Aristophanes Clouds 830b

Clouds. Aristophanes. . 2026-09-08.

Current edition Experimental

Commentary (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) (English) (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.)

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)
Νεφέλαι Perseus (Aristophanes. Aristophanis Comoediae, Vol. 1. Hall, F. W. and Geldart, William M., editors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.) — 889-1104 focus
Translations (2)
Clouds Perseus (Aristophanes. The Comedies of Aristophanes, Vol. I. Hickie, William James, translator. Bohn: London, 1853.) — 814 focus
English (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) Experimental (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.) — 814 focus

Commentary

Commentary (Sanjaya, generated; selected passages) (OCR draft) (Source: pnadelofficial/aristophanes-sanjaya, commit c319590c139e5603e71f0699caa0663d823af8ad. Machine-generated source annotations retained; see Sanjaya import audit for coverage and limitations.) focus

830b. mvp-tlg0019-tlg003-sanjaya-com-eng1-57

Line 830b

Σωκράτης ὁ Μήλιος
The epithet 'the Milesian' (ὁ Μήλιος) is a deliberate comic distortion by Aristophanes. The historical Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a stonemason from the deme of Alopece in Athens. By assigning him a Milesian patronymic or demotic, Aristophanes exploits the contemporary Athenian stereotype of the Milesians as sophists, cosmopolitans, and representatives of the 'new learning' associated with Ionian natural philosophy (e.g., Anaxagoras). This misattribution serves to blur the line between the specific character of Socrates and the broader, often satirized, figure of the Ionian intellectual, thereby reinforcing the play's thematic conflation of Socratic inquiry with the foreign and subversive doctrines of the Sophists.