Plato’s Hipparchus Lexicon

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, 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 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.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, 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.

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.

The supplied edition

Diotimos Editions, Hipparchus, 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.