by Gorgias of Leontini: we find antithesis (‘living… dead’), balanced length of clauses (‘I try… living, I am frightened… dead’), verbal play (‘before… before’) and poetic vocabulary (‘wrath’). In Greece the souls of the dead were held to be fearful entities who had to be propitiated.

1. A reference to the famous visit of Gorgias (c. 485–c. 395) in 427.

2. In the Athenian democratic system there were two main organs of the people: the Council of 500 members annually chosen by lot from the ten tribes into which citizens were divided, and the Assembly which every male citizen over eighteen could attend.

3. Epideixeis: see p. 32. Socrates mistrusted these displays as superficial and as inaccessible to elenchos (on which see pp. 29–32).

4. Prodicus (c. 465–c. 390), from the island of Ceos, another sophist: see Lacha I97d.

5. Protagoras of Abdera (c. 490-c. 420), the first and most famous of the professional sophists.

6. There is evidence that an average wage for an artisan at the end of the fifth century B.C. was about four mime a year. On the size of the fees received by the sophists, see Kerferd, pp. 26–8.

7. Inycum is not otherwise known. Its present obscurity reflects its ancient unimportance, which is precisely Hippias’ point.