1. Compare Hippias Major 301b.

2. He is proposing a sophistic debate: see p. 275.

3. Iliad IX, 357–63. Odysseus and Agamemnon have been trying to persuade him to rejoin the battle. In what follows, notice that the Earthshaker is Poseidon, god of the sea, but also ofearthquakes, and that Phthia is Achilles’ homeland in Thessaly.