"Nubes" 1493ff: Was Socrates Murdered? Kopff, E Christian Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Summer 1977; 18, 2; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 113

Nubes 1493ff: Was Socrates Murdered? 
E. Christian Kopff 

.. I HAVE TAKEN THE VIEW that an editor must see every movement 
of the actors in his mind's eye and hear every inflexion of their 
voices in his mind's ear; he must, in short, produce the play in his 

imagination. A producer cannot take refuge in indecision when an 
actor asks him how a line is to be spoken or how far, and in what 
direction, a movement is taken. Unless the author is alive, or the text 
is furnished to excess with stage-directions which the author himself 
composed, the producer must make up his own mind. Ancient com­
mentators on Aristophanes accepted a responsibility of this kind, and 
there is no good reason why a modern commentator should shirk 
. "1 It. 

So Sir Kenneth Dover restated for us the goal of Wilamowitz's 
commentary on the Lysistrate: "Schritt ftir Schritt die Handlung zu 
verfolgen, die sich aus den Worten ergibt. "2 Aristophanes has in fact 
been rather fortunate in provoking detailed reconstructions of the 
stage action of his plays from a number of distinguished scholars.3 I 
wish here to reconsider the evidence for the staging of the final scene 
of Aristophanes, Nubes. 

The exodus of Nubes has been studied to detect revision, attested in 

1 K. J. Dover, Aristophanes, Clouds (Oxford 1968) vii-viii [hereafter, DOVER], echOing the 
beginning of his article, "The Skene in Aristophanes," PCPS 192 (N.S. 12) (1966) 2-17 [here­
after, DOVER, "Skene"]=Hans-Joachim Newiger, ed., Aristophanes und die alte Komodie 
(Darmstadt 1975) 99-123 [hereafter, NEWIGER]. 

I U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Aristophanes Lysistrate (Berlin 1927) 7. See now his 
letter of9 July 1927 to Eduard Fraenkel (W. M. Calder III, HSCP81 [1977]283): Aristophanes 
"verlangte, dass man mal zeigte, wie sie auf der Biihne sich ausnahm." 

3 e.g., Wilamowitz, op.cit. (supra n.2) 1-8, "Die Aufgabe der AristophaneserkHirung"; 
Eduard Fraenkel, "Dramaturgical Problems in the EcciesiaZusae," Greek Poetry and Life 
(Oxford 1936) 257-76=Kleine Beitriige I (Rome 1964) 469-86; A. M. Dale, "Seen and Unseen 
on the Greek Stage," WS 79 (1956) 96-106; "An interpretation of Aristophanes, Vesp. 
136-210 and its consequences for the stage of Aristophanes," ]HS 77 (1957) 205-11 [hereafter, 
DALE]; "Interior Scenes and Illusion in Greek Drama,"=Collected Papers (Cambridge 1969) 
119-29, 103-18, 259-71; Dover, "Skene." For Nubes the best, i.e. most explicit, commen­
taries for the present purpose are Dover and J. van Leeuwen, Aristophanes Nubes (Leiden 
1898). Editions that pay attention to staging but without detailed argumentation include 
V. Coulon-H. van Daele, Aristophane I (Paris 1923); R. Cantarella, Aristophane, Le Commedie 
III (Milan 1958). See also n.15 infra. 

