reg-shamelessness) (p. 277)
- ἀναισχυντία (anaischyntia); τολμᾶν (tolman) — [Shamelessness and daring](#entry-shamelessness-and-daring) (p. 175)
- Ἀνακρέων (Anakreōn); Τήιος (Tēios); πεντηκόντορος (pentēkontoros) — [Anacreon and the fifty oared ship](#entry-anacreon-and-the-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 24)
- ἀναλίσκειν (analiskein), λαμβάνειν (lambanein), μηδέν (mēden) — [Spending and receiving](#entry-spending-and-receiving) (p. 183)
- ἀναλίσκω (analiskō) — [Spend](#reg-spend) (p. 280)
- ἀνάξιος (anaxios) — [Worthless](#reg-worthless) (p. 292)
- ἀνατίθεμαι (anatithemai) — [Take back](#reg-take-back) (p. 283)
- ἀνατίθεσθαι (anatithesthai), πεττεύειν (petteuein) — [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186)
- ἀνδρεῖος (andreios) — [Courageous](#reg-courageous) (p. 234)
- ἀνδρεῖος (andreios), θαυμάσιος (thaumasios), γλυκύς (glykys), βέλτιστος (beltistos), ἑταῖρος (hetairos) — [Courage and courteous addresses](#entry-courage-and-courteous-addresses) (p. 44)
- ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos) — [Human being](#reg-human-being) (p. 253)
- ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos), ἀνήρ (anēr) — [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112)
- ἀνόητος (anoētos) — [Senseless](#reg-senseless) (p. 277)
- ἀνόητος (anoētos); ἔμφρων (emphrōn); μανικός (manikos) — [Senselessness and intelligence](#entry-senselessness-and-intelligence) (p. 172)
- ἀνταγωνιστής (antagōnistēs) — [Opponent](#reg-opponent) (p. 266)
- ἀντί (anti) — [Exchange instead of](#reg-exchange-instead-of) (p. 243)
- ἀνωφελής (anōphelēs) — [No benefit](#reg-no-benefit) (p. 264)
- ἀξία (axia) — [Value or worth](#reg-value-or-worth) (p. 289)
- ἄξιος (axios); ἀξία (axia); ἀνάξιος (anaxios) — [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)
- ἄξιος κεκτῆσθαι (axios kektēsthai), ὠφέλιμος (ōphelimos), ἀνωφελής (anōphelēs) — [Worth possessing](#entry-worth-possessing) (p. 217)
- ἀξιοῦν (axioun); δεῖν (dein) — [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198)
- ἀξιόω (axioō) — [Think fit](#reg-think-fit) (p. 284)
- ἀπιστέω (apisteō) — [Disbelieve or disobey](#reg-disbelieve-or-disobey) (p. 238)
- ἀπληστία (aplēstia) — [Insatiability](#reg-insatiability) (p. 255)
- ἀπληστία (aplēstia); γλίχεσθαι (glichesthai); ὑπερφυῶς (hyperphyōs); σπουδάζειν (spoudazein) — [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117)
- ἀπὸ παντός (apo pantos) — [From everything](#reg-from-everything) (p. 247)
- ἀποδείκνυμι (apodeiknymi) — [Display](#reg-display) (p. 239)
- ἀποθνῄσκω (apothnēskō) — [Die](#reg-die) (p. 237)
- ἀποκρίνομαι (apokrinomai) — [Answer](#reg-answer) (p. 222)
- ἀποκτείνω (apokteinō) — [Kill](#reg-kill) (p. 257)
- ἀπόλλυμι (apollymi) — [Perish](#reg-perish) (p. 268)
- ἀπορεῖν (aporein), περιτρέχειν (peritrechein), πάλιν (palin), αὖ (au) — [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152)
- ἀπορέω (aporeō) — [At a loss](#reg-at-a-loss) (p. 224)
- ἀργύριον (argyrion) — [Silver](#reg-silver) (p. 278)
- Ἁρμόδιος (Harmodios); Ἀριστογείτων (Aristogeitōn); παιδικά (paidika) — [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94)
- ἄρτι (arti) — [Now just recently](#reg-now-just-recently) (p. 265)
- ἀρχή (archē) — [Beginning](#reg-beginning) (p. 228)
- ἄρχω (archō) — [Rule](#reg-rule) (p. 275)
- ἄστυ (asty) — [Town](#reg-town) (p. 285)
- ἄστυ (asty); ἀγρός (agros); δῆμος (dēmos) — [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202)
- ἀτιμία (atimia) — [Dishonour](#reg-dishonour) (p. 238)
- ἀτιμία (atimia); ἀνταγωνιστής (antagōnistēs); μέγα φρονεῖν (mega phronein) — [Honour dishonour and rivalry](#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry) (p. 108)
- αὐλητής (aulētēs) — [Flute player](#reg-flute-player) (p. 246)
- αὐλητής (aulētēs); αὐλός (aulos); κιθαριστής (kitharistēs); λύρα (lyra) — [Musicians and instruments](#entry-musicians-and-instruments) (p. 140)
- αὐλός (aulos) — [Flute](#reg-flute) (p. 246)
- αὐτός (autos) — [Same](#reg-same) (p. 276)
- βελτίων, βέλτιστος (beltiōn, beltistos) — [Better and best](#reg-better-and-best) (p. 229)
- βλάπτω (blaptō) — [Harm](#reg-harm) (p. 251)
- βούλεσθαι (boulesthai); ἐπιθυμεῖν (epithymein); ἐθέλειν (ethelein) — [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212)
- βούλομαι (boulomai) — [Want or wish](#reg-want-or-wish) (p. 289)
- γάρ (gar) — [Then in an opening question](#reg-then-in-an-opening-question) (p. 284)
- γενναῖος (gennaios) — [Wellborn](#reg-wellborn) (p. 290)
- γεῦμα (geuma) — [Taste](#reg-taste) (p. 283)
- γεωργικός (geōrgikos) — [Farming](#reg-farming) (p. 244)
- γεωργός (geōrgos) — [Farmer](#reg-farmer) (p. 244)
- γεωργός (geōrgos); γεωργικός (geōrgikos); φυτόν (phyton); φυτεύω (phyteuō) — [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74)
- γῆ (gē) — [Land](#reg-land) (p. 258)
- γιγνώσκειν (gignōskein); ἀγνοεῖν (agnoein); ἐπιστήμων (epistēmōn); εἰδέναι (eidenai) — [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123)
- γιγνώσκω (gignōskō) — [Know](#reg-know) (p. 257)
- γλίχομαι (glichomai) — [Crave](#reg-crave) (p. 235)
- Γνῶθι σαυτόν (Gnōthi sauton) — [Know thyself](#reg-know-thyself) (p. 257)
- γοῦν (goun) — [At least](#reg-at-least) (p. 224)
- γράμματα (grammata); ἐπίγραμμα (epigramma); μνῆμα (mnēma); ἐπιγράφειν (epigraphein) — [Inscriptions and memorials](#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials) (p. 119)
- δεῖ (dei) — [Ought](#reg-ought) (p. 267)
- Δελφοί (Delphoi); γιγνώσκειν (gignōskein); ἄγαν (agan) — [Delphi and its maxims](#entry-delphi-and-its-maxims) (p. 58)
- δεξιός (dexios) — [Clever](#reg-clever) (p. 232)
- δῆλος (dēlos) — [Evident](#reg-evident) (p. 243)
- δημιουργός (dēmiourgos) — [Craftsman](#reg-craftsman) (p. 235)
- δημιουργός (dēmiourgos); ἐπιστήμων (epistēmōn); ἔμφρων (emphrōn); ὄργανον (organon); παρασκευή (paraskeuē) — [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46)
- δῆμος (dēmos) — [Deme](#reg-deme) (p. 236)
- δήπου (dēpou) — [Certainly or surely](#reg-certainly-or-surely) (p. 231)
- διανοέομαι (dianoeomai) — [Understand or consider](#reg-understand-or-consider) (p. 287)
- διαφέρω (diapherō) — [Different](#reg-different) (p. 237)
- διαφθείρω (diaphtheirō) — [Ruin](#reg-ruin) (p. 275)
- διέρχομαι (dierchomai) — [Go through](#reg-go-through) (p. 249)
- δίκαιος (dikaios) — [Just](#reg-just) (p. 256)
- δίκαιος (dikaios); φρονεῖν (phronein) — [Justice and just thoughts](#entry-justice-and-just-thoughts) (p. 121)
- δίκη (dikē) — [Lawsuit](#reg-lawsuit) (p. 258)
- δίκη (dikē); δεξιός (dexios); καλλιεπέομαι (kalliepeomai); ῥῆμα (rhēma) — [Lawsuits and fine speaking](#entry-lawsuits-and-fine-speaking) (p. 126)
- διπλάσιος (diplasios) — [Double](#reg-double) (p. 239)
- διστάσιος (distasios) — [Twice the weight](#reg-twice-the-weight) (p. 287)
- δύναμαι (dynamai) — [Be able](#reg-be-able) (p. 226)
- δωδεκαστάσιος (dōdekastasios) — [Twelvefold weight](#reg-twelvefold-weight) (p. 286)
- δῶρον (dōron) — [Gift](#reg-gift) (p. 248)
- ἐγγύς (engys) — [Nearly](#reg-nearly) (p. 263)
- ἐθέλω (ethelō) — [Be willing](#reg-be-willing) (p. 227)
- εἰκῇ (eikē) — [Randomly](#reg-randomly) (p. 272)
- εἰμί (eimi) — [Be](#reg-be) (p. 226)
- εἴπερ (eiper) — [If indeed](#reg-if-indeed) (p. 253)
- ἑκάστοτε (hekastote) — [Every time](#reg-every-time) (p. 242)
- ἐκλέγομαι (eklegomai) — [Choose](#reg-choose) (p. 231)
- ἐκτρέφω (ektrephō) — [Grow or rear](#reg-grow-or-rear) (p. 250)
- ἐλάττων (elattōn) — [Less](#reg-less) (p. 259)
- ἐλεγεῖον (elegeion) — [Elegiac verse](#reg-elegiac-verse) (p. 241)
- ἐλεγεῖον (elegeion); ποίημα (poiēma); ῥῆμα (rhēma) — [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67)
- ἐμβάλλω (emballō) — [Throw in](#reg-throw-in) (p. 285)
- ἔμφρων (emphrōn) — [Intelligent](#reg-intelligent) (p. 255)
- ἐναντίος (enantios) — [Contrary](#reg-contrary) (p. 234)
- ἐναντίος (enantios); τοὐναντίον (tounantion) — [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147)
- ἐντείνω (enteinō) — [Put into verse](#reg-put-into-verse) (p. 271)
- ἐξαμαρτάνω (examartanō); ὀρθῶς (orthōs) — [Error and correctness](#entry-error-and-correctness) (p. 71)
- ἐξαπατᾶν (exapatan); ἀληθῶς (alēthōs); ἀληθής (alēthēs); ἐπίτηδες (epitēdes) — [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53)
- ἐξαπατάω (exapataō) — [Deceive](#reg-deceive) (p. 236)
- ἐξελέγχω (exelenchō) — [Refute](#reg-refute) (p. 272)
