SOCRATES. 47 



just objects of satire : the rapacious Simon, the cowardly Cleonymus, 

 and the dissolute Theorus, of whom Aristophanes says " O Jupiter, 

 if thy bolt is aimed at perjury, why has it not consumed Simon, nor 

 Cleonymus, nor Theorus, all perjured as they are?" An intimate 

 friend of Socrates was Euripides ; against whom, as the inculcator of 

 an ambiguous morality, and the debaser of genuine tragedy, Aristo- 

 phanes entertained a peculiar antipathy. And besides, accustomed as 

 the Athenians were to see their public men ridiculed and reviled in the 

 grossest manner upon the stage, it did, perhaps, no great harm to the 

 character of Socrates, that his philosophy should be jocosely bur- 

 lesqued ; for, be it remembered, there is little or nothing of calumny 

 and ill-nature in the delineation which Aristophanes gives of Socrates 

 himself. It must have been so exceedingly and palpably unlike the 

 original, that one is almost tempted to suspect the poet of having 

 made it so on purpose, that the spectators might at once perceive it 

 to be intended for a good-natured caricature of Socrates, with whose 

 real mode of life they were all perfectly well acquainted ; and whose 

 prosing discourses, most of them probably thought, as Eupolis did, 

 very tiresome. The singularity which Socrates affected in his manners 

 and dress, going barefoot, and, at times, standing for a whole day 

 together in the same attitude of meditation, rendered him a tempting 

 subject for ridicule. The poet says in ' The Clouds,' " We could 

 not think of attending to any other of the sophists of the present day, 

 except Prodicus, to him, on account of his wisdom and good sense; 

 but to you (Socrates) because you swagger in the streets, and roll 

 your eyes about, and go barefoot, pretending to put up with many 

 annoyances, and wear a solemn countenance towards us." Aristo- 

 phanes represents Socrates as taking a fee for his instructions, although 

 the contrary was notoriously the fact. It appears, however, that at 

 the first representation * The Clouds' did not take with the audience, 

 but was condemned, owing, as it is said, to Alcibiades, and a party of 

 the friends of Socrates. The following year it was reproduced, in an 

 amended state, with better success. The story told by ^Elian, of the 

 poet's having been bribed by Anytus and Melitus to write ' The 

 Clouds,' in order to pave the way for their criminal accusation, has 

 been long ago exploded : this comedy is known to have been acted 

 more than twenty years before the trial and condemnation of Socrates. 

 Yet it is far from impossible, that the ridicule cast upon him in that 

 play, may have contributed to the popular prejudice, which, many 

 years afterwards, became so fatally strong. We are not informed 

 by Xenophon or Plato, whether Socrates had given any cause of 

 offence to Aristophanes; indeed, Plato represents them as becoming 

 familiar companions at a subsequent period. Upon the whole, our 

 readers may still be disposed to adhere to the notion first suggested, 

 that Aristophanes, when he wrote ' The Clouds,' knew but little of 

 Socrates, whom he, perhaps, imagined to be a quibbling sophist, like 

 the others of that profession. 



About two or three-arid-twenty years after the first representation 



