a great sophist scene

This comes from the Lesser Hippias.

SOCRATES: And tell me, Hippias, are you not a skillful calculator and arithmetician?

HIPPIAS: Yes, Socrates, assuredly I am.

SOCRATES: And if someone were to ask you what is the sum of 3 multiplied by 700, you would tell him the true answer in a moment, if you pleased?

HIPPIAS: Certainly I should.

SOCRATES: Is not that because you are the wisest and ablest of men in these matters?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And being that you are the wisest and ablest of men in these matters of calculation, are you not also the best?

HIPPIAS: To be sure, Socrates. I am the best.

Hippias not only claims to be the best arithematician, geometer, and expert on Homer. He also (in a classic Platonic touch) claims to have engraved his own ring, made his own shoes, and woven his own shirt which is as costly as Persian fabric. He also calls himself the greatest living poet and the person with the best memory of his era.

Importantly enough, Hippias is not the one who introduces most of these boasts. They are introduced by Socrates saying: “And I have often heard you say that you are the world’s best at X, Y, and Z…” Whereupon Hippias always says that yes, he is the best at all these things. Somehow it wouldn’t work literarily to have Hippias bragging in one line after another. It’s better to make those boasts a fait accompli by ensuring that they have already occurred in the past and are merely being remembered.

Furthermore, Hippias’s reading of Homer as presented in the dialogue is a series of idiotic platitudes. It’s one of the most remarkable pieces of ridicule in all of the Platonic dialogues.