- ἐξευρίσκω (exeuriskō) — [Discover](#reg-discover) (p. 238)
- ἐπιβουλεύω (epibouleuō) — [Plot](#reg-plot) (p. 269)
- ἐπίγραμμα (epigramma) — [Inscription](#reg-inscription) (p. 255)
- ἐπίδειγμα (epideigma) — [Specimen](#reg-specimen) (p. 280)
- ἐπιθυμέω (epithymeō) — [Desire](#reg-desire) (p. 237)
- ἐπισκέπτεσθαι (episkeptesthai), σκοπεῖν (skopein), μιμεῖσθαι (mimeisthai), ἀποκρίνεσθαι (apokrinesthai) — [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115)
- ἐπισκέπτομαι (episkeptomai) — [Look into](#reg-look-into) (p. 259)
- ἐπιστήμων (epistēmōn) — [Knowledgeable](#reg-knowledgeable) (p. 257)
- ἐπίτηδες (epitēdes) — [Intentionally](#reg-intentionally) (p. 256)
- ἐπιχειρέω (epicheireō) — [Attempt](#reg-attempt) (p. 224)
- ἐράω (eraō) — [Love erotically](#reg-love-erotically) (p. 260)
- Ἑρμῆς (Hermēs) — [Herm](#reg-herm) (p. 252)
- Ἑρμῆς (Hermēs); Ἑρμαῖ (Hermai) — [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99)
- ἐρωτάω (erōtaō) — [Ask](#reg-ask) (p. 223)
- ἑστιᾶν (hestian), ἑστίασις (hestiasis), εὐωχεῖσθαι (euōcheisthai) — [Feast and hospitality](#entry-feast-and-hospitality) (p. 76)
- ἑστιάω (hestiaō) — [Entertain](#reg-entertain) (p. 241)
- ἑταῖρος (hetairos) — [Companion](#reg-companion) (p. 233)
- ἑταῖρος (hetairos); φίλος (philos) — [The unnamed companion](#entry-unnamed-companion) (p. 193)
- ἔτι (eti) — [Still](#reg-still) (p. 281)
- εὐήθης (euēthēs) — [Simple minded](#reg-simple-minded) (p. 278)
- εὐφημεῖν (euphēmein) — [Auspicious speech](#entry-auspicious-speech) (p. 33)
- εὐφημέω (euphēmeō) — [Speak auspiciously](#reg-speak-auspiciously) (p. 279)
- εὐωχέομαι (euōcheomai) — [Feast richly](#reg-feast-richly) (p. 244)
- ἐφεξῆς (ephexēs) — [In order](#reg-in-order) (p. 254)
- Ζεύς (Zeus) — [Zeus](#reg-zeus) (p. 293)
- ζημία (zēmia) — [Loss](#reg-loss) (p. 259)
- ζημία (zēmia); ζημιοῦσθαι (zēmiousthai) — [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128)
- ζημιόομαι (zēmioomai) — [Suffer loss](#reg-suffer-loss) (p. 282)
- ἤ (ē) — [Or](#reg-or) (p. 266)
- ἡγέομαι (hēgeomai) — [Judge or think](#reg-judge-or-think) (p. 256)
- ἥκω (hēkō) — [Come round](#reg-come-round) (p. 232)
- ἥμισυς (hēmisys) — [Half](#reg-half) (p. 250)
- ἥττων (hēttōn) — [No match for](#reg-no-match-for) (p. 264)
- θαυμάζειν (thaumazein); καταφρονεῖν (kataphronein) — [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17)
- θαυμάζω (thaumazō) — [Admire](#reg-admire) (p. 220)
- θαυμάσιος (thaumasios) — [Wonderfully addressed](#reg-wonderfully-addressed) (p. 292)
- Ἵππαρχος (Hipparchos) — [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101)
- Ἵππαρχος (Hipparchos); φιλοκερδής (philokerdēs); Πλάτων (Platōn) — [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35)
- Ἱππίας (Hippias); τυραννίς (tyrannis); τυραννεῖσθαι (tyranneisthai) — [Hippias and tyranny](#entry-hippias-and-tyranny) (p. 103)
- ἱππικός (hippikos) — [Horseman](#reg-horseman) (p. 253)
- ἱππικός (hippikos); ἵππος (hippos); σιτίον (sition); διαφθείρω (diaphtheirō) — [Horseman and horse](#entry-horseman-and-horse) (p. 110)
- ἵππος (hippos) — [Horse](#reg-horse) (p. 252)
- ἵστημι (histēmi) — [Stand or set up](#reg-stand-or-set-up) (p. 281)
- ἱστίον (histion) — [Sail](#reg-sail) (p. 276)
- ἴσως (isōs) — [Perhaps](#reg-perhaps) (p. 268)
- κακός (kakos) — [Bad](#reg-bad) (p. 225)
- καλέω (kaleō) — [Call](#reg-call) (p. 230)
- καλλιεπέομαι (kalliepeomai) — [Speak finely](#reg-speak-finely) (p. 280)
- καλός (kalos) — [Fine](#reg-fine) (p. 245)
- καλὸς κἀγαθός (kalos kagathos) — [Fine and good](#reg-fine-and-good) (p. 245)
- κανηφορία (kanēphoria) — [Basket bearing](#reg-basket-bearing) (p. 225)
- κανηφορία (kanēphoria); ἀδελφή (adelphē) — [Basket bearing and the sister](#entry-basket-bearing-and-the-sister) (p. 37)
- κατὰ τὸ σιτίον εἶναι (kata to sition einai) — [As far as being food](#reg-as-far-as-being-food) (p. 223)
- καταφρονέω (kataphroneō) — [Contempt](#reg-contempt) (p. 234)
- κερδαλέος (kerdaleos) — [Gainful](#reg-gainful) (p. 247)
- κερδαλέος (kerdaleos), ἀκερδής (akerdēs) — [Gainful and without gain](#entry-gainful-and-without-gain) (p. 85)
- κέρδος (kerdos) — [Gain](#reg-gain) (p. 247)
- κέρδος (kerdos); κερδαίνειν (kerdainein); κερδαλέος (kerdaleos); ἀκερδής (akerdēs) — [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83)
- κιθαριστής (kitharistēs) — [Lyre player](#reg-lyre-player) (p. 260)
- κινδυνεύω (kindyneuō) — [Risk and likelihood](#reg-risk-and-likelihood) (p. 274)
- κομίζω (komizō) — [Bring](#reg-bring) (p. 230)
- Κρόνος (Kronos); βασιλεύειν (basileuein); ἐγγύς (engys) — [Cronus and the golden age](#entry-cronus-and-the-golden-age) (p. 49)
- κτάομαι (ktaomai) — [Acquire](#reg-acquire) (p. 220)
- κτάομαι in the perfect (ktaomai) — [Possess](#reg-possess) (p. 270)
- κτῆμα (ktēma) — [Possession](#reg-possession) (p. 270)
- κτῆμα (ktēma), κτᾶσθαι (ktasthai), κεκτῆσθαι (kektēsthai), ἔχειν (echein) — [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161)
- κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs) — [Pilot](#reg-pilot) (p. 268)
- κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs); ναῦς (naus); ἱστίον (histion); πηδάλιον (pēdalion); σκεῦος (skeuos) — [Pilot and ship](#entry-pilot-and-ship) (p. 156)
- λαμβάνω (lambanō) — [Get](#reg-get) (p. 248)
- λόγος (logos) — [Argument](#reg-argument) (p. 222)
- λοιπός (loipos) — [The remaining things](#reg-the-remaining-things) (p. 283)
- λύρα (lyra) — [Lyre](#reg-lyre) (p. 260)
- μᾶλλον (mallon), ἧττον (hētton), πλέον (pleon), ἔλαττον (elatton) — [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138)
- μανθάνειν (manthanein); ἐξευρίσκειν (exheuriskein); ἐκλέγεσθαι (eklegesthai) — [Discovery and learning](#entry-discovery-and-learning) (p. 60)
- μανθάνω (manthanō) — [Learn](#reg-learn) (p. 258)
- μανικός (manikos) — [Mad](#reg-mad) (p. 261)
- μέγα φρονεῖν (mega phronein) — [Pride](#reg-pride) (p. 271)
- μέλλω (mellō) — [Be about to](#reg-be-about-to) (p. 226)
- μέσος (mesos) — [Middle](#reg-middle) (p. 262)
- Μηδὲν ἄγαν (Mēden agan) — [Nothing too much](#reg-nothing-too-much) (p. 265)
- μηδὲν ἀναλώσας (mēden analōsas) — [Without spending anything](#reg-without-spending-anything) (p. 291)
- μιμέομαι (mimeomai) — [Imitate](#reg-imitate) (p. 253)
- μιμνῄσκομαι (mimnēskomai) — [Remember](#reg-remember) (p. 273)
- μισέω (miseō) — [Hate](#reg-hate) (p. 251)
- μισθός (misthos) — [Pay or fee](#reg-pay-or-fee) (p. 267)
- μνῆμα (mnēma) — [Memorial](#reg-memorial) (p. 261)
- μνημονεύειν (mnēmoneuein), ὑπομιμνῄσκειν (hypomimnēiskein), ἀμφισβητεῖν (amphisbētein) — [Memory and reminders](#entry-memory-and-reminders) (p. 135)
- ναῦς (naus) — [Ship](#reg-ship) (p. 277)
- νεανίσκος (neaniskos); νέος (neos); γενναῖος (gennaios) — [The unnamed young man](#entry-unnamed-young-man) (p. 195)
- νέος (neos) — [Young](#reg-young) (p. 293)
- νόσος (nosos) — [Disease](#reg-disease) (p. 238)
- νῦν (nyn) — [Here and now](#reg-here-and-now) (p. 252)
- ξηρός (xēros) — [Dry](#reg-dry) (p. 240)
- ξηρός (xēros), ὑγρός (hygros), ἀγαθός (agathos), κακός (kakos), ἀξία (axia) — [Quantity and quality](#entry-quantity-and-quality) (p. 163)
- ὁδός (hodos) — [Road](#reg-road) (p. 275)
- ὁδός (hodos); Στειριακός (Steiriakos); στείχειν (steichein) — [Roads and Steiria](#entry-roads-and-steiria) (p. 168)
- ὅθεν (hothen) — [Where from](#reg-where-from) (p. 291)
- οἴεσθαι (oiesthai); δοκεῖν (dokein); φαίνεσθαι (phainesthai); ἡγεῖσθαι (hēgeisthai); ἐοικέναι (eoikenai) — [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145)
- οἴομαι (oiomai) — [Think or suppose](#reg-think-or-suppose) (p. 284)
- ὀλίγος (oligos) — [Few or little](#reg-few-or-little) (p. 245)
- Ὅμηρος (Homēros); ἔπος (epos); ῥαψῳδός (rhapsōdos); ὑπόληψις (hypolēpsis) — [Homer and rhapsodes](#entry-homer-and-rhapsodes) (p. 106)
- ὁμοίως (homoiōs) — [Equally](#reg-equally) (p. 242)
- ὁμολογεῖν (homologein); προσομολογεῖν (prosomologein); συμφάναι (symphanai); μνημονεύειν (mnēmoneuein); ὑπομιμνῄσκειν (hypomimnēiskein) — [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19)
- ὀνειδίζειν (oneidizein), ὀρθῶς (orthōs), τυγχάνειν (tynchanein) — [Reproach and the ending](#entry-reproach-and-the-ending) (p. 166)
- ὀνειδίζω (oneidizō) — [Reproach](#reg-reproach) (p. 273)
- ὄνομα (onoma) — [Name](#reg-name) (p. 263)
- ὅπλον (hoplon) — [Arms](#reg-arms) (p. 222)
- ὁράω (horaō) — [See](#reg-see) (p. 277)