113 



114 NUBES 1493ff: WAS SOCRATES MURDERED? 

the ancient scholia,4 or the presence of one or more doors in the comic 
skene.5 The editions with the most detailed descriptions of staging, 
van Leeuwen and Dover, are in basic agreement. The great agon be­
tween Strepsiades and his son ends with the revelation of the moral 
vacuity of Sophistic training as Pheidippides offers to console his father 
for the beating he has just administered by proving the justice of 
mother-beating as well as father-beating (1441-43). Strepsiades sees 
at last the true nature of Sophistry and the Phrontisterion. His com­
plaint to the Cloud-chorus is met by the statement that the delusive 
Clouds, who seem to represent no stable reality but change to reflect 
the nature of each person they meet (346-55), the symbols of the new 
technology of Rhetoric that can make the world over conform to our 
desires (423-24),6 are really the agents of Zeus, commissioned to lure 
the evil to condign punishment (1453--61). Strepsiades acknowledges 
their harsh justice (1462) and asks his son to help him in punishing 
Chaerephon and Socrates, but Pheidippides refuses, whether with 
misplaced piety or pointed irony (1464-71).7 Strepsiades repudiates 
the dinos (bowl) which stands by the door of the Phrontisterion,8 and 
appeals to the Herm standing by his own door (1472-83).9 The Herm, 
like the statue of Peace communicating with Hermes in Pax 661--63,10 

silently advises against bringing a graphell against Socrates and his 

'Ar. Nubes, hypo VI ad fin. Views on the extent of revision vary. Recently, in favor of 
extensive revision, Dover lxxx-xcviii; for relatively little revision,H.-J. Newiger, "Metapher 
und Allegorie," ZetematJl 16 (1957) 143-52 [herafter, NEWIGER, "Metapher"]; H. Erbse, 
"Ober die ersten 'Wolken' des Aristophanes," Opus Nobile(Wiesbaden 1969) 35-41 = Newiger 
198-211. 

& Recent full discussion in Dale; Dover; Dover, "Skene"; S. Srebmy, "Studia scaenica," 
Archiwum Filol. 5 (Wroclaw 1960) 62f; H.-J. Newiger, RhM 108 (1965) 235-41 Newiger 231-38; 
c. W. Dearden, The Stage of Aristophanes (London 1976) [hereafter, DEARDEN]. 

I Newiger, "Metapher" 50-74; K. J. Reckford, "Aristophanes' Everflowing Clouds," 
Emory University Quarterly 22 (1967) 223-35; C. Segal, "Aristophanes' Cloud-Chorus," 
Arethusa 2 (1969) 143-61=Newiger 174-97. 

7 Most, e.g. Dover ad 1467, favor piety. Van Leeuwen ad loco sees an ironic reminiscence 
of 871. 

8 I follow, e.g., Dover ad 1473 rather than van Leeuwen ad loc., who has Strepsiades 
rushing inside to fetch the dinos. 

• If only one door existed for the comic skene (Dale), the dinos and the Herm stand on 
either side of the door; cf. Aphrodite and Artemis in Eur. Hipp. 

10 See schol. R ad 1483 and Dover ad 1478. Dearden 24 argues against the presence of the 
Herm unconvincingly. 

11 W. J. M. Starkie, The Clouds of Aristophanes (London 1911) ad 1481, suggests a graphe 
asebeias. R. Maschke, Die Willenslehre im griech. Recht (Berlin 1926) 101fT, wants a dike or 
graphe bouleuseos. Schmid-Stiihlin IV 260 Anm.3 add a dike blabes or hybreos as possibilities. 



E. CHRISTIAN KOPFF 115 

followers, which their superiority in the art of persuasion would allow 
them to escape. Strepsiades should burn down the Phrontisterion 
(1483-85). Strepsiades calls forth a slave from within with ladder and 
mattock, who is to climb on the second-storey platform that repre­
sents the roof of the Phrontisterion (1486-89). Once there the slave 
digs up the tiles with the mattock (1487-88, 1496). Strepsiades sum­
mons a torch, follows the slave up the ladder, and sets fire to the 
Phrontisterion, presumably the exposed timbers of the rafters under 
the roof (1490-93, 1503). 

