Hippias, or the Bath (3-4)

Among these men Hippias, our own contemporary, deserves mention. Not only is he trained as highly in the art of speech as any of his predecessors, and alike quick of comprehension and clear in exposition, but he is better at action than speech, and fulfils his professional promises, not merely doing so in those matters in which his predecessors succeeded in getting to the fore, but, as the geometricians put it, knowing how to construct a triangle accurately on a given base.[*] Moreover, whereas each of the others marked off some one department of science and sought fame in it, making a name for himself in spite of this delimitation, he, on the contrary, is clearly a leader in harmony and music as well as in engineering and geometry, and yet he shows as

but I shall not hesitate to speak of one of his achievements which I recently looked upon with wonder. Though the undertaking is a commonplace, and in our days a very frequent one, the construction of a bath, yet his thoughtfulness and intelligence even in this commonplace matter is marvellous. The site was not flat, but quite sloping and steep; it was extremely low on one side when he took it in hand, but he made it level, not only constructing a firm basis for the entire work and laying foundations to ensure the safety of the superstructure, but strengthening the whole with buttresses, very sheer and, for security’s sake, close together. The building suits the magnitude of the site, accords well with the accepted idea of such an establishment, and shows regard for the principles of lighting.