- ὄργανον (organon) — [Instrument](#reg-instrument) (p. 255)
- ὀρθῶς (orthōs) — [Rightly](#reg-rightly) (p. 274)
- οὐδείς (oudeis) — [No one](#reg-no-one) (p. 265)
- οὐδενὸς ἄξιος (oudenos axios) — [Worth nothing](#reg-worth-nothing) (p. 292)
- οὐδέτερος (oudeteros) — [Neither](#reg-neither) (p. 264)
- παιδεύειν (paideuein); ἐπιδείγματα (epideigmata); γεῦμα (geuma) — [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65)
- παιδεύω (paideuō) — [Educate](#reg-educate) (p. 241)
- παιδικά (paidika) — [Beloved](#reg-beloved) (p. 228)
- παῖς (pais) — [Son or child](#reg-son-or-child) (p. 279)
- παλαιός (palaios) — [Old](#reg-old) (p. 266)
- πάλιν (palin) — [Again](#reg-again) (p. 221)
- Παναθήναια (Panathēnaia) — [Panathenaea](#entry-panathenaea) (p. 150)
- πανοῦργος (panourgos) — [Unscrupulous](#reg-unscrupulous) (p. 288)
- πανοῦργος (panourgos); ἥττων (hēttōn) — [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204)
- παρασκευάζω (paraskeuazō) — [Prepare or equip](#reg-prepare-or-equip) (p. 271)
- παρασκευή (paraskeuē) — [Equipment](#reg-equipment) (p. 242)
- πάρειμι (pareimi) — [Pass by](#reg-pass-by) (p. 267)
- παρέχω (parechō) — [Provide](#reg-provide) (p. 271)
- πᾶς (pas) — [All](#reg-all) (p. 221)
- πᾶς (pas), ἅπας (hapas), τις (tis), οὐδείς (oudeis), μηδείς (mēdeis) — [All some and none](#entry-all-some-and-none) (p. 22)
- πάσχω (paschō) — [Undergo](#reg-undergo) (p. 287)
- πείθειν (peithein), πείθεσθαι (peithesthai), ἀναγκάζειν (anankazein) — [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154)
- πείθω (peithō) — [Persuade](#reg-persuade) (p. 268)
- Πεισίστρατος (Peisistratos); Φιλαΐδαι (Philaidai) — [Pisistratus and Philaidae](#entry-pisistratus-and-philaidae) (p. 159)
- πεντηκόντορος (pentēkontoros) — [Fifty oared ship](#reg-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 245)
- περιαλγέω (perialgeō) — [Strongly pained](#reg-strongly-pained) (p. 282)
- περιτρέχω (peritrechō) — [Return in a circle](#reg-return-in-a-circle) (p. 273)
- πεττεύω (petteuō) — [Draughts](#reg-draughts) (p. 240)
- πηδάλιον (pēdalion) — [Rudder](#reg-rudder) (p. 275)
- πλείων (pleiōn) — [More](#reg-more) (p. 262)
- ποιεῖν (poiein), πάσχειν (paschein), πρᾶγμα (pragma), προσεῖναι (proseinai) — [Action and undergoing](#entry-action-and-undergoing) (p. 15)
- ποιέω (poieō) — [Do](#reg-do) (p. 239)
- ποίημα (poiēma) — [Poem](#reg-poem) (p. 270)
- πόλις (polis) — [City](#reg-city) (p. 232)
- πολίτης (politēs) — [Citizen](#reg-citizen) (p. 232)
- πολύς (polys) — [Many](#reg-many) (p. 261)
- πονηρός (ponēros) — [Base](#reg-base) (p. 225)
- ποτέ (pote) — [After all](#reg-after-all) (p. 220)
- ποτόν (poton) — [Drink](#reg-drink) (p. 240)
- ποτόν (poton), ὑγρός (hygros), τροφή (trophē) — [Drink and wetness](#entry-drink-and-wetness) (p. 62)
- πρεσβύτερος, πρεσβύτατος (presbyteros, presbytatos) — [Older and eldest](#reg-older-and-eldest) (p. 266)
- πρόσειμι (proseimi) — [Belong to](#reg-belong-to) (p. 228)
- προσέχω (prosechō); νοῦς (nous); ἀποκρίνομαι (apokrinomai); ἀπόκρισις (apokrisis); εἰκῇ (eikēi) — [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30)
- προσέχω τὸν νοῦν (prosechō ton noun) — [Attention](#reg-attention) (p. 224)
- ῥαψῳδός (rhapsōdos) — [Rhapsode](#reg-rhapsode) (p. 274)
- ῥῆμα (rhēma) — [Sayings](#reg-sayings) (p. 276)
- Σιμωνίδης (Simōnidēs); Κεῖος (Keios); μισθός (misthos); δῶρον (dōron) — [Simonides fees and gifts](#entry-simonides-fees-and-gifts) (p. 177)
- σιτίον (sition) — [Food](#reg-food) (p. 246)
- σιτίον (sition), τροφή (trophē), ξηρός (xēros) — [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78)
- σκεῦος (skeuos) — [Tackle](#reg-tackle) (p. 282)
- σμικρός (smikros) — [Small](#reg-small) (p. 279)
- σμικρός (smikros), μέγας (megas), ὀλίγος (oligos), πολύς (polys) — [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179)
- σοφία (sophia) — [Wisdom](#reg-wisdom) (p. 291)
- σοφία (sophia); σοφός (sophos) — [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209)
- σοφός (sophos) — [Wise](#reg-wise) (p. 291)
- σπουδάζω (spoudazō) — [Earnest](#reg-earnest) (p. 241)
- σταθμός (stathmos) — [Weight](#reg-weight) (p. 290)
- σταθμός (stathmos), ἥμισυς (hēmisys), διπλάσιος (diplasios), δωδεκαστάσιος (dōdekastasios), διστάσιος (distasios), ἀντί (anti) — [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207)
- Στειριακός (Steiriakos) — [Steirian](#reg-steirian) (p. 281)
- στείχω (steichō) — [Go your way](#reg-go-your-way) (p. 249)
- στρατηγός (stratēgos) — [General](#reg-general) (p. 248)
- στρατηγός (stratēgos); στρατιά (stratia); ὅπλον (hoplon) — [General and arms](#entry-general-and-arms) (p. 87)
- στρατιά (stratia) — [Army](#reg-army) (p. 223)
- στρέφω (strephō) — [Turn or twist](#reg-turn-or-twist) (p. 286)
- συγγίγνομαι (syngignomai) — [Stay or associate](#reg-stay-or-associate) (p. 281)
- συλλήβδην (syllēbdēn) — [In sum](#reg-in-sum) (p. 254)
- σύμφημι (symphēmi) — [Concur](#reg-concur) (p. 233)
- σφόδρα (sphodra) — [Much or very](#reg-much-or-very) (p. 262)
- Σωκράτης (Sōkratēs) — [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181)
- σῶμα (sōma) — [Body](#entry-body) (p. 42)
- σῶμα (sōma) — [Body](#reg-body) (p. 229)
- ταὐτόν / τὸ αὐτό (tauton / to auto), διαφέρειν (diapherein), ὁμοίως (homoiōs), ἀμφότερα (amphotera) — [Sameness and difference](#entry-sameness-and-difference) (p. 170)
- τί ἐστιν (ti estin), τὸ αὐτό (to auto), καλεῖν (kalein), ὄνομα (onoma) — [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56)
- τις, τι (tis, ti) — [Some](#reg-some) (p. 279)
- τολμάω (tolmaō) — [Dare](#reg-dare) (p. 236)
- τόξον (toxon) — [Bow](#reg-bow) (p. 230)
- τοξότης (toxotēs) — [Archer](#reg-archer) (p. 222)
- τοξότης (toxotēs); τόξον (toxon) — [Archer and bow](#entry-archer-and-bow) (p. 26)
- τρόπος (tropos) — [Way or manner](#reg-way-or-manner) (p. 289)
- τυγχάνω (tynchanō) — [Happen to be](#reg-happen-to-be) (p. 250)
- τυραννίς (tyrannis) — [Tyranny](#reg-tyranny) (p. 287)
- ὑγίεια (hygieia) — [Health](#reg-health) (p. 251)
- ὑγίεια (hygieia), νόσος (nosos) — [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97)
- ὑγρός (hygros) — [Wet](#reg-wet) (p. 290)
- ὑπερφυῶς (hyperphyōs) — [Excessively](#reg-excessively) (p. 243)
- ὑπόληψις (hypolēpsis) — [Taking up](#reg-taking-up) (p. 283)
- ὑπομιμνῄσκω (hypomimnēskō) — [Remind](#reg-remind) (p. 273)
- φθονεῖν (phthonein); οὐδενί (oudeni) — [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69)
- φθονέω (phthoneō) — [Begrudge](#reg-begrudge) (p. 228)
- φιλεῖν (philein); μισεῖν (misein) — [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130)
- φιλέω (phileō) — [Love](#reg-love) (p. 259)
- φιλοκερδής (philokerdēs) — [Lover of gain](#reg-lover-of-gain) (p. 260)
- φιλοκερδής (philokerdēs); τὸ φιλοκερδές (to philokerdes); φιλοκερδεῖν (philokerdein) — [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133)
- φίλος (philos) — [Friend](#reg-friend) (p. 247)
- φίλος (philos); φιλεῖν (philein) — [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80)
- φοιτάω (phoitaō) — [Visit repeatedly](#reg-visit-repeatedly) (p. 289)
- φράζω (phrazō) — [Explain](#reg-explain) (p. 243)
- φρονέω (phroneō) — [Mind or think](#reg-mind-or-think) (p. 262)
- φυτεύω (phyteuō) — [Planting](#reg-planting) (p. 269)
- φυτόν (phyton) — [Plant](#reg-plant) (p. 269)
- χαρίεις (charieis) — [Cultivated](#reg-cultivated) (p. 235)
- χαρίεις (charieis); οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi); εὐήθης (euēthēs) — [The cultivated and the many](#entry-the-cultivated-and-the-many) (p. 191)
- χράομαι (chraomai) — [Use](#reg-use) (p. 288)
- χρηστός (chrēstos) — [Decent](#reg-decent) (p. 236)
- χρηστός (chrēstos); πονηρός (ponēros) — [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51)
- χρυσίον (chrysion) — [Gold](#reg-gold) (p. 249)
- χρυσίον (chrysion), ἀργύριον (argyrion) — [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90)
- χώρα (chōra) — [Place or region](#reg-place-or-region) (p. 269)
- ὥρα (hōra) — [Time or season](#reg-time-or-season) (p. 285)
- ὥρα (hōra); χώρα (chōra) — [Time and place](#entry-time-and-place) (p. 200)
- ὠφελεῖσθαι (ōpheleisthai); ὠφέλιμος (ōphelimos); ἀνωφελής (anōphelēs); βλάπτεσθαι (blaptesthai) — [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39)
- ὠφελέομαι (ōpheleomai) — [Be benefited](#reg-be-benefited) (p. 227)
- ὠφέλιμος (ōphelimos) — [Be beneficial](#reg-be-beneficial) (p. 226)

