Πλάτων, Ιππίας μείζων [Plato, Hippias major]

The excellent translation of this Platonic dialogue is the work of two leading philologists and is prefaced by Semni Ch. Karouzou. Ch. Karouzos began working on the translation of Hippias Major during the Occupation. As noted in the introduction, what prompted him to do it was his interest in ancient aesthetics on the one hand, and an inner impulse to render the Platonic text into Demotic, wishing to show how mature the language was to express even the most elaborate abstract concepts. I. Th. Kakridis took on the task of processing Ch. Karouzou’s manuscript. Thus, he took on responsibility for the final version of the translation, which is presented as a joint effort. The dialogue revolves around the topic of ‘beauty’ with Socrates and Hippias as the only protagonists. Each of them is a different world in his own right. The former has incessantly struggled all his life to discover truth and has come to believe that, if he ever gives up the fight, he does not deserve to live; the latter, as the Sophist he is, remains on the surface of things, but thinks he possesses the entire world’s wisdom! In the epilogue, I. Th. Kakridis refers to the dialogue’s authenticity, its structure and its technique.