Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander

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Aristophanes on Socrates

The feeling that Socrates could be a danger to conventional society gave the comic playwright Aristophanes¹ the inspiration for his comedy Clouds ² of 423 B.C., so named from the role played by the chorus. In the play Socrates is presented as a cynical sophist who, for a fee, offers instruction in the Protagorean technique of making the weaker argument the stronger³. When the protagonist's son is transformed by Socrates's instruction into a rhetorician able to argue that a son has the right to beat his parents⁴, the protagonist ends the comedy by burning down Socrates's Thinking Shop, as it is called in the play.