# Passage index {#passage-index}

The following routes include both direct attestations and articles discussing the passage. Ranges are expanded into the sections they cover; the destinations explain their exact relevance.

### 225a {#passage-225a}

**Full articles.** [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35) · [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56) · [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123) · [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133) · [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145) · [Senselessness and intelligence](#entry-senselessness-and-intelligence) (p. 172) · [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198) · [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)

**Register.** [After all](#reg-after-all) (p. 220) · [Be](#reg-be) (p. 226) · [Be ignorant](#reg-be-ignorant) (p. 227) · [Know](#reg-know) (p. 257) · [Lover of gain](#reg-lover-of-gain) (p. 260) · [Senseless](#reg-senseless) (p. 277) · [Then in an opening question](#reg-then-in-an-opening-question) (p. 284) · [Think fit](#reg-think-fit) (p. 284) · [Unscrupulous](#reg-unscrupulous) (p. 288)

**Phrase glosses.** [An opening that already answers someone](#gloss-phrase-opening-question) (p. 294) · [Thinking fit to gain from what is worth nothing](#gloss-phrase-think-fit-worth) (p. 294)

### 225b {#passage-225b}

**Full articles.** [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30) · [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74) · [Shamelessness and daring](#entry-shamelessness-and-daring) (p. 175) · [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204)

**Register.** [Base](#reg-base) (p. 225) · [Dare](#reg-dare) (p. 236) · [Farmer](#reg-farmer) (p. 244) · [From everything](#reg-from-everything) (p. 247) · [Grow or rear](#reg-grow-or-rear) (p. 250) · [No match for](#reg-no-match-for) (p. 264) · [Ought](#reg-ought) (p. 267) · [Plant](#reg-plant) (p. 269) · [Planting](#reg-planting) (p. 269) · [Randomly](#reg-randomly) (p. 272) · [Shamelessness](#reg-shamelessness) (p. 277) · [Think or suppose](#reg-think-or-suppose) (p. 284) · [Wronged](#reg-wronged) (p. 293)

**Phrase glosses.** [Being weaker than gain](#gloss-phrase-no-match-for-gain) (p. 295)

### 225c {#passage-225c}

**Full articles.** [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30) · [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46) · [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74) · [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123) · [Lawsuits and fine speaking](#entry-lawsuits-and-fine-speaking) (p. 126) · [Time and place](#entry-time-and-place) (p. 200)

**Register.** [Again](#reg-again) (p. 221) · [Answer](#reg-answer) (p. 222) · [Attention](#reg-attention) (p. 224) · [Beginning](#reg-beginning) (p. 228) · [Clever](#reg-clever) (p. 232) · [Knowledgeable](#reg-knowledgeable) (p. 257) · [Lawsuit](#reg-lawsuit) (p. 258) · [Place or region](#reg-place-or-region) (p. 269) · [Speak finely](#reg-speak-finely) (p. 280) · [Throw in](#reg-throw-in) (p. 285) · [Time or season](#reg-time-or-season) (p. 285) · [Where from](#reg-where-from) (p. 291)

**Phrase glosses.** [The paired datives of time and place](#gloss-phrase-time-and-clime) (p. 296)

### 225d {#passage-225d}

**Full articles.** [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74) · [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198)

**Register.** [Attempt](#reg-attempt) (p. 224)

**Phrase glosses.** [A question shaped to obtain agreement](#gloss-phrase-anything-other-than) (p. 296)

### 226a {#passage-226a}

**Full articles.** [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74) · [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78) · [Horseman and horse](#entry-horseman-and-horse) (p. 110)

**Register.** [Farming](#reg-farming) (p. 244) · [Food](#reg-food) (p. 246) · [Horse](#reg-horse) (p. 252) · [Horseman](#reg-horseman) (p. 253) · [Provide](#reg-provide) (p. 271) · [Ruin](#reg-ruin) (p. 275) · [Truly](#reg-truly) (p. 286) · [Young](#reg-young) (p. 293) · [Zeus](#reg-zeus) (p. 293)

### 226b {#passage-226b}

**Full articles.** [Horseman and horse](#entry-horseman-and-horse) (p. 110) · [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128) · [Pilot and ship](#entry-pilot-and-ship) (p. 156)

**Register.** [Carry](#reg-carry) (p. 231) · [Perish](#reg-perish) (p. 268) · [Pilot](#reg-pilot) (p. 268) · [Prepare or equip](#reg-prepare-or-equip) (p. 271) · [Risk and likelihood](#reg-risk-and-likelihood) (p. 274) · [Rudder](#reg-rudder) (p. 275) · [Sail](#reg-sail) (p. 276) · [Ship](#reg-ship) (p. 277) · [Suffer loss](#reg-suffer-loss) (p. 282) · [Tackle](#reg-tackle) (p. 282)

### 226c {#passage-226c}

**Full articles.** [Archer and bow](#entry-archer-and-bow) (p. 26) · [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46) · [General and arms](#entry-general-and-arms) (p. 87) · [Musicians and instruments](#entry-musicians-and-instruments) (p. 140) · [Pilot and ship](#entry-pilot-and-ship) (p. 156) · [Senselessness and intelligence](#entry-senselessness-and-intelligence) (p. 172) · [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198)

**Register.** [Archer](#reg-archer) (p. 222) · [Arms](#reg-arms) (p. 222) · [Army](#reg-army) (p. 223) · [Bow](#reg-bow) (p. 230) · [Craftsman](#reg-craftsman) (p. 235) · [Equipment](#reg-equipment) (p. 242) · [Flute](#reg-flute) (p. 246) · [Flute player](#reg-flute-player) (p. 246) · [General](#reg-general) (p. 248) · [In sum](#reg-in-sum) (p. 254) · [Instrument](#reg-instrument) (p. 255) · [Intelligent](#reg-intelligent) (p. 255) · [Lyre](#reg-lyre) (p. 260) · [Lyre player](#reg-lyre-player) (p. 260)

