How Apology drew on The Clouds
A documented line of influence: Plato demonstrably engaged Aristophanes’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Clouds
Aristophanes · 423 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
Apology
Plato · c. 399 BCE
Ancient GreeceRelevance
9/10
On Apology’s page
- In the Apology Socrates names The Clouds directly — the "comic poet" who showed him walking on air is the source of the prejudice he's really fighting
- He calls these the "old accusers," more dangerous than the men formally prosecuting him, because they poisoned the jury years before the trial
- Read Aristophanes first and you hear the slander Socrates is answering — the Apology is a defense against a comedy
On The Clouds’s page
- Aristophanes put Socrates on stage as a fraud — suspended in a basket, studying the heavens, teaching young men to argue wrong into right
- That caricature stuck for a generation, and it's why the historical Socrates ended up on trial
- The Clouds is the comedy that the Apology spends its opening pages trying to undo