The text now has a series of cries of fear and anger from the in­
habitants of the Phrontisterion. Coulon-van Daele and Cantarella 
have the cries come from within. They do not indicate at any point the 
exit of Socrates and his disciples.12 Van Leeuwen has Chaerephon, 
several nameless disciples and Socrates rush out.IS Dover's note ad 
1493 implies a similar view, supplemented by some interesting 
suggestions. He had earlier argued contra Dale, "even if the philoso­
phers appear at the windows to utter their cries of distress, they must 
emerge from the door in time to be chased out of the theatre"14 by 
Strepsiades and his slave, who have descended from the roof (Dover 
ad 1508). 

I shall examine anew the evidence supporting a view which has 
often been implied and even explicitly stated, but never argued in 
detail, that the Phrontisterion is burned to the ground and all within 
perish.15 

I. NON-DRAMATIC PARALLELS. "This is not an unprecedented revenge; 
Strepsiades is treating the Socratics as if they were accused of or con­
demned for an offence against the state. A fifth-century Lokrian 
decree (Buck, no.59) provides (l1ff) that when a man incurs exile for 

11 Cantarella's direction ad 1510 is "Coro: (Uscendo mentre il Pensatoio crolla fra Ie 
fiamme)." 

13 Stage directions ad 1493-1510: "foras ruunt Discipuli complures"; provolans is appended 
to the lines of Chaerephon and Socrates ad 1497 and 1502. 

11 Dover, "Skene" 114. 
15 C. Fensterbusch, Die Buhne des Aristophanes (Diss. Leipzig 1912), is mute. Incineration 

is implied by Dale, Coulon-van Daele and Camarella; asserted incidentally but not argued 
by T. Long, TAPA 103 (1972) 296: "Force is the answer, and the son watches as his teacher 
and alma mater are incinerated." Among the majority who believe in escape, W. S. Teuffel/ 
o. Kaehler, Die Wolken des ATistophanes (Leipzig 1887) ad 1493; T. Kock, Ausgewahlte 
KomiJdien des Aristophanes I' (Berlin 1894) 25; Starkie 309-11; A. Willems, Ariswphane I 
(Paris/Brussels 1919) 374; G. Norwood, Greek Comedy (London 1931) 212; G. Murray, 
Aristophanes (Oxford 1933) 92; C. F. Russo, Aristofane autore di teatro (Florence 1962) 184; 
Dearden 24, 156f. 



116 NUBES 1493ff: WAS SOCRATES MURDERED? 

proposing the partition of certain land <his house shall be razed in 
accordance with the law of homicide', and the Spartans, angry with 
Agis in 418, fined him and demolished his house (Th. v. 63. 2)." So 
Dover ad 1485-92. 

The parallel seems a poor one. Socrates is not exiled nor even 
brought to trial. Surely it is a slip of the pen, though a crucial one, for 
Dover to suggest that Greeks were punished merely for being accused 
of a crime. I can find no true legal precedent or parallel for the 
destruction of the house of an accused man.16 Further, Socrates is not 
even accusedP 

The true parallel, mentioned by several commentators,lS is the 
attack on the Pythagoreans of Croton. Probably after 450 B.C., and 
thus in the lifetime of many in the audience, the Crotoniates revolted 
against the political power of the Pythagoreans, trapped the leaders 
of the sect in a house where they met (said to be the house of the 
famed Pythagorean athlete and general, Milon), and incinerated both 
house and leaders. The incident became famous, then legendary.19 