### 226d {#passage-226d}

**Full articles.** [All some and none](#entry-all-some-and-none) (p. 22) · [Courage and courteous addresses](#entry-courage-and-courteous-addresses) (p. 44) · [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112) · [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117) · [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179) · [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188) · [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212)

**Register.** [Every time](#reg-every-time) (p. 242) · [Go through](#reg-go-through) (p. 249) · [Insatiability](#reg-insatiability) (p. 255) · [No one](#reg-no-one) (p. 265) · [Wonderfully addressed](#reg-wonderfully-addressed) (p. 292)

### 226e {#passage-226e}

**Full articles.** [Courage and courteous addresses](#entry-courage-and-courteous-addresses) (p. 44) · [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117) · [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123) · [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130) · [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133) · [Necessity and impossibility](#entry-necessity-and-impossibility) (p. 143) · [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145) · [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147) · [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)

**Register.** [Argument](#reg-argument) (p. 222) · [Crave](#reg-crave) (p. 235) · [Evident](#reg-evident) (p. 243) · [Excessively](#reg-excessively) (p. 243) · [Few or little](#reg-few-or-little) (p. 245) · [Gain](#reg-gain) (p. 247) · [Impossible](#reg-impossible) (p. 254) · [Love](#reg-love) (p. 259) · [Refute](#reg-refute) (p. 272) · [Small](#reg-small) (p. 279) · [Worth nothing](#reg-worth-nothing) (p. 292)

**Phrase glosses.** [An argument that has refuted its own speakers](#gloss-phrase-refuted-ourselves) (p. 297) · [A participial alternative with the verb understood](#gloss-phrase-if-not-knowing) (p. 298)

### 227a {#passage-227a}

**Full articles.** [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128)

**Register.** [Bad](#reg-bad) (p. 225) · [Contrary](#reg-contrary) (p. 234) · [Good](#reg-good) (p. 249) · [Harm](#reg-harm) (p. 251) · [Loss](#reg-loss) (p. 259)

**Phrase glosses.** [From a dative of opposition to a new conclusion](#gloss-phrase-opposite-and-conclusion) (p. 298)

### 227b {#passage-227b}

**Full articles.** [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130) · [Senselessness and intelligence](#entry-senselessness-and-intelligence) (p. 172)

**Register.** [Companion](#reg-companion) (p. 233) · [Mad](#reg-mad) (p. 261)

### 227c {#passage-227c}

**Full articles.** [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Archer and bow](#entry-archer-and-bow) (p. 26) · [Error and correctness](#entry-error-and-correctness) (p. 71) · [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130) · [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133) · [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145)

**Register.** [Hate](#reg-hate) (p. 251) · [Rightly](#reg-rightly) (p. 274) · [Use](#reg-use) (p. 288) · [Way or manner](#reg-way-or-manner) (p. 289)

### 227d {#passage-227d}

**Full articles.** [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Courage and courteous addresses](#entry-courage-and-courteous-addresses) (p. 44) · [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Error and correctness](#entry-error-and-correctness) (p. 71) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117) · [Shamelessness and daring](#entry-shamelessness-and-daring) (p. 175) · [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198) · [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204) · [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212)

**Register.** [All](#reg-all) (p. 221) · [Always](#reg-always) (p. 221) · [Be benefited](#reg-be-benefited) (p. 227) · [Decent](#reg-decent) (p. 236) · [Earnest](#reg-earnest) (p. 241) · [If indeed](#reg-if-indeed) (p. 253) · [Judge or think](#reg-judge-or-think) (p. 256) · [Now just recently](#reg-now-just-recently) (p. 265) · [Want or wish](#reg-want-or-wish) (p. 289)

**Phrase glosses.** [What a claim to prior agreement includes](#gloss-phrase-strengthened-recap) (p. 299) · [The condition attached to all gains](#gloss-phrase-if-indeed-good) (p. 300)

### 227e {#passage-227e}

**Full articles.** [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128)

**Register.** [Be about to](#reg-be-about-to) (p. 226) · [Both](#reg-both) (p. 229)

### 228a {#passage-228a}

**Full articles.** [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123) · [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147) · [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181)

**Register.** [Deceive](#reg-deceive) (p. 236) · [Intentionally](#reg-intentionally) (p. 256) · [Turn or twist](#reg-turn-or-twist) (p. 286)

**Phrase glosses.** [Turning an accusation back on its speaker](#gloss-phrase-the-opposite-you) (p. 300)

### 228b {#passage-228b}

**Full articles.** [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28) · [Auspicious speech](#entry-auspicious-speech) (p. 33) · [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35) · [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101) · [Homer and rhapsodes](#entry-homer-and-rhapsodes) (p. 106) · [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112) · [Panathenaea](#entry-panathenaea) (p. 150) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154) · [Pisistratus and Philaidae](#entry-pisistratus-and-philaidae) (p. 159) · [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181) · [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209)

**Register.** [Bring](#reg-bring) (p. 230) · [Citizen](#reg-citizen) (p. 232) · [Display](#reg-display) (p. 239) · [Fine](#reg-fine) (p. 245) · [Here and now](#reg-here-and-now) (p. 252) · [In order](#reg-in-order) (p. 254) · [Land](#reg-land) (p. 258) · [Older and eldest](#reg-older-and-eldest) (p. 266) · [Rhapsode](#reg-rhapsode) (p. 274) · [Son or child](#reg-son-or-child) (p. 279) · [Speak auspiciously](#reg-speak-auspiciously) (p. 279) · [Still](#reg-still) (p. 281) · [Taking up](#reg-taking-up) (p. 283) · [Wise](#reg-wise) (p. 291)

**Phrase glosses.** [Taking up a recital from the preceding performer](#gloss-phrase-recital-in-sequence) (p. 301)

### 228c {#passage-228c}

**Full articles.** [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17) · [Anacreon and the fifty oared ship](#entry-anacreon-and-the-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 24) · [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69) · [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101) · [Musicians and instruments](#entry-musicians-and-instruments) (p. 140) · [Simonides fees and gifts](#entry-simonides-fees-and-gifts) (p. 177) · [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202)

**Register.** [Begrudge](#reg-begrudge) (p. 228) · [Better and best](#reg-better-and-best) (p. 229) · [City](#reg-city) (p. 232) · [Educate](#reg-educate) (p. 241) · [Fifty oared ship](#reg-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 245) · [Fine and good](#reg-fine-and-good) (p. 245) · [Gift](#reg-gift) (p. 248) · [Pay or fee](#reg-pay-or-fee) (p. 267) · [Rule](#reg-rule) (p. 275) · [Town](#reg-town) (p. 285)

**Phrase glosses.** [A purpose clause about educated citizens](#gloss-phrase-rule-the-best) (p. 302) · [A character-description presented as a reason](#gloss-phrase-fine-and-good) (p. 302)

### 228d {#passage-228d}

**Full articles.** [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17) · [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35) · [Discovery and learning](#entry-discovery-and-learning) (p. 60) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67) · [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99) · [Pisistratus and Philaidae](#entry-pisistratus-and-philaidae) (p. 159) · [Roads and Steiria](#entry-roads-and-steiria) (p. 168) · [Time and place](#entry-time-and-place) (p. 200) · [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202) · [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209)

**Register.** [Admire](#reg-admire) (p. 220) · [Choose](#reg-choose) (p. 231) · [Country](#reg-country) (p. 234) · [Deme](#reg-deme) (p. 236) · [Discover](#reg-discover) (p. 238) · [Elegiac verse](#reg-elegiac-verse) (p. 241) · [Herm](#reg-herm) (p. 252) · [Learn](#reg-learn) (p. 258) · [Middle](#reg-middle) (p. 262) · [Plot](#reg-plot) (p. 269) · [Poem](#reg-poem) (p. 270) · [Put into verse](#reg-put-into-verse) (p. 271) · [Road](#reg-road) (p. 275) · [Specimen](#reg-specimen) (p. 280) · [Stand or set up](#reg-stand-or-set-up) (p. 281) · [Wisdom](#reg-wisdom) (p. 291)

### 228e {#passage-228e}

**Full articles.** [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17) · [Delphi and its maxims](#entry-delphi-and-its-maxims) (p. 58) · [Discovery and learning](#entry-discovery-and-learning) (p. 60) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67) · [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69) · [Inscriptions and memorials](#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials) (p. 119) · [Lawsuits and fine speaking](#entry-lawsuits-and-fine-speaking) (p. 126) · [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202)

**Register.** [Inscription](#reg-inscription) (p. 255) · [Know thyself](#reg-know-thyself) (p. 257) · [Nothing too much](#reg-nothing-too-much) (p. 265) · [Pass by](#reg-pass-by) (p. 267) · [Read](#reg-read) (p. 272) · [Sayings](#reg-sayings) (p. 276) · [Taste](#reg-taste) (p. 283) · [The remaining things](#reg-the-remaining-things) (p. 283) · [Visit repeatedly](#reg-visit-repeatedly) (p. 289)

**Phrase glosses.** [A sample intended to produce further study](#gloss-phrase-taste-of-wisdom) (p. 303) · [The dual marks the pair](#gloss-phrase-two-inscriptions) (p. 304)

### 229a {#passage-229a}

**Full articles.** [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99) · [Inscriptions and memorials](#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials) (p. 119) · [Justice and just thoughts](#entry-justice-and-just-thoughts) (p. 121) · [Roads and Steiria](#entry-roads-and-steiria) (p. 168)

**Register.** [Go your way](#reg-go-your-way) (p. 249) · [Just](#reg-just) (p. 256) · [Memorial](#reg-memorial) (p. 261) · [Mind or think](#reg-mind-or-think) (p. 262) · [Steirian](#reg-steirian) (p. 281)

