Plato's Hippias Major has usually been taken to be a comic dialogue, and rightly so.Footnote ¹ Its main theme is the καλόν, but what is primarily targeted and harshly mocked throughout the dialogue is Hippias’ pretence of having σοφία, which should allow him to define what the καλόν consists in. Yet, καλόν is an ambiguous term since, besides its aesthetic meaning, it also usually means the ‘morally right’. Not being able to define what καλόν is therefore also amounts to being unable to define what the right is. And indeed, the genuine σοφία, as Plato will tell us explicitly, is the σοφία that helps people, especially the youth, to become morally better (see especially 283c4, where Socrates has Hippias wholeheartedly admitting that his σοφία is supposed to aim at εἰς ἀρετὴν βελτίους ποιεῖν).Footnote ² Thus, the serious conclusion Plato wants his reader to draw is, first, that the well-known sophist Hippias (and perhaps all the sophists, more generally) have no real σοφία despite their very name,Footnote ³ and second, and most importantly, that they cannot help anyone become virtuous, and that therefore their claim of educating people in moral goodness proves to be specious.

Plato does not hesitate to put this picture before his readers’ eyes right at the beginning of his dialogue, with the persistent repetition of the terms σοφός and καλός (and related adverbs and nouns). Hippias is presented as a very handsome young man,Footnote ⁴ who is intelligent and knowledgeable (καλός τε καὶ σοφός, 281a1), indeed a ‘truly knowledgeable and accomplished man’ (τὸ τῇ ἀληθείᾳ σοφόν τε καὶ τέλειον ἄνδρα, b5–6), who is highly talented in ‘putting fine thoughts in fine words’ (καλῶς γε σύ, ὦ Ἱππία, ὀνομάζων τε καὶ διανοούμενος, 282b1, trans. Woodruff).Footnote ⁵ That is a rare talent Hippias is quite proud of, he who will conclude a little further along that it has earned him a lot of money, even more than the prestigious Protagoras ever made—to which Socrates replies, doubtlessly with a very mocking smile: ‘That is indeed a fine thing you say, Hippias, strong evidence of the superiority of your own and modern σοφία over the σοφία of the ancients’ (καλόν γε, ὦ Ἱππία, λέγεις καὶ μέγα τεκμήριον σοφίας τῆς τε σεαυτοῦ καὶ τῶν νῦν ἀνθρώπων πρὸς τοὺς ἀρχαίους ὅσον διαφέρουσι, 283a1–2).Footnote ⁶

It is the address Ἱππίας ὁ καλός τε καὶ σοφός I want to draw attention to: I propose to read it as a bon mot that fittingly opens this comic dialogue, and begins the play on these two words and on the two meanings of καλός that go on and on throughout the dialogue. To be sure, what this address does indicate is that, as I said, the καλόν will be the leading theme, while Hippias’ (alleged) σοφία is the crucial point that Plato wants to question. But this address, introducing Plato's readers right into the middle of the matter, can hardly be intended to be taken seriously. As the TLG indicates, the phrase καλός τε καὶ σοφός is a hapax not only in Plato but also in Greek literature. This exceptional rarity may in itself prove nothing, but it can certainly be taken by modern scholars as a signal that something unusual is going on. There are, I suggest, two facts that very strongly tend to show that ancient readers must have also felt the oddity of this address. There is, first, the very (apparently) laudative tone of the address Ἱππίας ὁ καλός τε καὶ σοφός, ὡς διὰ χρόνου ἡμῖν κατῆρας εἰς τὰς Ἀθήνας, which, with its emphatic use of the article, corresponds to something like: ‘Hey Hippias, the handsomest and wisest man in the country, it's been a while since you last came down to Athens to visit us.’Footnote ⁷ And there is, secondly and more importantly, the fact that, when used to describe a reputable man, the words καλός τε καὶ … are normally expected to be followed by the paired term ἀγαθός, the expression καλός τε καὶ ἀγαθός being of course the very usual and common way of praising a man.Footnote ⁸ Actually, that common phrase appears quite often in Plato—in fact, much more often than in any other Greek author:Footnote ⁹ readers familiar with Plato, being quite used to the habitual phrase, would be aware of the divergence from it here; or at least Plato might have expected his own readership to have noticed it. It is therefore difficult not to see here a bon mot, both in its tone (the humorous emphasis of the address) and in its mechanism, the usage of an unexpected word in a familiar phrase or context being, as Aristotle analyses in his Rhetoric (3.11, 1412a26–b3), a powerful way of making a clever witticism.

It may not be the case that ancient readers would have laughed immediately on reading this humorous address for the first time. But perhaps this bon mot was meant to alert them to something particularly laughable about Hippias, which they will indeed gradually discover: that, despite his looks and his very title, the handsome sophist Hippias actually lacks the σοφία needed to define what the καλόν is, and that he will therefore prove to be unable to teach virtue, or what the Greeks call καλοκἀγαθία. And indeed, if there is a word that is conspicuously not used by Socrates to describe Hippias, it is the word ἀγαθός: owing to his lack of σοφία, the handsome Hippias is not, and cannot be, a truly ἀγαθός man that shares in καλοκἀγαθία. True, there is actually one passage where Socrates uses the word for Hippias, but it is in a very ironic way which in fact amounts to denying his being ἀγαθός: ‘By Zeus, best of men, then it must be the case that the fine is not good, nor the good fine’ (μὰ Δία, ὦ ἄριστε, οὐδὲ ἄρα τὸ καλὸν ἀγαθόν ἐστιν, οὐδὲ τὸ ἀγαθὸν καλόν, 297c3–4), which is the conclusion one must draw from Hippias’ own point of departure (the suggestion he made, that the καλόν is the useful), and which he himself must acknowledge to be utterly wrong.Footnote ¹⁰

Like the courageous Laches who is unable to define what courage is, the handsome Hippias is thus incapable of defining what the καλόν is. But, worst of all, the handsome sophist lacks the σοφία that would have made him a genuine teacher of virtue, and a truly καλοκἄγαθος man. To be sure, Plato uses humour and mockery as a very forceful way of making sure his readers are intimately persuaded of this (and, consequently, one may guess, of not sending their sons to the sophists). Abruptly starting a comic dialogue with a bon mot is surely a very effective way of signalling to his readers a humorous tone and mocking intent.Footnote ¹¹