Ie The standard discussion is K. Meuli, Festschrift Fran{ Dornseiff (Leipzig 1953) 233-34, 
esp. Anm. 6 on 233. The nearest parallel I can find is the destruction of Cicero's Palatine 
mansion in March 58 B.C. Under the threat of a bill de capite avis Rl'mani, sponsored by the 
tribunus plebis P. Clodius Pulcher, Cicero went into voluntary exile. The next day the bill 
was passed by the Tribal Assembly and Cicero's mansion on the Palatine as well as his 
villa in Tusculum was sacked and burned (Cic. Sest. 53-54). The next day Clodius had 
another bill passed which declared Cicero interdicted from fire and water for an area of 
400 miles from Rome and all his property forfeit (Har.Resp. 11; Dom. 33,43-47,51,102, 
107-08,116, 143, 146; Red.8en. 22; Att. 3.15.6, 20.2-3; Fam. 14.2.2, 4.3-4); Cicero insisted 
that he had never been properly tried (Dom. 26, 72, 77,83,86,88; Mil. 36). R. G. Nisbett, 
Cicero, De Domo SJUl (Oxford 1939) 204-05, shows from Livy 25.4.9 and 26.3.12 that 
voluntary exile, confirmed by the vote of the Tribes, was legal exile from the day of the 
voluntary exile. Cicero had certainly treated the bill as though it were a de facto 
accusation (Cass.Dio 38.14.7; Pluto Cic. 30.6; Cic. Art. 3.8.4, 9.2, 10.2, 13.2, 14.1, 15.5. 
4.1.1; QFr. 1.36; Fam. 14.3.1). The violence of Clodius' ways may make all legal quibbling 
irrelevant. See Matthias Gelzer, Cicero (Wiesbaden 1969) 135-40. 

17 A minor correction in Dover's note, perhaps of interest to pedants. Agis did not lose 
his house but was threatened with a hasty trial which might have led to that. Usually 
Spartans were slow to condemn (Thuc. 1.132.4). The Spartans did exile and destroy the 
house of Leotychides, Hdt. 6.72.2. 

18 Perhaps first by T. Mitchell, The Clouds of Aristophanes (London 1838) 259-60 ad 1550-51 
(misprint for "1450-51 ")=our 1504-05. Also noticed by G. Grote, History of Greece IV (New 
York 1853) 410 n.l; ('London 1888) 93 n.2; E. W. Gotding, "Ober derRedaction derWolken 
des Aristophanes," Berichte U. d. Verhdl. Leip{ig 8 (1856) 31, and most commentators since. 

11 The ancient sources for Pythagoreanism are chaotic, but the standard modem works 
are excellent and agree on matters that concern us here: K. von Fritz, Pythagorean Politics 
in Southern Italy (New York 1940); Edwin L. Minar Jr, Early Pythagorean Politics (Baltimore 



E. CHRISTIAN KOPFF 117 

In some versions, ulh6c is present.20 The parallel with Nubes is 
close. In both cases, a sect of intellectuals combining unusual religious 
customs and philosophical speculation with oligarchical politics is 
destroyed by an outraged populace, whose freedom and mores they 
are endangering, by being trapped and burned in a house which is 
a common meeting place of the sect.21 The inhabitants of the 
Phrontisterion are invulnerable in court. Only violent revolt remains. 
Aristophanes' model is not a lynching but tyrannicide. 

II. DRAMATIC EVIDENCE. The recovery of the staging for an ancient 
script, which contained neither stage directions nor even attributions 
of speakers,22 is not easy. It involves weighing evidence which different 
people may assess differently. I believe that there are difficulties with 
the dramaturgy of van Leeuwen and Dover and that points which 
seem at first to count in favor of the Sophists' escape are on second 
thought not so important. 

1499. &7TOA€LC, (i'7TOA€LC. "You will kill, you will kill (us/me)." 
1504f. -0 '{pm 'TaAUC O€LAUtoC, &7T07TVLy~COf.LUL. 

• , ~, ~ 1 ,J..I 
--E"yw O€ KUKOOU'f.Lwv y€ KU'TUKUV't'7]C0f.LUL 

-"Alas, poor wretched me, I shall be choked to death." 
-"And I, unhappy me, shall be burned alive." 

1942); F. w. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius I (Oxford 1957) ad 2.39; W. K. 
C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy I (Cambridge 1962) 146-340; Walter Burkert, 
Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge [Mass.] 1972) 97-217; K. von Fritz, 
RE 24 (1963) 210-15. 

