 Four dialogues in the group show Socrates in contrast to  sophists,  who were paid teachers of subjects ranging from  rhetoric  to mathematics. Some sophists claimed expertise on virtue, and Socrates took it as part of his mission to investigate such claims. The Protagoras treats its eponymous sophist with some respect, but the two Hippias dialogues (Hippias  Major  and Hippias  Minor)  poke fun at their namesake, and the  Euthydemus  shows its sophists as puzzle-makers who cannot make good their claim to teach virtue. The Gorgias is too long to be considered in this article, but it has strong affinities with these shorter works in style and content. 