HARVEY, F. D., "Nubes" 1493ff: Was Socrates Murdered? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:4 (1981:Winter) p.339 Nubes 1493££: Was Socrates Murdered? F. D. Harvey AT THE END of the Clouds Strepsiades sets fire to the Phron­ tisterion. Most scholars, including the most recent commen­ tator on the play,l have believed that Socrates and his com­ panions come running out of the burning building, and are chased away by Strepsiades and his slave. E. Christian Kopff, however, in a recent article in this journal,2 argues that they remain inside the building, and are burnt to death. I offer five arguments in favour of the traditional view. 1. First, a general consideration: people do not get killed in Old Comedy. Insulted, humiliated, beaten, yes; threatened with death (Diakaiopolis at Ach. 280ff, esp. 325); even, like Lamachos (Ach. 1174ff), wounded; but not killed. On the other hand, they do frequently get chased; in particular, Thesmophoriazousai provides a good parallel for a chase at the end of a comedy. Such generalizations are admittedly hazardous. Houses do not normally get burnt down in Old Comedy either; Clouds might be exceptional in both respects. Furthermore, we can generalize from only a handful of plays; a new papyrus might at any time under­ mine the rule. Until such evidence is forthcoming, however, the argument cannot be lightly dismissed. 2. Next, Strepsiades' intentions. He tells us what he proposes to do. He will follow Hermes' advice we; uiXlar' Bp:1tlp:npaval r17v olKiav rwv dooAeaxwv (1484-85): he will burn the house. He does not add "and Socrates too, and his wretched disciples." If Strep­ siades' idea of taking revenge were so violent that, like Phalaris, he was prepared to roast his instructors alive, we should expect him to say so explicitly. He does not. Similarly the startled character at 1497 cries out "Who is setting fire to our house?" not "Who is incinerating us ?"3 The destruction of the house, then, is Strepsiades' first aim. He 1 K. J. DOVER, Aristophanes, Clouds (Oxford 1968), hereafter 'Dover'. 2 "Nubes 1493ff: Was Socrates Murdered?" GRBS 18 (1977) 113-22, hereafter 'Kopff'. 3 For what it is worth, the Hypotheses too refer only to the burning of the house: Hyp. I (Dover) 9, III 27, IV 8. 339 HARVEY, F. D., "Nubes" 1493ff: Was Socrates Murdered? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:4 (1981:Winter) p.339 340 NUBES 1493ff: WAS SOCRATES MURDERED? does, however, utter more serious threats. At 1489 he tells his slave to demolish the roof "until you bring the house down on top of them," €em; av aV'wf~ ep.paA1J~ TllV obdav. Strictly, the occupants must remain inside if this is to happen; but again Strepsiades does not say "until they are burnt to a cinder," and the collapse of the roof is quite compatible with an escape from the blazing house.4 At 1499 a Socratic shouts "You will be the death of me," to which Strepsiades replies "Yes, that's just what I'd like." Perhaps by now he is thinking of homicide, whether by fire or falling tiles and masonry or whatever. At this stage he is in no mood to draw distinctions; it is the climax of his fury. Strepsiades' threats, then, get more violent as he warms to his task, but this is not to say that he carries them out. His rage may be frustrated by the escape of Socrates and his merry men. 3. Lines 1499, 1504, 1505: Kopff (120) adduces parallels from tragedy, where cries of woe from characters in extremis are heard from within: "the audience might be able to deduce ... the immi­ nent death of the Socratics." We cannot, in fact, be sure that the cries are from within,5 but let us assume that they are. Such cries in tragedy take various forms, 6 but only one of them is in the future tense like the exclamations of Socrates and his pupil: Lykos' cry in Euripides' Antiope (fr. 48.59 Kambitsis = 56 Page), OiP.OI Oavovp.al npo~ c5vofv dur5p.p.axo~, "Alas I shall die .... " As it hap­ pens, Lykos does not die, because Hermes opportunely