Plutarch implies a task of difficulty, requiring research and combination. And this, no doubt, was what the Sophist wanted to exhibit. Being an Eleian, and desirous to make himself popular in the city, he not only chose Olympia for special displays of various kinds, but brought together for the people a history of their famous games. And in doing this he seems to have shown all the vanity, the contempt of ancient traditions, and the rash theorizing which we might expect from a man of his class. We have, fortunately, a single case quoted by Pausanias which shows us both that this estimate of the man is not far from the truth, and what licence the Eleians gave him when he was reconstructing the history of the festival. Pausanias (v. 25, 2 _sqq._) tells a pathetic story about the loss of a choir of boys and their teacher on the way from Messana in Sicily to Olympia, where they were commemorated by statues. [Greek: to men dê epigramma edêlou to archaion anathêmata einai tôn en porthmô Messêniôn; chronô de hysteron Hippias ho legomenos hypo Hellênôn genesthai sophos ta elegeia ep' autois epoiêsen]. Here, then, we have some kind of falsification, and apparently one in favour of the Messenians of the Peloponnesus, if we may judge from the form of Pausanias' remark. In more than one case a later epigram appears to have been inscribed on a votive offering, and I think we can show in Hippias a decided leaning to the Messenians, whose restoration to independence he probably witnessed. But were there really no registers, [Greek: anagraphai], from which Hippias could have copied? If there was certainly no single complete list, of undoubted authority, may there not have been partial lists, affording him suitable materials? This we must endeavour to answer from the passages of Pausanias referred to by E. Curtius, as well as from others, which he has not thought it necessary to quote. The first is the opening passage of the sixth book, where the author says that as his work 'is not a catalogue of all the athletes who have gained victories at Olympia, but an account of votive offerings, and especially statues, he will omit many who have gained victories, either by some lucky chance, or without attaining the honour of a statue.' Though this passage may imply that there was such a catalogue--of course there was in Pausanias' day--it says not a word about an old and authentic register. It is indeed a capital fact in the present discussion, that neither does Pausanias, in this elaborate account of Olympia, nor, as far as I know, does any other Greek author, distinctly mention [Greek: anagraphai], or [Greek: parapêgmata], or any equivalent term for any official register at Olympia. Pausanias speaks of [Greek: ta tôn Êleiôn grammata], and also says of certain _an-Olympiads_[227:1]: [Greek: en tô tôn Ol. katalogô ou graphousin]--not that they noted in, or erased from any official register. In Pausanias the absence of such mention appears to me decisive.