Hey, you turned out to be super-intuitive about the Aristophanes/Ameipsias co/incidence and its weirdness. Or at least its

remarkability. Here’s Burnet:

“It is remarkable that the comic poets all made fun of Socrates about the same time, and two of them in the same year, the year after he had greatly distinguished himself by his bravery in the field at Delium. Further, Ameipsias and Eupolis both allude to his poverty, though, since he served as a hoplite at Delium, he cannot have been reduced to real poverty in 424….we have no definite information as to the reasons for the attacks by the comic poets at this time, but they prove at least that Socrates was already well known at Athens.”

The first thing I want to just wonder about is this attested coincidence, that Ameipsias and Aristophanes (and also 2/3 of the agon for comedies in 423) both “make fun” of Socrates in the same year. While, as Burnet says, “we have no definite information as to the reasons…” and that “at least…Socrates was already well known” I am going to wonder about the significance of Socrates’ military service at Delium.

I mean, can we read the Socratic dialogues as to any extent at all the dialogues of a trauma—a specific trauma, watching thousands of his countrymen die in battle?

It’s hard to speculate any more, but, I don’t know, it begs the question, why 423?

The coincidences start to accumulate. I feel like I’ve been led on a little bit of a wild citation chase through the works of Plato and Aristophanes today, and, while I cannot present a clear picture, here are my findings:

In our passage of the Apology, Socrates discusses his “earlier accusers,” whom he cannot name, “except if they happen to be comedians.” A little later, he will call out Aristophanes by name, and quote The Clouds. The section he quotes is one that portrays Socrates as floating in the sky to inspect the air, which involves the τα τε μετεωρα φροντιστης trope already mentioned. It is also in our passage that Socrates indicates that many believe that those who inquire into τα τε μετεωρα φροντιστης etc. “do not believe in/worship the Gods.”

Okay.

So it so happens that there is one other place in the corpus of Plato (as far as I know, or can remember, and believe you me, I would love to be proven wrong and shown otherwise) where Plato (not Socrates) quotes Aristophanes. It’s in Symposium, 221b. It occurs in the speech of Alcibiades, who is discussing the bravery Socrates showed at Delium. In the middle of that discussion, he turns to Aristophanes and says to him, to sum up, “Let me quote you, Aristophanes, and say that he ‘strutted like a proud marsh-goose with ever a side-long glance.’” (το σον δη τουτο βρενθυομενος τ’οφλαμϖ παραβαλλειν)

The quote that Alcibiades comes up with is nearly verbatim—however, in the corresponding passage in The Clouds it is used to discuss Socrates’ demeanor very satirically. And there is a controversy about the meaning of τ’οφλαμϖ παραβαλλειν, which Burnet translates as “with a side-long glance,” and Jowett translates as “rolling one’s eyes”, the Loeb translator of The Clouds as “wearing a haughty expression” and that, of course, makes all the difference. Alcibiades turns Aristophanes’ phrase into one of commending Socrates’ face for maintaining bravery in the face of the foe.

But there’s more. In the very place in The Clouds in which this quote is derived, two lines down Socrates claims that clouds “are the only true goddesses. The rest are rubbish.” When Strepsisades asks about Zeus, Socrates says ουδ εστι ζευς, there is no Zeus.

In other words, in this part of The Clouds, the character “Socrates” who walks like a pelican with weirdly-turned eyes denies the existence of the Gods in favor of the natural world. The defendant Socrates calls out the comedian Aristophanes and says that the comedies associate interest in natural science with a disbelief in the Gods, just as they in fact do.

Where I’d like to take this: is impossible. For the jurors in Socrates’ trial could never have read Plato’s Symposium. Yet, in the middle of Alcibiades’ speech in that work, is a sort of anachronistic defense, a flip of the old accuser’s accusations, in which those very words referred to Socrates’ bravery in battle.

I apologize for the length of this post.