intervenes (67££ = 64££ Page) to prevent bloodshed. No more do Socrates and his pupils, I suggest: the audience, if in a pedantic mood, can easily understand a conditional clause: "Alas, I shall be choked to death [if I don't get out of here quickly]." As for dnoAef~, there are numerous examples of this exclamation in comedy, in the sense 4 "I'll make you pay for this" at 1491-92 is too unspecific to serve as evidence. s C. W. Dearden, The Stage of Aristophanes (London 1976) 24, has the Socratics "ap­ pearing at the window shouting for help" without specifying line-numbers. W. J. M. Starkie, The Clouds of Aristophanes (London 1911) 309, 311, brings them out from 1493 onwards. A. H. Sommerstein in the Penguin translation (Harmondsworth 1973) brings them out at varying speeds from 1497ff. K. J. Dover, PCPhS 192 (1966) 11 = H.-J. Newiger (ed.), Aristophanes und die alte Komodie (Darmstadt 1975) 114, and in his commentary ad loc., prudently leaves the question open. 6 Present tense (most commonly), perfect, deliberative subjunctive, imperative both posi­ tive ('help!') and negative ('do not kill!'), invocations, vocatives, and tenseless wails. Only three are in the future tense as in the Clouds. Of these, one is a threat (dvapprjew, Eur. Hec. 1040) and another a periphrastic imperative (00" dprjeeT:e; Eur. Antiope fro 48.53 Kambit­ sis = 50 Page); this leaves only the line discussed in the text. HARVEY, F. D., "Nubes" 1493ff: Was Socrates Murdered? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:4 (1981:Winter) p.339 F. D. HARVEY 341 "you will be the death of me" rather than "you will kill me,"7 though of course the predicament of the speaker makes a literal interpretation more likely here. But there is no reason to assume that his prediction comes true. My attention has also been drawn to the "stress on terror" in this scene: Oip,OI rdA~ beiAalO~ (1504), eydJ be KaKobaip,wv (1505); will characters uttering such cries easily be thought of as contem­ plating escape? But these exclamations hardly constitute a stress on terror. Strepsiades cries out Olj1Ol raAa~ because of his debts (23) and because he is bitten by bugs (742). He is <5eiAalO~ because he cannot sleep (12), because of the bugs (709), and because he thought Dinos a god (1473); Hyperbolos is <5eiAalO~ because he was attacked by comic poets (552). KaKOf5aij1wv tyw exclaims Strepsiades, yet again because of the bugs (698); Olj1Ol KaKO­ <5aij1wv exclaims Pheidippides, afraid of becoming a living corpse like Chairephon (504, cr. KaKo<5aij.iova at 1112); Olj101 KaKO­ <5aij1wv says Strepsiades, beaten by his son (1324). Various indi­ viduals are characterized as KaKo<5aij1wv: Socrates (104), Strep­ siades (791), Peleus (1064), the second creditor (1263); and when Strepsiades calls himself KaKoJaij1wv at 268 the force is simply "Poor old me, to think that I came out without a hat!"8 Such expressions hardly build up an atmosphere of terror; they are intended to make us laugh. So is iov iov at 1493-indeed Aris­ tophanes explicitly mentions this in the parabasis (543) as one kind of cheap joke.9 4. Line 1508: <5iWK8, nai8, PdAA8. L1iWK8 is most naturally taken as an order by Strepsiades to his slave to chase Socrates and his companions. Kopff says (118) that these "are the sort of thing an angry crowd shouts," but only one of the passages he cites to support this view contains OiWK8, and that is an instance of physi­ cal pursuit: the entry of the chorus of Knights in pursuit of Kleon 7 E.g. Ach. 470; Vesp. 849, 1202; Pax 166; Av. 1506; Thesm. 1073; Eccles. 775; Pluto 390. 8 Other passages where these words are juxtaposed are Ach. 1018-19 OIf.,lOI raA~ ... avtjp KaKooaif.,lWV (farmer, oxen stolen); Eq. 1200 OrJ1,Ol !(.u~, 1206 OIJ1,OI KaKOOaiJ1,WV (Kleon, hare stolen); Vesp. 1150 OIf.,lOI &iA.alO~, 1166 KaKooaif.,lWV tyw (Philokleon, smart cloak and shoes); Thesm. 