The inclusion of the Arguments in the play suggests that not all current social problems can be blamed on Socrates alone. The philosopher is tainted by his association with these shady characters, who seem to play a prominent part in the work of his school. But the triumph of Worse Argument happens without Socrates' direct intervention, while he is absent from the stage. It seems that the dangerous powers of rhetoric to foster moral corruption have taken on a life of their own. Socrates is by no means the only person who can teach young people how to cheat and disobey their parents. He is just the most famous example. The Clouds suggests, then, that the death of Socrates might not solve anything - although it would give satisfaction to his personal enemies and those suspicious of the new ways.
While the play hints that Socrates could be a corrupting social influence, it does not actually show him corrupting anybody. In fact, none of the characters needs to learn moral corruption from Socrates. They know all about it already. Strepsiades did not need Socrates' guidance to come up with the idea of cheating his creditors; he had been meaning to do that all along. Even Pheidippides, who seems a worryingly apt pupil of the Worse Argument, does not undergo a fun- damental change as a result of his education. He has been disobedient towards his father all his life. The teaching of Socrates' school allows both father and son to give voice to the unpleasant desires that they have always had. Socrates offers his students only a reflection of themselves - just as the Clouds, his friends and guides, have no shape of their own, but mirror the shapes of those around them.
But from another perspective, the woolly-headedness of Mr Topsy-Turvy, and the hot-headedness of his son, only bolster the case against Socrates. If most citizens are idiotic and fundamentally amoral, society will be destroyed without firm moral leadership. Most people, the play seems to suggest, will behave abominably if they think they can get 26 THE DEATH OF SOCRATES
away with it. Belief in the usual gods is needed to enforce social order. The Clouds is a bracing reminder that unfet- tered intellectual enquiry and freedom of thought will seem like good things only if one believes that human beings are capable of behaving well and discovering truth for them- selves, without carrots or sticks.
Aristophanes often seems to ascribe the views of other con- temporary sophists to his Socrates. It was really Anaxagoras, not Socrates, who claimed that Mind created and rules the world. Apparently Socrates studied with Anaxagoras in his youth, but rejected his materialist philosophy in later life. Aristophanes' portrayal of Socrates contrasts sharply with those of our other main contemporary sources, Plato and Xenophon. According to them, Socrates was mostly unin- terested in science; and he was positively hostile to the new-fangled techniques of rhetoric that were recommended by Aristophanes' Worse Argument. Plato and Xenophon suggest that Socrates' main interest was in ethics: he wanted, above all, to learn how to live the good life.
Where the sources diverge, many modern scholars dismiss Aristophanes' description of Socrates and his phi- losophy as just comic slander - and unsuccessful slander at that. The Clouds failed to win first prize at the dramatic festi- val at which it was performed, in 423 bc; the text we have is a partially revised version. The original ending was different, and the scene between the Better and Worse Arguments was added in the revision.
But the play's failure with the judges hardly under- mines its value as evidence of contemporary opinions about Socrates. The Clouds shows us how Socratic philosophy seemed to those outside his immediate circle, and helps us understand why the jury condemned Socrates to death.
As one recent editor remarks, 'In the absence of unbiased information about Socrates ... we must accept Clouds as a valid expression of what public opinion believed, or might be expected to believe, about him in the Athens of 423-c. 416 bc.' To most Athenians at this time, Socrates' philosophy was almost indistinguishable from that of any other contempo- rary wisdom-monger. Socrates was simply the most famous practitioner of the dangerous new learning.
socrates' profession
Socrates was the founder of philosophy as we know it. His interests - in morality, value, language, happiness, truth and the human mind - are all recognisably 'philosophical', from our perspective. We must remind ourselves that in the fifth century bc nobody could have known that Socrates' limited set of interests would be identified with all true wisdom or 'philosophy' ('the love of wisdom'). It was Plato, writing after Socrates' death, who redefined the master's work in this way, separating the 'philosophical' study of ethics and metaphys- ics from the 'sophistic' pursuits of science and oratory.
The first Greek wise men - dubbed 'philosophers' by later tradition - were primarily interested in the composi- tion of the universe - 'cosmology', or the study of the world and of nature. Thales, the earliest of them, believed that the world was made of water. Later theorists devised a version of atomism. Their enquiries look, to modern eyes, like a strange mixture of metaphysics, theology and speculative chemistry. They mostly came not from Athens, but from the coast of Ionia in Asia Minor.
During the fifth century a wave of foreign intellectuals began to visit Athens. They included orators and rhetoricians as well as sophists. These three categories are distinct but overlapping, and we tend to describe most of the intellectuals of the fifth century as sophists. 'Sophist' was not originally a term of abuse, merely a description; Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias and their friends would have not been offended to hear themselves referred to in this way. Many of these men turned their attention away from physics towards more rec- ognisably philosophical topics, including language, culture, politics and human society. Protagoras taught a version of moral relativism: 'Man is the measure of all things', he famously declared.
If Socrates' contemporaries had had to describe his pro- fession in one word during his lifetime, they would presum- ably have called him a sophist. The trial of Socrates can be seen simply as a gesture of the city's dissatisfaction with sophistry.
But we still need to explain why it was Socrates, not any of the other sophists, who earned the hemlock, even though many others brought startling new ideas to the city.
socratic impiety
Socratic philosophy was particularly radical in two main areas: theology and human psychology. I begin with the first, which was apparently most important for the prosecution.
Three accusations were brought against Socrates at his triaclass="underline" a failure to respect, worship or acknowledge the city's gods, the introduction of new deities and corrupting the young.
It is unlikely that there were specific laws on the statute books against any of these. Some have argued that Socrates was condemned under a decree which allowed for the impeachment of 'those who did not believe in religion or who taught cosmology' (the Decree of Diopeithes). But since Socrates had little interest in cosmology (if we believe Plato and Xenophon), it is unlikely that this was the main point at issue. There was a general law against impiety, asebeia, and probably all three charges were aspects of one central accusation of religious impiety. The prosecutors claimed that Socrates corrupted the young by teaching them not to respect the city's gods, but instead to acknowledge his own, new deities.
There was no precedent for the death of Socrates in Athenian history. We hear of one instance of intellectual cen- sorship: when Protagoras wrote a book which began, 'I have no way of knowing either that the gods exist, or that they do not exist.' The Athenians expelled him from the city and sent a herald round to collect up all copies of the book, burning it in the marketplace. The lyric poet Diagoras was supposedly condemned as an atheist; he too perhaps went into exile. Anaxagoras is said to have been exiled. But none of these people was actually killed. And it is quite possible that all these stories were made up or exaggerated by later writers hoping to find precedents for the death of Socrates at the hands of the Athenian state. Ancient historians, like modern ones, saw the execution of Socrates as a strange anomaly.