**Phrase glosses.** [A monument speaks to the passer-by](#gloss-phrase-memorial-and-journey) (p. 304)

### 229b {#passage-229b}

**Full articles.** [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28) · [Cronus and the golden age](#entry-cronus-and-the-golden-age) (p. 49) · [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53) · [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67) · [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80) · [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101) · [Hippias and tyranny](#entry-hippias-and-tyranny) (p. 103) · [Justice and just thoughts](#entry-justice-and-just-thoughts) (p. 121) · [Shamelessness and daring](#entry-shamelessness-and-daring) (p. 175) · [The cultivated and the many](#entry-the-cultivated-and-the-many) (p. 191)

**Register.** [Brother](#reg-brother) (p. 230) · [Cultivated](#reg-cultivated) (p. 235) · [Die](#reg-die) (p. 237) · [Disbelieve or disobey](#reg-disbelieve-or-disobey) (p. 238) · [Friend](#reg-friend) (p. 247) · [Hear](#reg-hear) (p. 251) · [Nearly](#reg-nearly) (p. 263) · [Old](#reg-old) (p. 266) · [Tyranny](#reg-tyranny) (p. 287)

**Phrase glosses.** [A negative command used in self defence](#gloss-phrase-do-not-deceive-friend) (p. 305)

### 229c {#passage-229c}

**Full articles.** [Basket bearing and the sister](#entry-basket-bearing-and-the-sister) (p. 37) · [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65) · [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94) · [Honour dishonour and rivalry](#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry) (p. 108) · [Panathenaea](#entry-panathenaea) (p. 150) · [The cultivated and the many](#entry-the-cultivated-and-the-many) (p. 191)

**Register.** [Basket bearing](#reg-basket-bearing) (p. 225) · [Beloved](#reg-beloved) (p. 228) · [Many](#reg-many) (p. 261) · [Opponent](#reg-opponent) (p. 266) · [Pride](#reg-pride) (p. 271) · [Simple minded](#reg-simple-minded) (p. 278) · [Sister](#reg-sister) (p. 278)

**Phrase glosses.** [Thinking greatly of an educational achievement](#gloss-phrase-pride-in-educating) (p. 306)

### 229d {#passage-229d}

**Full articles.** [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17) · [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69) · [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80) · [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94) · [Honour dishonour and rivalry](#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry) (p. 108) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154) · [The cultivated and the many](#entry-the-cultivated-and-the-many) (p. 191) · [The unnamed companion](#entry-unnamed-companion) (p. 193) · [The unnamed young man](#entry-unnamed-young-man) (p. 195) · [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209)

**Register.** [Contempt](#reg-contempt) (p. 234) · [Dishonour](#reg-dishonour) (p. 238) · [Kill](#reg-kill) (p. 257) · [Love erotically](#reg-love-erotically) (p. 260) · [Remember](#reg-remember) (p. 273) · [Stay or associate](#reg-stay-or-associate) (p. 281) · [Strongly pained](#reg-strongly-pained) (p. 282) · [Wellborn](#reg-wellborn) (p. 290)

**Phrase glosses.** [An appearance rather than literal danger](#gloss-phrase-it-looks-as-though) (p. 306)

### 229e {#passage-229e}

**Full articles.** [Auspicious speech](#entry-auspicious-speech) (p. 33) · [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Necessity and impossibility](#entry-necessity-and-impossibility) (p. 143) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154) · [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181) · [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186) · [The unnamed companion](#entry-unnamed-companion) (p. 193) · [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212)

**Register.** [Be able](#reg-be-able) (p. 226) · [Be willing](#reg-be-willing) (p. 227) · [Desire](#reg-desire) (p. 237) · [Draughts](#reg-draughts) (p. 240) · [Take back](#reg-take-back) (p. 283)

**Phrase glosses.** [A retraction offered as a courtesy](#gloss-phrase-take-back-a-move) (p. 307)

### 230a {#passage-230a}

**Full articles.** [All some and none](#entry-all-some-and-none) (p. 22) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Horseman and horse](#entry-horseman-and-horse) (p. 110) · [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186) · [The unnamed companion](#entry-unnamed-companion) (p. 193)

**Register.** [Ask](#reg-ask) (p. 223) · [Explain](#reg-explain) (p. 243) · [Some](#reg-some) (p. 279)

**Phrase glosses.** [Restricting a universal without rejecting every case](#gloss-phrase-not-all-of-it) (p. 308)

### 230b {#passage-230b}

**Full articles.** [Action and undergoing](#entry-action-and-undergoing) (p. 15) · [Drink and wetness](#entry-drink-and-wetness) (p. 62) · [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78) · [Sameness and difference](#entry-sameness-and-difference) (p. 170)

**Register.** [As far as being food](#reg-as-far-as-being-food) (p. 223) · [Different](#reg-different) (p. 237)

**Phrase glosses.** [Keeping a comparison within its stated respect](#gloss-phrase-in-respect-of-being) (p. 308)

### 230c {#passage-230c}

**Full articles.** [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112) · [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · [Necessity and impossibility](#entry-necessity-and-impossibility) (p. 143) · [Sameness and difference](#entry-sameness-and-difference) (p. 170) · [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188)

**Register.** [Human being](#reg-human-being) (p. 253) · [Necessary](#reg-necessary) (p. 263) · [Neither](#reg-neither) (p. 264) · [True](#reg-true) (p. 285) · [Understand or consider](#reg-understand-or-consider) (p. 287)

### 230d {#passage-230d}

**Full articles.** [Action and undergoing](#entry-action-and-undergoing) (p. 15) · [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56) · [Gainful and without gain](#entry-gainful-and-without-gain) (p. 85) · [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115) · [Necessity and impossibility](#entry-necessity-and-impossibility) (p. 143) · [Sameness and difference](#entry-sameness-and-difference) (p. 170)

**Register.** [Belong to](#reg-belong-to) (p. 228) · [Call](#reg-call) (p. 230) · [Do](#reg-do) (p. 239) · [Equally](#reg-equally) (p. 242) · [Look into](#reg-look-into) (p. 259) · [Same](#reg-same) (p. 276) · [See](#reg-see) (p. 277) · [Undergo](#reg-undergo) (p. 287)

**Phrase glosses.** [Extending a comparison to action and experience](#gloss-phrase-do-or-undergo) (p. 309) · [A definition requested through a shared feature](#gloss-phrase-what-same-do-you-see) (p. 310)

### 230e {#passage-230e}

**Full articles.** [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30) · [Body](#entry-body) (p. 42) · [Drink and wetness](#entry-drink-and-wetness) (p. 62) · [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78) · [Quantity and quality](#entry-quantity-and-quality) (p. 163) · [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188)

**Register.** [Body](#reg-body) (p. 229) · [Dry](#reg-dry) (p. 240) · [Wet](#reg-wet) (p. 290)

### 231a {#passage-231a}

**Full articles.** [All some and none](#entry-all-some-and-none) (p. 22) · [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30) · [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56) · [Drink and wetness](#entry-drink-and-wetness) (p. 62) · [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115) · [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161) · [Spending and receiving](#entry-spending-and-receiving) (p. 183)

**Register.** [Acquire](#reg-acquire) (p. 220) · [Drink](#reg-drink) (p. 240) · [Get](#reg-get) (p. 248) · [Imitate](#reg-imitate) (p. 253) · [Less](#reg-less) (p. 259) · [More](#reg-more) (p. 262) · [Name](#reg-name) (p. 263) · [Possession](#reg-possession) (p. 270) · [Spend](#reg-spend) (p. 280) · [Without spending anything](#reg-without-spending-anything) (p. 291)

**Phrase glosses.** [Two routes into the proposed definition of gain](#gloss-phrase-spending-and-receiving) (p. 310)

### 231b {#passage-231b}

**Full articles.** [Body](#entry-body) (p. 42) · [Feast and hospitality](#entry-feast-and-hospitality) (p. 76) · [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97) · [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115) · [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161) · [Quantity and quality](#entry-quantity-and-quality) (p. 163) · [Spending and receiving](#entry-spending-and-receiving) (p. 183)

**Register.** [Disease](#reg-disease) (p. 238) · [Entertain](#reg-entertain) (p. 241) · [Feast richly](#reg-feast-richly) (p. 244) · [Health](#reg-health) (p. 251) · [Or](#reg-or) (p. 266)

**Phrase glosses.** [When acquiring something is not gaining](#gloss-phrase-acquiring-disease) (p. 311)

### 231c {#passage-231c}

**Full articles.** [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90) · [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97) · [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145) · [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152) · [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188)

**Register.** [At a loss](#reg-at-a-loss) (p. 224) · [Return in a circle](#reg-return-in-a-circle) (p. 273) · [Unjustly](#reg-unjustly) (p. 288)

### 231d {#passage-231d}

**Full articles.** [Action and undergoing](#entry-action-and-undergoing) (p. 15) · [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90) · [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128) · [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · [Necessity and impossibility](#entry-necessity-and-impossibility) (p. 143) · [Quantity and quality](#entry-quantity-and-quality) (p. 163) · [Spending and receiving](#entry-spending-and-receiving) (p. 183) · [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188) · [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)

**Register.** [Certainly or surely](#reg-certainly-or-surely) (p. 231) · [Double](#reg-double) (p. 239) · [Exchange instead of](#reg-exchange-instead-of) (p. 243) · [Gold](#reg-gold) (p. 249) · [Half](#reg-half) (p. 250) · [Silver](#reg-silver) (p. 278) · [Twelvefold weight](#reg-twelvefold-weight) (p. 286) · [Twice the weight](#reg-twice-the-weight) (p. 287) · [Value or worth](#reg-value-or-worth) (p. 289) · [Weight](#reg-weight) (p. 290)

**Phrase glosses.** [Supplying the missing standard of more](#gloss-phrase-not-in-worth) (p. 312)

### 231e {#passage-231e}

**Full articles.** [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39) · [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83) · [Gainful and without gain](#entry-gainful-and-without-gain) (p. 85) · [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161) · [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179) · [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214) · [Worth possessing](#entry-worth-possessing) (p. 217)