229 KaKooaiJlWv eydJ, 232 Off.,lOl KaKOOaif.,lWV, 237 Orf.,lOI KaKO­ oaiJ1,WV, 241 OrJ1,Ol rtiA.a~ (Mnesilochos being shaved and singed); and Pluto 850-52 Orf.,lOI KaKooaiJlWV, wr; d1r6AWAa &iA.alOr;, Kai rpir; KaKobaif.,lwv Kai rerpdKlr; Kai m;vraKI~ Kai bw&­ KtiKlr; Kai f.,lvpldKl~· iov ior5 (sycophant, loss of property). 9 Aristophanes' claim that he does not descend to iov ior5s can hardly be serious in view of the opening words of the play and lines 1321 and 1493. HARVEY, F. D., "Nubes" 1493ff: Was Socrates Murdered? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:4 (1981:Winter) p.339 342 NUBES 1493ff: WAS SOCRATES MURDERED? (Eq. 251, ct. 246). Physical pursuit is also implied by c5fwKt: at Ach. 204 and Thesm. 1223 (neither cited by Kopff), the latter, as in Clouds, at the end of a play. In these passages c5fwKt: means literally 'chase', and at Clouds 1508 too it is better taken literally than as a vague shout; in which case Socrates and his friends must have emerged from the Phrontisterion.10 5. Finally, to incinerate the occupants, it would be necessary to lock, bolt, or barricade the door.ll Strepsiades starts burning the building from the roof (1487 with Dover ad loc.); anyone inside would naturally run out, unless he were prevented. There is noth­ ing in the text to suggest that the door has been blocked.12 Strep­ siades gives detailed instructions: a ladder, a mattock, demolish the roof, bring a torch-but there is not a word about keeping the door shut. Nor is there time for it: after 1485ffhe and his slave are on the roof, otherwise employed. 13 Kopff, in citing the parallel from Kroton (116), uses the word 'trapped'; but Socrates and his associates are not trapped. The fire begins on the roof, and wher­ ever one envisages them at any given moment, they have plenty of time to escape.14 Was the skene then actually burnt to the ground?15 Wilamowitz argued that this happened at the end of the Troades (Kopff 119 with n.26), and Dover (on 1485££, cf. lxxi-ii) believes that it may have happened here. This seems implausible. Whatever one mayor may not believe about light movable wooden screens or panels,16 10 This argument against Kopff reaffirms and strengthens the views of Dover (supra n.S), and commentary ad lac. ]. Vaio in Kopff 118 n.24 refers to LS] s.v. JrwKw 1II.2-S; but m.2 is 'drive, drive on' rather than 'hurry it up', and there is no need to take Clouds 1508 in this way; III.3 requires an object, and 4 and 5 are post-classical. 11 I assume two doors, not one; cf. Kopff 120 with n.30. 12 A reader points out that there is no mention of escape either; but I cannot see why there need be. 13 Kopff 119 speaks of "Strepsiades and slave racing up and down the ladder twice in a short period of time." This is oddly put; they each go up and down only once. 14 For various views on when they emerge see supra n.S. Calculations must of course be based on how many lines are required for an actor to emerge from the skene, not on how long it would take to escape from a blazing house in real life. 15 The question cannot be dismissed as academic on the grounds that the revised version, in which the burning of the school was a new feature (Hyp. I 7-9), was probably never produced (see Dover [supra n.1] lxxxi). Aristophanes certainly intended that the revised version should be produced; and that is what matters for our purposes. 16 Dover (supra n.S) 3-4,11-12 [=Newiger 101-03,114-15], and (supra n.1) lxxi-ii; Dearden (supra n.S) 19-20, 38-40. HARVEY, F. D., "Nubes" 1493ff: Was Socrates Murdered? , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:4 (1981:Winter) p.339 F. D. HARVEY 343 the structure which Strepsiades places his ladder against, climbs to the top of, and attacks the roof of, must surely be the main wooden skene-and this would have been required for the next play.17 THE UNIVERSIlY OF EXETER July, I9 8I 17 I am very grateful to Sir Kenneth Dover and Dr Richard Seaford for their comments on an earlier draft of this note, and to an anonymous referee who has forced me to reconsider my arguments and to temper my dogmatism.