Hippias in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

A Greek sophist of Elis and a contemporary of Socrates. He taught in the towns of Greece, especially at Athens. He had the advantage of a prodigious memory, and was deeply versed in all the learning of his day. He attempted literature in every form which was then extant. He was among the first to undertake the composition of dialogues. In the two Platonic dialogues named after him (Hippias Maior and Hippias Minor), he is represented as excessively vain and arrogant. See the study by Osann in the Rhein. Museum for 1843, p. 495 foll., and P. Leja, Der Sophist Hippias (1893). 2. A son of Pisistratus. See Pisistratidae.