**Register.** [Be beneficial](#reg-be-beneficial) (p. 226) · [Gainful](#reg-gainful) (p. 247) · [Much or very](#reg-much-or-very) (p. 262) · [No benefit](#reg-no-benefit) (p. 264) · [No gain](#reg-no-gain) (p. 264) · [Possess](#reg-possess) (p. 270) · [Worthless](#reg-worthless) (p. 292)

**Phrase glosses.** [A perfect infinitive names the state of possession](#gloss-phrase-worth-possessing) (p. 312)

### 232a {#passage-232a}

**Full articles.** [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30) · [Courage and courteous addresses](#entry-courage-and-courteous-addresses) (p. 44) · [Gainful and without gain](#entry-gainful-and-without-gain) (p. 85) · [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92) · [Memory and reminders](#entry-memory-and-reminders) (p. 135) · [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152) · [Worth possessing](#entry-worth-possessing) (p. 217)

**Register.** [Come round](#reg-come-round) (p. 232) · [Courageous](#reg-courageous) (p. 234) · [Dispute](#reg-dispute) (p. 239) · [Remind](#reg-remind) (p. 273)

### 232b {#passage-232b}

**Full articles.** [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19) · [All some and none](#entry-all-some-and-none) (p. 22) · [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138) · [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154) · [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179)

**Register.** [At least](#reg-at-least) (p. 224) · [Compel](#reg-compel) (p. 233) · [Concur](#reg-concur) (p. 233) · [Perhaps](#reg-perhaps) (p. 268) · [Persuade](#reg-persuade) (p. 268)

**Phrase glosses.** [What agreement has and has not achieved](#gloss-phrase-compelled-not-persuaded) (p. 313)

### 232c {#passage-232c}

**Full articles.** [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51) · [Error and correctness](#entry-error-and-correctness) (p. 71) · [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112) · [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117) · [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130) · [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133) · [Memory and reminders](#entry-memory-and-reminders) (p. 135) · [Reproach and the ending](#entry-reproach-and-the-ending) (p. 166) · [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188)

**Register.** [Happen to be](#reg-happen-to-be) (p. 250) · [Reproach](#reg-reproach) (p. 273)

**Phrase glosses.** [A conclusion located within accepted commitments](#gloss-phrase-by-your-argument) (p. 314) · [The final participle brings the reproach home](#gloss-phrase-turns-out-to-be) (p. 314)

# Thematic index {#thematic-index}

Use these routes to compare related entries across the alphabetical arrangement. A subject can belong to more than one theme without adding another independent definition.

## Gain and value

- [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39)
- [Body](#entry-body) (p. 42)
- [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46)
- [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51)
- [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56)
- [Error and correctness](#entry-error-and-correctness) (p. 71)
- [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74)
- [Feast and hospitality](#entry-feast-and-hospitality) (p. 76)
- [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83)
- [Gainful and without gain](#entry-gainful-and-without-gain) (p. 85)
- [General and arms](#entry-general-and-arms) (p. 87)
- [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90)
- [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92)
- [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97)
- [Horseman and horse](#entry-horseman-and-horse) (p. 110)
- [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117)
- [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128)
- [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130)
- [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133)
- [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138)
- [Musicians and instruments](#entry-musicians-and-instruments) (p. 140)
- [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147)
- [Pilot and ship](#entry-pilot-and-ship) (p. 156)
- [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161)
- [Quantity and quality](#entry-quantity-and-quality) (p. 163)
- [Simonides fees and gifts](#entry-simonides-fees-and-gifts) (p. 177)
- [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179)
- [Spending and receiving](#entry-spending-and-receiving) (p. 183)
- [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198)
- [Time and place](#entry-time-and-place) (p. 200)
- [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204)
- [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207)
- [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)
- [Worth possessing](#entry-worth-possessing) (p. 217)

## Knowledge and desire

- [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17)
- [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19)
- [Archer and bow](#entry-archer-and-bow) (p. 26)
- [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30)
- [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46)
- [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53)
- [Delphi and its maxims](#entry-delphi-and-its-maxims) (p. 58)
- [Discovery and learning](#entry-discovery-and-learning) (p. 60)
- [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65)
- [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69)
- [Error and correctness](#entry-error-and-correctness) (p. 71)
- [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74)
- [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80)
- [General and arms](#entry-general-and-arms) (p. 87)
- [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92)
- [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94)
- [Honour dishonour and rivalry](#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry) (p. 108)
- [Horseman and horse](#entry-horseman-and-horse) (p. 110)
- [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112)
- [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115)
- [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117)
- [Justice and just thoughts](#entry-justice-and-just-thoughts) (p. 121)
- [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123)
- [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130)
- [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133)
- [Memory and reminders](#entry-memory-and-reminders) (p. 135)
- [Necessity and impossibility](#entry-necessity-and-impossibility) (p. 143)
- [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145)
- [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152)
- [Pilot and ship](#entry-pilot-and-ship) (p. 156)
- [Reproach and the ending](#entry-reproach-and-the-ending) (p. 166)
- [Senselessness and intelligence](#entry-senselessness-and-intelligence) (p. 172)
- [Shamelessness and daring](#entry-shamelessness-and-daring) (p. 175)
- [Small and great](#entry-small-and-great) (p. 179)
- [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198)
- [Unscrupulousness](#entry-unscrupulousness) (p. 204)
- [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209)
- [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212)
- [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)

## Argument and language

- [Action and undergoing](#entry-action-and-undergoing) (p. 15)
- [Agreement and recollection](#entry-agreement-and-recollection) (p. 19)
- [All some and none](#entry-all-some-and-none) (p. 22)
- [Archer and bow](#entry-archer-and-bow) (p. 26)
- [Attention and answering](#entry-attention-and-answering) (p. 30)
- [Auspicious speech](#entry-auspicious-speech) (p. 33)
- [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35)
- [Benefit and harm](#entry-benefit-and-harm) (p. 39)
- [Courage and courteous addresses](#entry-courage-and-courteous-addresses) (p. 44)
- [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46)
- [Decent and base](#entry-decent-and-base) (p. 51)
- [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53)
- [Definition and common character](#entry-definition-and-common-character) (p. 56)
- [Drink and wetness](#entry-drink-and-wetness) (p. 62)
- [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67)
- [Error and correctness](#entry-error-and-correctness) (p. 71)
- [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78)
- [Friendship](#entry-friendship) (p. 80)
- [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83)
- [Gainful and without gain](#entry-gainful-and-without-gain) (p. 85)
- [Good and bad](#entry-good-and-bad) (p. 92)
- [Hippias and tyranny](#entry-hippias-and-tyranny) (p. 103)
- [Human beings](#entry-human-beings) (p. 112)
- [Inquiry and imitation](#entry-inquiry-and-imitation) (p. 115)
- [Insatiability and craving](#entry-insatiability-and-craving) (p. 117)
- [Inscriptions and memorials](#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials) (p. 119)
- [Knowledge and ignorance](#entry-knowledge-and-ignorance) (p. 123)
- [Lawsuits and fine speaking](#entry-lawsuits-and-fine-speaking) (p. 126)
- [Loss and suffering loss](#entry-loss-and-suffering-loss) (p. 128)
- [Love and hatred](#entry-love-and-hatred) (p. 130)
- [Love of gain](#entry-love-of-gain) (p. 133)
- [Memory and reminders](#entry-memory-and-reminders) (p. 135)
- [More and less](#entry-more-and-less) (p. 138)
- [Necessity and impossibility](#entry-necessity-and-impossibility) (p. 143)
- [Opinion and seeming](#entry-opinion-and-seeming) (p. 145)
- [Opposites](#entry-opposites) (p. 147)
- [Perplexity and return](#entry-perplexity-and-return) (p. 152)
- [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154)
- [Quantity and quality](#entry-quantity-and-quality) (p. 163)
- [Reproach and the ending](#entry-reproach-and-the-ending) (p. 166)
- [Sameness and difference](#entry-sameness-and-difference) (p. 170)
- [Senselessness and intelligence](#entry-senselessness-and-intelligence) (p. 172)
- [Shamelessness and daring](#entry-shamelessness-and-daring) (p. 175)
- [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181)
- [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186)
- [Text and apparatus](#entry-text-and-apparatus) (p. 188)
- [The cultivated and the many](#entry-the-cultivated-and-the-many) (p. 191)
- [The unnamed companion](#entry-unnamed-companion) (p. 193)
- [Thinking fit](#entry-thinking-fit) (p. 198)
- [Time and place](#entry-time-and-place) (p. 200)
- [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207)
- [Wishing and desire](#entry-wishing-and-desire) (p. 212)
- [Worth possessing](#entry-worth-possessing) (p. 217)

## Education and culture

- [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28)
- [Auspicious speech](#entry-auspicious-speech) (p. 33)
- [Cronus and the golden age](#entry-cronus-and-the-golden-age) (p. 49)
- [Deception and sincerity](#entry-deception-and-sincerity) (p. 53)
- [Delphi and its maxims](#entry-delphi-and-its-maxims) (p. 58)
- [Discovery and learning](#entry-discovery-and-learning) (p. 60)
- [Education](#entry-education) (p. 65)
- [Elegiac verse and sayings](#entry-elegiac-verse-and-sayings) (p. 67)
- [Envy and generosity](#entry-envy-and-generosity) (p. 69)
- [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99)
- [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101)
- [Homer and rhapsodes](#entry-homer-and-rhapsodes) (p. 106)
- [Justice and just thoughts](#entry-justice-and-just-thoughts) (p. 121)
- [Lawsuits and fine speaking](#entry-lawsuits-and-fine-speaking) (p. 126)
- [Musicians and instruments](#entry-musicians-and-instruments) (p. 140)
- [Panathenaea](#entry-panathenaea) (p. 150)
- [Persuasion obedience and compulsion](#entry-persuasion-obedience-and-compulsion) (p. 154)
- [Roads and Steiria](#entry-roads-and-steiria) (p. 168)
- [The unnamed young man](#entry-unnamed-young-man) (p. 195)
- [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202)
- [Wisdom](#entry-wisdom) (p. 209)

