Hippias Minor (Greek: Ἱππίας ἐλάττων), or On Lying, is thought to be one of Plato's early works.
Despite Hippias Minor's relative unpopularity, its antiquity is the subject of no doubt: Aristotle (in Metaphysics, V, 120), Cicero (in De Oratore, III, 32) and Alexander of Aphrodisias all reference it.
The debate is rooted in a literary question about whom Homer intended to portray as the better man, Achilles or Odysseus.
The men do not pursue this thesis, that the moral status of the characters in a work of literature has some bearing on its artistry.
Socrates does resurrect the idea in the Republic, however, when he argues that Homer's classics would be better books if Achilles and the other warriors were presented as always righteous.
The sophist Hippias is visiting Athens from his home city of Elis on the occasion of the Olympic festival.
Now that the three men are separated from the crowd, Socrates, encouraged by Eudicus, quizzes Hippias on the particulars of his opinion.
Socrates does not object to Hippias' literalism, and seems to abandon the literary question, saying that Homer is dead, and the thing cannot be resolved (365d).
Citing the passages where Achilles tells Odysseus that he will not rejoin the war but will sail away with the early dawn, and Ajax a different story, that he will wait for Hector to come and burn his ship and tent himself.
He argues that a runner or wrestler who throws the contest by doing worse than he is capable of doing is a more skillful combatant than the one who does his best and loses.