20 See RE 15 (1932) 1673.44-47, citing Diog.Laert 8.1.21(39); Porph. vit.Pyth. 55; Iambl. 
vit.Pyth. 35, 249. 

21 For the Phrontisterion as the center of religious mysteries which require initiation 
see Nubes 254-62; Dover ad 254; A. W. H. Adkins, "Clouds, Mysteries, Socrates and Plato," 
Antichthon 4 (1970) l3-24. The combination of philosophy and religious sect in Pythagorean­
ism is well-known (see n.19 supra). Socrates is not called an Oligarch in Nubes. (Not much 
weight should be placed on the mention of Hyperbolus at 876; he is a stock figure offun 
for Old Comedy: Ach. 846f; Eq. l302f, l362f; Pax 681; Nub. 551-60, 876, 1065.) His work is 
subversive of the legal system of the city; see e.g., 874-76, 1038-42, 1400. He was well 
known as a pro-Spartan 'Oligarch': see Aves 1281f and, e.g., PI. Cri. 52E. The oligarchic 
character of the Pythagoreans has been denied from Aristoxenus to e.g. John Burnet, 
Early Greek Philosophy' (London 1939) 90 n.l. Von Fritz records the cautious consensus of 
modern scholarship at RE 24 (1963) 210.37-42, "dass die P. anfanglich auf der Seite der 
aristokratischen und oligarchischen Faktionen standen." He asserts (215.23-42) that the 
revolt of ca 450 was a democratic revolt against an oligarchic Pythagoreanism, despite 
aristocratic opposition to Pythagoras in the late sixth century. See von Fritz, op.cit. (supra 
n.19) 97-98; Walbank, op.cit. (supra n.19) 223. 

22 J. c. B. Lowe, "Manuscript Evidence for Change of Speakers in Aristophanes," BICS 
9 (1962) 27-42; K. Weissmann, Die scenischen Anweisungen in der Scholien zu Aischylos, 



118 NUBES 1493ff : WAS SOCRATES MURDERED? 

These lines clearly imply the imminent death of the inhabitants of the 
Phrontisterion, not that they have just escaped death, choking and 
burning by flight. Dover does not comment on 1504-05; van Leeuwen 
compares the very general and unspecific words of lamentation spoken 
by the Sycophant, Plutus 850ff, who laments the new justice of the 
world in words that so far from being similia lack precisely the concrete 
references to death by choking and burning that are essential here. 

Dover mentions 1508 8lwK£. 7Tat£. fJ&.'\'\£ as evidence that Strepsiades 
and slave descend and drive the emerging Socratics off through the 
wings,23 but ad Nubes 1508 he cites parallels to prove that "8lwK£ and 
other words of the same type are as much war-cries as commands." 
They are the sort of things an angry crowd shouts, as at Ach. 281-283; 
Eq. 246-252; Vesp. 456; Av. 365; Eur. Rhes. 675-76; Xen. An. 5.7.21. . 
Xenophon, An. 5.7.28 describes a mutinous rabble-rouser as acnc 8~ eXv 
• 'It\ " '0' \ \' B '\ \ Q' \ \ H h £aVTOV £I\TJTaL CTpaTTJYOV KaL £ £1\!1I\£Y£LV al\l\£ fJal\l\£, W oever wants 
to get himself chosen general and is willing to say <throw, throw'."u 

Dover also objects ad loco that "we do not want two actors stranded 
up a ladder at the end of the play." At the end of Euripides, Orestes 
several actors have mounted the roof to set fire to the palace= 
skene. Apollo puts out the fire and restores order, but Orestes, 
Hermione and perhaps Pylades and Electra (the last three mutes) are 
all stranded on the roof at the end of the play. Presumably they exit 
down the ladder at the back of the skene by means of which they 
entered. 

