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. In other words, he has originality. 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



 

great perfection in each of these fields as if he knew
nothing else. It would take no little time to sing
his praises in the doctrine of rays and refraction and
mirrors, or in astronomy, in which he made his predecessors appear’ children,

 

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.