Welcome to a weekly journey through the greatest works of ancient Greece and Rome. On our first column, we turn to Aristophanes, and his satirical classic, the Clouds.
Aristophanes, known for his unabashed social commentary on Athens and the contemporary Greek socio-political climate targets Athens’ inundation of sophists in his play the Clouds.
Clouds was first performed in Athens in 423 BCE at the Great Dionysia. At its core, Clouds is a satirical invective of the so-called intellectuals of his day—particularly, the Sophists and, most famously, Socrates, with whom he almost seems to have a personal grudge. Aristophanes, a master of bawdy humour, depicts a world where “thinking people” have overturned the political climate of his day.
He charges their reasoning is warped in nonsense, while education has lost its moral compass. Sophistry is not the only thing he is laughing at—but the prevalent philosophy of his day, verbosity without wisdom. The chorus of Clouds are symbolical metaphors for being dubious, evanescent, captivating yet insubstantial—a perfect allegory for sophistry, the subject behind Aristophanes’ censure.
The plot
The drama revolves around Strepsiades, an aging Athenian gentleman racked in debt, due to his pampered son’s obsession with race-horses. Desiring a release from his situation, Strepsiades decides to become a student at the Thinkery, a philosophy school run by Socrates, to learn all the rhetorical ruses to help him talk his way scot-free from paying his creditors.
Strepsiades arrives at the Thinkery and is greeted by a student, who eagerly shares details about Socrates’ strange new experiments—things like measuring insects and studying the stars in odd ways. As the student gives Strepsiades a tour, he points out the other scholars, all bent over in awkward positions: their faces pressed to the ground to observe geology, and their rear ends tilted skyward to examine the heavens. While showing off their detailed maps, Socrates suddenly makes a dramatic entrance—descending in a hanging basket, suspended in mid-air. He explains that this odd device helps him rise above ordinary thinking and “suspend” his judgment to explore radical ideas.
Strepsiades, desperate to escape his debt, explains his situation and asks for help. Socrates agrees to teach him and begins by shattering his belief in the gods. Instead, he claims that all natural phenomena such as thunder and rain, are caused by a group of divine Clouds, who serve as the play’s Chorus.
As their conversation ends, Socrates slyly talks Strepsiades out of his coat and ushers him into the school, eager to begin his unusual education. With Strepsiades offstage, the Chorus of Clouds takes charge of the play and reminds the audience of its satirical purpose. They glorify the moral value of the playwright’s work, particularly in difficult times.
Socrates and Strepsiades appear onstage and engage in bizarre lessons, such as debates on grammar and bed bugs. Strepsiades proposes ridiculous arguments for evading his debts, frustrating Socrates, who announces him unteachable. The Chorus convinces Strepsiades to enrol his son Pheidippides to the school instead. As he enters, Just and Unjust, personifications of two educational models, are arguing. Just supports traditional values alongside physical training, but gets sidetracked, while Unjust shrewdly disassembles his arguments employing mythology and trickery. Unjust defeats the Just in debate and takes on Pheidippides as his student.
A proud Strepsiades shows off his son’s rhetorical skills. He is delighted when Pheidippides employs creative arguments to disparage old customs and evade paying his debts. Strepsiades is elated—until his son diverts his new skills against him. He beats his father and justifies it with sophistry. Strepsiades admits he has created a worse problem and regrets forsaking old values.
In a fit of rage and remorse, he reproaches Socrates and the Clouds, then gets his slave Xanthias and torches down the Thinkery. As the school burns, Socrates, Chaerephon, and the students flee, while Strepsiades celebrates his revenge, and the Chorus ends the play on a contemplative note before exiting the stage.
Aristophanes’ angst with sophistry
Clouds is a teeming social critique. There is more to the play than mocking teachers in togas. It’s a sharp account of intellectualism and oratory losing its value and ethics. Athens at the height of the 5th century was a city enamoured with speech-making and individualism. The direct democracy of Athens enabled freedoms other demes in Greece could only imagine. Aristophanes, like many contemporaries feared the freedoms of democracy and preferred a more conservative approach to governance. A strong dissident against sophistry, he feared that the truth was becoming another performance at the hands of dexterous manipulators of speech. He saw how rhetoric, if misused, could justify anything—even violence, greed, or laziness—as long as it sounded smart and thought provoking. His problem was with those who used clever arguments to get out of responsibilities or sound important without actually contributing to society.
But was Socrates a sophist? Although he has been charged with this accusation by Aristophanes, Socrates never claimed to be one and displayed qualities contrary to its workings. Socrates was critical of those who misrepresented the truth and those who had no moral basis to their talk. We don’t have any written records of Socrates’ philosophy but representations of him via his pupil Plato, show Socrates to be an ardent seeker of the truth and ethical inquiry.
It’s worth noting that the real Socrates reportedly didn’t appreciate the joke. According to Plato, he stood up in the audience during the performance so people could compare the real Socrates to the comic version. Aristophanes’ portrayal of Socrates had a lasting impact in Athens. Decades later, when Socrates was charged and executed for “corrupting the youth,” some believed it was the play Clouds that planted this seed in the minds of the public.
Fast-forward 2,400 years, and Clouds still feels uncannily relevant. In an age of modern online debaters and influencers spewing word salads and pictures to antagonise, befuddle and misdirect vital information in the guise of truth, Aristophanes’ warning hits home: the gift of the gab without ethics is just noise in the air.
Next week on Echoes from Antiquity-drunken discussions on love as we delve into the Symposium.