Rogers believes "No doubt the Comedy always ended with the 
burning of the Phrontisterion, but the present description-the 
climbing up to the roof, the chopping logic with the rafters, and the 
actual flames-is a description of proceedings which could hardly 
have been presented, or described with a view to their presentation. 
on the Athenian stage."25 The exodus of Euripides , Orestes and perhaps 
the flaming pyre in Euripides, Supplices suggests that some kind of 
special effect for burning was possible. Decisive here is the end of 

Sophokles, Euripides, und Aristophanes (Bamberg 1896); W. C. Rutherford, A Chapter in the 
History of Annotation (London 1905) 103-05, who notes rare examples of ancient stage 
directions at, e.g., Ran. 312, 1263; Thesm. 277; Aesch. Eum. 129. 

II Dover, "Skene" 114. 
U John Vaio per lilt.: "balle, paie might function as literal commands as well as war-cries 

in view of line 1489: 'until you throw down [embaleis] the house upon them'. Dioke might 
be paraphrased 'keep on with the attack', 'hurry it up' (cf. LSJ S.v. 1lI.2-5)." 

IS B. B. Rogers, The COm£dies of Aristophanes II (London 1916) xvi. 



E. CHRISTIAN KOPFF 119 

Troades, where Troy is clearly described as incinerated as the exodus 
goes on and the play ends. Wilamowitz long thought that the skene 
actually burned to the ground; Hourmouziades leaves the entire 
burning to the imagination of the spectators; Lesky suggests a com­
promise with some burning effect visible from behind the skene.28 

At any rate, the audience either saw or were to imagine Troy utterly 
destroyed at the end of Troades. There is no need to make Aristophanes 
indifferent to staging here, no matter how different from Nubes I the 
exodus of Nubes II may be. 

In favor of incineration are the following considerations. We need 
not have Strepsiades and slave racing up and down the ladder twice 
in a short period of time. Their movement onto the roof, as analysed 
above, is clearly marked in the text as are their subsequent actions. 
There is no indication that anyone exits from the skene at 1493ff, and 
1504-05 argue against it. There is no sign in the text that anyone 
descends. If we follow Beer and attribute 1508ff to the chorus, we 
have the angry crowd that usually utters such words encouraging 
Strepsiades in his work ("a cry of no quarter, 'kill, kill, kill, kill'," 
says Starkie ad 1508) and we obviate the need for a clumsy descent, 
of which there is no real hint in the text.27 

The cries of distress from within the Phrontisterion continue the 

16 The detailed description of the burning scaena at Griechische Verskunst (Berlin 1921) 165 
=Commentariola metrica 2 (Gottingen IB95) is reflected in his earliest work, In wieweit be­
friedigen die SchlUsse der erhaltene griechischen Trauerspiele? (Leiden 1974) 130, and Griechische 
Tragodien III2 (Berlin 1906) 2B7; N. C. Hourmouziades, Production and Imagination in Eurip­
ides (Athens 1965) 12Z; A. Lesky, Die tragische Dichtung der Hellenen (Gottingen 1972) 
391-92. Starkie ad 1496 suggests '''the scene' was not set on fire; the conflagration was 
probably carefully confined to some shavings on the roof." Schmid-Stahlin I.3 599 Anm.l 
add Eur. Bacch. 623ff and Phaethon fr.7B1.43ff N2 (=25Zff Diggle; cf 215 Diggle); see also 
I.3 6Z0 Anm.7: "Das Brandstiftungsmotiv ... gilt aber in der Komodie a. 411 fUr abgniitzt 
(Ar. Lys. lZ1Bff mit Schol.)." 

