296 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE rous. Socrates applies to the sophist to know what
- the beautiful ' (to koXov) is ; he has a * friend ' at home
'with a big stick' who asks him questions of this sort, and will not let him sleep of nights till he answers them. The point of the dialogue lies in the utter incapacity of Hippias, for all his wide information and practical ability, to grasp an abstract idea, and in his gradual disgust at the coarse language and outrageous conduct v/hich Socrates imputes to the imaginary friend. A change in the manner of these mimes comes with the events of 404-403 B.C. We could be sure even without the testimony of Letter VII. that Plato must have looked with eager expectation at the attempt of the Thirty to " stay but for a moment the pride of the accursed Demos," ^ and introduce a genuine aristocracy ; he must have been bitterly disappointed when their excesses
- ' made the Demos seem gold in comparison!' His two
kinsmen fell in the streets fighting against their country- men ; their names were universally execrated by the Athens of the Restoration. Plato had loved Charmides, and chooses a characteristic imaginative way to defend his memory. The Thirty were guilty of y^Spt? — ' pride,'
- intemperance,' whatever we call it. Admitt'^d ; what is
their excuse ? That they never knew any more than any one else what aoxppoawr] ('soberness,' ' healthy-minded- ness ') was. Plato goes back from the slain traitor Char- mides to the Charmides of 430 ; a boy full of promise and of all the ordinary qualities that men praise — nobly born, very handsome, docile, modest, eager to learn. Socrates affects to treat him for a headache ; but you cannot treat the head without the body, nor the body without the soul. Is his soul in health ? Has he ^ Alleged epitaph of Critias.
