The satire in this, one of the best known of all Aristophanes' comedies,
is directed against the new schools of philosophy, or perhaps we should
rather say dialectic, which had lately been introduced, mostly from
abroad, at Athens. The doctrines held up to ridicule are those of the
'Sophists'--such men as Thrasymachus from Chalcedon in Bithynia, Gorgias
from Leontini in Sicily, Protagoras from Abdera in Thrace, and other
foreign scholars and rhetoricians who had flocked to Athens as the
intellectual centre of the Hellenic world. Strange to say, Socrates of
all people, the avowed enemy and merciless critic of these men and their
methods, is taken as their representative, and personally attacked with
pitiless raillery. Presumably this was merely because he was the most
prominent and noteworthy teacher and thinker of the day, while his
grotesque personal appearance and startling eccentricities of behaviour
gave a ready handle to caricature. Neither the author nor his audience
took the trouble, or were likely to take the trouble, to discriminate
nicely; there was, of course, a general resemblance between the Socratic
'elenchos' and the methods of the new practitioners of dialectic; and
this was enough for stage purposes. However unjustly, Socrates is taken
as typical of the newfangled sophistical teachers, just as in 'The
Acharnians' Lamachus, with his Gorgon shield, is introduced as
representative of the War party, though that general was not specially
responsible for the continuance of hostilities more than anybody else.
Aristophanes' point of view, as a member of the aristocratical party and
a fine old Conservative, is that these Sophists, as the professors of the
new education had come to be called, and Socrates as their protagonist,
were insincere and dangerous innovators, corrupting morals, persuading
young men to despise the old-fashioned, home-grown virtues of the State
and teaching a system of false and pernicious tricks of verbal fence
whereby anything whatever could be proved, and the worse be made to seem
the better--provided always sufficient payment were forthcoming. True,
Socrates refused to take money from his pupils, and made it his chief
reproach against the lecturing Sophists that they received fees; but what
of that? The Comedian cannot pay heed to such fine distinctions, but
belabours the whole tribe with indiscriminate raillery and scurrility.
The play was produced at the Great Dionysia in 423 B.C., but proved
unsuccessful, Cratinus and Amipsias being awarded first and second prize.
This is said to have been due to the intrigues and influence of
Alcibiades, who resented the caricature of himself presented in the
sporting Phidippides. A second edition of the drama was apparently
produced some years later, to which the 'Parabasis' of the play as we
possess it must belong, as it refers to events subsequent to the date
named.
The plot is briefly as follows: Strepsiades, a wealthy country gentleman,
has been brought to penury and deeply involved in debt by the
extravagance and horsy tastes of his son Phidippides. Having heard of the
wonderful new art of argument, the royal road to success in litigation,
discovered by the Sophists, he hopes that, if only he can enter the
'Phrontisterion,' or Thinking-Shop, of Socrates, he will learn how to
turn the tables on his creditors and avoid paying the debts which are
dragging him down. He joins the school accordingly, but is found too old
and stupid to profit by the lessons. So his son Phidippides is
substituted as a more promising pupil. The latter takes to the new
learning like a duck to water, and soon shows what progress he has made
by beating his father and demonstrating that he is justified by all laws,
divine and human, in what he is doing. This opens the old man's eyes, who
sets fire to the 'Phrontisterion,' and the play ends in a great
conflagration of this home of humbug.
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