27 The MSS indicate a change of speaker at 150B. They are divided between Hermes and 
Socrates, both impossible. Most follow the Aldine in continuing Strepsiades' part. Lines 
150Bf were attributed to the chorus by C. Beer, Ober die Zahl der Schauspieler bei A ristophanes 
(Leipzig IB44) 117f; Th. Bergk, Aristophanis Comoediae I (Leipzig IB52) xv, 170; Th. 
Zielinski, Die G/iederung der altattischen Komodie (Leipzig IBB5) 46 Anm.Z; Starkie ad 150B 
Dover ad loc. says Strepsiades "of course," but his parallels are all uttered by a crowd (for 
exceptions see Ar. Vesp. 456 and Xen. An. 5.7.2B, quoted above). The alternatives are to 
have Strepsiades expounding moral philosophy to a slave or the chorus to continue the 
attitude expressed (1303-20, 145B-61). Lowe, op.cit. (supra n.ll), has shown that the 
attributions of speakers are guesses; the fact of change, tradition. The earliest papyri 
mark the change of speaker with a paragraphos, not a name. See J. Andrieu, Le dialogue 
antique (Paris 1954) 209-303. (Beer defends the attribution to Hermes, 11Bf.) 



120 NUBES 1493ff: WAS SOCRATES MURDERED? 

tragic note that enters the play with the Clouds' Niobean response to 
Strepsiades' rebuke at 1458-61.28 Cries of distress, "you are killing 
me," etc., are found several times in Greek tragedy, regularly before 
a death or deaths.29 The audience might be able to deduce from 
familiarity with those parallels the imminent death of the Socratics. 
Of course, there are many cries of distress in any comedy that are 
meant to be funny. Nubes 543 and Ranae 1-20 show us Aristophanes 
making fun of them. The context here is different. No one has ever 
confused the cries of distress or the tone of the exodus of Nubes with 
scenes where the amusingly obnoxious are chased off by e.g. Pisthe­
taerus or the women's chorus in Lysistrata. 

Note that if Dale's arguments30 for only one door in the comic as in 
the tragic skene are accepted, the present interpretation becomes not 
just the more likely but inevitable. The central door has clearly been 
the door of Strepsiades' house since Pheidippides' return home. The 
roof is that of the Phrontisterion.31 There would be no exit for the 
Socratic circle. 

With the dramaturgy of the best commentaries, ambiguities 
remain on Aristophanes' true attitude towards Socrates. Did the 
comedian intend Nubes to have the effect attributed to it by Plato, 
Apologia 18B and 19c Ccf Leg. 936A), of turning the Athenians so against 

28 See Peter Rau, "Paratragoedia," Zetemata 45 (Munich 1%7) 173-75, who cites earlier 
bibliography. 

ZI W. S. Barrett apud Richard Carden, The Papyrus Fragments of Sophocles (Berlin 1974) 
212, discusses relevant passages, i.e. Aesch. Ag. 1343-45, Cho. 869; Soph. EI. 1404-06; Eur. 
El. 1165-67, HF 749, 754, Or. 1296-1301, Med. 1271-88, Antiope 48-56 Page; Hec. 1035-40, 

where Polymestor survives his children long enough to enter and prophesy the fate of 
Hecuba; Her. 887-908, where the cries uttered within presage death but the speakers do 
not die; Med. 96-167, where Medea's lyric lamentation, although different in length and 
effect from the other examples, does reinforce the Nurse's fears expressed at 36ff and pro­
vides a strong contrast with the self-possessed Medea we are about to see, perhaps Euripides' 
reason for this special effect. 

30 Dale 116, followed by Dearden 19fT. Dover's arguments in "Skene" are very damaging. 
Neither author refers to Eupolis, fr.42 Kock: olKova I)' £v8cfl)' £V 'TpLdv KaALI){OLC, oiKTJp.' EXWV 

fKaC'TOc. This fragment seems to put the set needed for, e.g., Menander, Dyscolus back into 
the fifth century. Dearden ZO dismisses it since "torn from its context the quotation is of 
uncertain value as evidence." W. Beare, The Roman Stage1 (Cambridge [Mass.] 1951) 287= 
(aNew York 1%3) 286, translates the fragment but gives the number as Z4 Kock. Dale, 
Collected Papers (supra n.3) 104ff, lZZ, twice refers to Beare's "Appendix G" where this 
reference occurs. 