## History and persons

- [Admiration and contempt](#entry-admiration-and-contempt) (p. 17)
- [Anacreon and the fifty oared ship](#entry-anacreon-and-the-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 24)
- [Athens and citizenship](#entry-athens-and-citizenship) (p. 28)
- [Authorship and attribution](#entry-authorship-and-attribution) (p. 35)
- [Basket bearing and the sister](#entry-basket-bearing-and-the-sister) (p. 37)
- [Courage and courteous addresses](#entry-courage-and-courteous-addresses) (p. 44)
- [Cronus and the golden age](#entry-cronus-and-the-golden-age) (p. 49)
- [Harmodius and Aristogeiton](#entry-harmodius-and-aristogeiton) (p. 94)
- [Hipparchus](#entry-hipparchus) (p. 101)
- [Hippias and tyranny](#entry-hippias-and-tyranny) (p. 103)
- [Honour dishonour and rivalry](#entry-honour-dishonour-and-rivalry) (p. 108)
- [Pisistratus and Philaidae](#entry-pisistratus-and-philaidae) (p. 159)
- [Simonides fees and gifts](#entry-simonides-fees-and-gifts) (p. 177)
- [Socrates](#entry-socrates) (p. 181)
- [The cultivated and the many](#entry-the-cultivated-and-the-many) (p. 191)
- [The unnamed companion](#entry-unnamed-companion) (p. 193)
- [The unnamed young man](#entry-unnamed-young-man) (p. 195)

## Objects and practices

- [Anacreon and the fifty oared ship](#entry-anacreon-and-the-fifty-oared-ship) (p. 24)
- [Archer and bow](#entry-archer-and-bow) (p. 26)
- [Basket bearing and the sister](#entry-basket-bearing-and-the-sister) (p. 37)
- [Body](#entry-body) (p. 42)
- [Craftsmen and expertise](#entry-craftsmen-and-expertise) (p. 46)
- [Drink and wetness](#entry-drink-and-wetness) (p. 62)
- [Farmer and plants](#entry-farmer-and-plants) (p. 74)
- [Feast and hospitality](#entry-feast-and-hospitality) (p. 76)
- [Food and nourishment](#entry-food-and-nourishment) (p. 78)
- [Gain and gaining](#entry-gain-and-gaining) (p. 83)
- [General and arms](#entry-general-and-arms) (p. 87)
- [Gold and silver](#entry-gold-and-silver) (p. 90)
- [Health and disease](#entry-health-and-disease) (p. 97)
- [Herms and Hermes](#entry-herms-and-hermes) (p. 99)
- [Homer and rhapsodes](#entry-homer-and-rhapsodes) (p. 106)
- [Horseman and horse](#entry-horseman-and-horse) (p. 110)
- [Inscriptions and memorials](#entry-inscriptions-and-memorials) (p. 119)
- [Musicians and instruments](#entry-musicians-and-instruments) (p. 140)
- [Panathenaea](#entry-panathenaea) (p. 150)
- [Pilot and ship](#entry-pilot-and-ship) (p. 156)
- [Pisistratus and Philaidae](#entry-pisistratus-and-philaidae) (p. 159)
- [Possession and acquisition](#entry-possession-and-acquisition) (p. 161)
- [Roads and Steiria](#entry-roads-and-steiria) (p. 168)
- [Spending and receiving](#entry-spending-and-receiving) (p. 183)
- [Taking back and draughts](#entry-taking-back-and-draughts) (p. 186)
- [Time and place](#entry-time-and-place) (p. 200)
- [Town country and demes](#entry-town-country-and-demes) (p. 202)
- [Weight and exchange](#entry-weight-and-exchange) (p. 207)
- [Worth and worthlessness](#entry-worth-and-worthlessness) (p. 214)

# Source guide {#source-guide}

## The supplied edition

Diotimos Editions, *Hipparchus*, second edition, 2026, Greek and English with notes. The supplied text identifies its Greek as John Burnet's Oxford text of 1901, second edition 1910, in a later impression printed by John Johnson. References in the lexicon to an edition note, a rendering or an apparatus report refer to that supplied edition unless otherwise specified. Its twenty-six explanatory notes remain distinct from the lexicon's own notes.

## Ancient comparisons

The principal external comparisons named in the edition and the articles are listed below. They illuminate the transmitted story without replacing the dialogue's actual words.

- Thucydides, *History* 1.20.2 and 6.54–59: the seniority of Hippias, the character of Pisistratid rule and the assassination narrative.
- Aristotle or the Aristotelian school, *Constitution of the Athenians* 16.7, 18.1–2 and 58.1: Cronus comparison, the brothers and poetic patronage, the alternative blame of Thessalus, and honours to the tyrant-slayers.
- Aelian, *Historical Miscellany* 8.2: a retelling explicitly dependent on the *Hipparchus*, with doubt about its Platonic authorship.
- Diogenes Laertius 1.57 and 3.59: the recitation rule attributed to Solon and the ancient arrangement of the Platonic corpus.
- Hesiod, *Works and Days* 109–111: the golden race under Cronus.
- Herodotus, *Histories* 3.95.1: a gold–silver valuation of thirteen to one, different from the supplied edition's interpretation of 231d.
- Plutarch, *Solon* 10.2, and Strabo 9.1.22: Philaidae and the geographical context of Steiria.
- *Inscriptiones Graecae* I³ 1023: the surviving geographical Herm text. Restored portions must not be treated as independently preserved words.
- Plato, *Gorgias* 461d; *Charmides* 164d–165a; *Republic* 9.581a–c; *Minos* opening: comparisons for retraction, Delphic sayings, gain-loving appetite and the inquiry into a common character.

## Textual and reading limits

The supplied Greek and apparatus are the basis for exact attestations. The lexicon is not a new manuscript collation, and contextual historical checks do not resolve the dialogue's disputed authorship or all differences among the ancient accounts. Electronic structure and text have been checked across the four formats; EPUB appearance can still vary by reading application.

[^culture-anacreon]: [Constitution of the Athenians 18.1](https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html) connects Hipparchus with Anacreon, Simonides and other poets. The comparison independently supports the general patronage tradition, not every narrative embellishment in the Hipparchus.

[^culture-authorship]: For inclusion and classification see [Diogenes Laertius 3.59](https://beta.perseus.tufts.edu/urn%3Acts%3AgreekLit%3Atlg0004.tlg001.perseus-eng2%3A3.1/). For the qualified attribution see [Aelian, Historical Miscellany 8.2](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/aelian/varhist8.html). These primary witnesses establish reception and ancient uncertainty; neither identifies an alternative author.

[^culture-basket]: Compare the sister’s rejection in [Thucydides 6.56](https://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.6.sixth.html) and the attribution to Thessalus in [Constitution of the Athenians 18.2](https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html). Both relate the insult to Harmodius; the dialogue’s alternative intellectual motive remains distinct.

[^culture-cronus]: [Hesiod, Works and Days 109–120](https://www-current.chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/hesiod-works-and-days-sb/) locates the golden race in Cronus’ reign and describes its ease and abundance. The Hipparchus alludes to that kind of blessed past without reproducing the myth’s entire catalogue.

[^culture-delphi]: See [Plato, Charmides 164d–165a](https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/charmides.html), where Critias distinguishes his interpretation of the Delphic greeting from ordinary advice. The comparison concerns how an inscription acquires meaning through an interpreter, not proof of a single doctrine common to both dialogues.

[^culture-tyrannicides]: Compare [Thucydides 6.54](https://beta.perseus.tufts.edu/urn%3Acts%3AgreekLit%3Atlg0003.tlg001.1st1K-eng1/chapter%3A6.54/) with [Constitution of the Athenians 18](https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html). The latter places the erotic offence with Thessalus. The scholarly task is to record the disagreement, not to conflate the three accounts into one chain of events.

[^culture-herm-evidence]: See [IG I³ 1023, Greek text and commentary](https://www.atticinscriptions.com/inscription/SEG/3642?text_type=greek). Square brackets mark the reconstructed Hipparchus line. The preserved first line and the dialogue’s quoted second-line pattern have different evidential status.

[^culture-hipparchus-history]: Thucydides 6.54.2 explicitly makes Hippias the eldest successor. See the [primary text of Thucydides 6.54](https://beta.perseus.tufts.edu/urn%3Acts%3AgreekLit%3Atlg0003.tlg001.1st1K-eng1/chapter%3A6.54/). This establishes a conflict of ancient accounts, not by itself the author’s motive for departing from Thucydides.

[^culture-tyranny]: For the Constitution’s transition to a harsher regime after the assassination, see [Constitution of the Athenians 19](https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html). The source still calls the preceding regime a tyranny. The supplied edition gives the closer comparison with Thucydides 6.59.2–4.

[^culture-homer]: [Diogenes Laertius 1.57](https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0004.tlg001.perseus-eng1:1) gives Solon the rule by which a succeeding reciter begins where the previous one stopped. [Aelian 8.2](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/aelian/varhist8.html) retells the Hipparchus material while expressly deriving it from the dialogue.

[^culture-philaidae]: Plutarch, Solon 10.2, names the township Philaidae and connects Pisistratus with it: [Life of Solon](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Solon*.html#10). The surrounding story concerns legendary ancestry and competing explanations of Athens’ claim to Salamis, not Hipparchus’ educational policy.

[^culture-steiria]: [Strabo, Geography 9.1.22](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/9A*.html#1.22) places Steiria among the coastal Attic communities. This verifies the general location, not the precise ancient alignment of the road or the site of the lost Herm.

[^culture-simonides]: [Aelian, Historical Miscellany 8.2](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/aelian/varhist8.html) combines the patronage story with an added comment on Simonides’ love of money. Since Aelian expressly invokes the dialogue, his account is evidence of interpretation and transmission rather than an independent witness to this transaction.

[^culture-demes]: The [edition of IG I³ 1023](https://www.atticinscriptions.com/inscription/SEG/3642?text_type=greek) prints a preserved midpoint formula linking Kephale with the town. Its commentary distinguishes early local communities from their later Cleisthenic institutional role.