3 which Aristophanes knew to be foreign to the real man; nor yet was only a general attack thereby intended on the fondness for metaphysical subtleties, and the absurdity of sophistry and useless learning; but the play was distinctly aimed at the philosophic tendency of Socrates. Just as little can it be supposed, after what has been said, that this attack proceeded only from malice or from personal animosity; Plato's description in the Symposium puts this out of the question. Reisig's 2 and Wolf's 3 opinions are also untenable. Reisig distributes the traits which Aristophanes assigns to Socrates, between himself and the whole body of his pupils, Euripides * in particular; still the spectators could not do otherwise than refer them all to Socrates; hence Aristophanes must have intended this reference. Wolf supposes that the portrait drawn in the Clouds is of Socrates in his younger years, when he was given to natural philosophy. But the very same charges were repeated against him eighteen years later in the Frogs; and we gather from Plato's Apology that the current view of Socrates and his teaching up to the time of his death agreed substantially with that of Aristophanes; not to mention the 6 5 1 As is assumed by G. Hermann, Præf. ad Nubes, p. 33, 11, and by others. Compare, on the other hand, Rötscher, p. 294, 273, 307, 311; Süvern, p. 3. 2 Præf. ad Nubes; Rhein. Mus. ii. (1828) i. K. S. 191. 3 In his translation of the Clouds, see Rötscher, 297. Similarly Van Heusde, Charac- 4 Who was 10 years older 5 Frogs, 1491. CHAP. X. (c) This is proved by the part Socrates in fact that Socrates probably never was a lover of natural philosophy, and that in the Clouds he is attacked as a Sophist rather than as a natural philosopher. Aristophanes must, then, really have thought to discern in the Socrates whom the history of philosoassigned to phy sketches features deserving his attack. Saying the Clouds. this, however, is, of course, not saying that he did not caricature the historical figure, consciously attributing to it many really foreign features. For all that, we may suppose that the main features in his picture agreed with the idea he had formed to himself of Socrates, and also with common opinion. Süvern, therefore, in supposing 2 that the Socrates of the Clouds is not meant for an individual, but for a symbol, and that the poet's attack was not aimed at Socrates, but at the sophistic and rhetorical school in general,3 cannot be right. Far from it, Socrates was made to be the champion of sophistry, because in Aristophanes' mind he really was that; the poet believed that, taken in his public capacity, he was really the dangerous innovator he represents him to be. Not a single line of his picture has an exclusively political colour. Independently of some things which are obviously not seriously meant,1 the charges against him are threefold, his being occupied ' Clouds, 98. 2 In the treatise already referred to, pp. 19, 26, 30, 55. Not to mention the false opinion, which however is supported by Hertzberg (Alcibiades, p. 67), that the play was aimed at Alcibiades, who is concealed under the name of Phidippides. See, on the contrary, Droysen, p. 180; Schnitzer, p. 34. 4 Such as the calculation of flea-jumps. with useless physical and intellectual subtleties,1 his rejecting the Gods of the city,' and what is the corner-point of the whole play, his sophistic facility of speech, which can gain for the wrong side the victory over the right, and make the weaker argument the stronger.3 In other words, the unpractical, irreligious, and sophistical elements in the Socratic teaching are attacked; there is not a word about his anti-republican tendency, which Aristophanes, we may suppose, had he observed, would before all things have exposed. Even at a later time, Aristophanes brings no other complaints against Socrates than these. Only these points, too, according to Plato, constituted the standing charges against Socrates, causing him special danger. And there is every reason for believing his assurance. If then the impeachment of Socrates has, nevertheless, been set down to a political motive, how can this admission be made to agree with the previous 1 143-234, 636. 2 365-410. 3 Clouds, 889. Droysen, Clouds, p. 177, unfairly blames this play for making a stronger argument into a right one. The λόγος κρείττων is the really stronger case in point of justice, according to the original meaning of the word (Xenoph. c. ii. 25 ; Arist. Rhet. ii. 24), which is however thrown into the shade by the λόγος ἥττων; and what is meant by τὸν ἥττω λόγον κρείττω ποιεῖν is, making the case which in point of justice is weaker, to be the stronger as to the actual re- • Apol. 23, D.: λéyovoi, is CHAP. X. (d) Socra- tes at because of his antirepublican views, but as being an enemy of the good old time. CHAP. X. statement? The true answer to this question has been already hinted at by other writers.' The conviction of the guilt of Socrates rested on the assumed dangerous character of his teaching for morality and religion; the reason that this offence was judicially prosecuted lay without doubt in the special political circumstances of the time. The rationalism of the Sophists was neither the sole nor the chief cause of the fall of Athens in the Peloponnesian war; still it contributed unmistakeably to that result, and the opponents of the new culture were naturally disposed to make its guilt out to be greater than it really was. Had not the schools of the Sophists sent forth not a few of the modern statesmen, who either as the leaders of oligarchy or democracy had torn the state to pieces? Was not in those schools a corrupt form of morality publicly taught, which substituted the wishes and caprice of the individual in place of existing custom and religion, put gain in the place of right, and taught men to desire absolute sovereignty as the summit of human happiness? Were not those schools the cradle of an unscrupulous eloquence, which employed a variety of technical tricks for any purpose, no matter what, considering it the highest triumph to make the wrong side the winning side? Can we then wonder that Aristophanes thought the new-fangled education responsible for all the misfortunes of the commonwealth; 2 that Anytus in Plato 1 Ritter, p. 31. Marbach, Gesch. d. Phil. i. 185, 9; and Schwegler, Gesch. d. Phil. 30. 2 Clouds, 910; Knights, 1373. Further details in Süvern, Clouds, 24. 1 cannot find terms strong enough to express his horror of the pernicious influence of the Sophists; 1 that all friends of the good old time believed that in Sophistry lay the chief malady of the state; and that this feeling was intensified during the last years of the Peloponnesian war, and under the oligarchial reign of force? Was it then other than natural that those who had rescued Athens from the oligarchy, re-establishing with the old constitution her political independence, should wish by suppressing the education of the Sophists to stop the evil at its source. Now Socrates passed not only for a teacher of the modern Sophistic school, but the evil effects of his teaching were thought to be seen in several of his pupils, among whom Critias and Alcibiades were prominent.2 What more intelligible under such circumstances, than that just those who were bent upon restoring a popular form of government, and the ancient glory of Athens, should see in him a corrupter of youth, and a dangerous citizen? Thus he certainly fell a victim to the republican reaction which set in after the overthrow of the thirty tyrants. For all that his political views were not in themselves the principal motives which provoked the attack. His guilt was rather supposed to consist in the subversion of ancestral customs and piety, of which the anti-republican tendency of his teaching 1 Meno, 91, C. 2 How largely this circumstance contributed towards the condemnation of Socrates is proved by Xen. Mem. i. 2, 12, CHAP. X. |