31 Cf Dale 116: "the top part of the house is now doing duty for the Phrontisterion," 
with Wilamowitz, Griech. Verskunst (supra n.Z6) 165, of Troades: "ut Troiae urbem, quae 
in summa scaena est, incenderent." Dearden Z4 finds the sudden shift of the single door 
from Strepsiades to Socrates "difficult but not impossible." 



E. CHRISTIAN KOPFF 121 

Socrates that they condemned him to death in 399? Most scholars 
believe not. Gil bert Murray, for instance, felt that "In 423 these charges 
were jokes. In 399 they were not jokes at all." Either Aristophanes was 
a character witness for Socrates at his trial or else he was away from 
Athens at the time "on garrison duty somewhere."32 W. B. Stanford 
thinks that "In private life Ar(istophanes) and Socrates may well have 
been good friends, as Plato in his Symposium seems to imply. Ar. 
could hardly have foreseen that his comic attacks on Socrates would 
help to bring on his indictment and execution in 399 B.C."33 Victor 
Ehrenberg opines: "In accordance with popular misconceptions, in 
accordance also with the comedian's natural desire to make as much 
fun as possible of the 'philosophers', though at the same time in 
order to denounce the spirit rather than the man, Aristophanes 
attacked Sokrates as the true sophist, as the incarnation of all sophists," 
even though "he will have known better."34 The list could go on.31i 

The staging of the exodus of Nubes argued here suggests a different 
conclusion. The brief references in Aves 1281f, 1554ff and Ranae 1491ff 
show continued hostility. The last two occur in choral passages not 
dictated by dramatic action or the character of a speaker but stem­
ming directly from the poet. Some believe that Plato's presentation 
of Aristophanes and Socrates dining together in Symposium shows the 
supposed hostility of Aristophanes to be only an exaggeration of a 
comedian's pranks. Aristophanes and Socrates in Symposium do not 
seem friendly to me. They rarely converse. When Socrates' speech is 
over, Aristophanes does not applaud but tries to bring some objection 
or complaint (212c). Their final confrontation, which while not hostile 
is not especially friendly, has Socrates proving to Agathon and 
Aristophanes, the representatives of Athenian art, that if they were 
truly knowledgeable in their arts they could compose in either genre. 
Surely the point of Symposium is that the best of Athens, and great 
indeed it is, is nothing compared with Socrates and his way. "Von 
Gegnern des Sokrates bleibt Aristophanes der wichtigste."36 

32 Gilbert Murray, Aristophanes (Oxford 1933) 99. On p.104 Murray says the play was 
rewritten to be harsher to Socrates. 

33 Aristophanes, The Frogs2 (London 1963) ad 1491. 
34 The People of Aristophanesz (Oxford 1951) 277, 276. 
35 See, e.g., the discussions in T. Gelzer, "Aristophanes der Komiker," RE Supp. 12 (1970) 

1441-45; Guthrie, op.cit. (supra n.19) III 359-77. 
36 U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Platon 12 (Berlin 1920) 94. On Aristophanes' speech 

in PI. Symp., see K. J. Dover,jHS 86 (1966) 41-50. 



122 NUBES 1493ff: WAS SOCRATES MURDERED? 

There are reasons to believe that the exodus of Nubes had Strep­
siades, on the advice of his household Herm, mount the roof of 
the Phrontisterion with a slave and set fire to it, respond to the ques­
tions and cries of terror from within, and descend with his slave 
down the back of the skene as the chorus marches out, leaving audi­
ence or reader to accept the death of all within. This reconstruction 
means that at least from Nubes II, ca 418 B.C., if not from 423, Aristoph­
anes could foresee-and advise-only one ending for the tumultuous 
relationship of Socrates, son ofSophroniscus, and the people of Athens, 
a final solution.37 

THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO 

April, 1977 

37 This paper owes much to the advice, criticism, encouragement and libraries of Pro­
fessors William M. Calder III and John Vaio.