“I suppose it must seem odd to you that I go around and give this kind of advice in private and get
involved with people’s personal lives but I can’t bring myself to enter politics and get up in front of
the people to tell them what I think is in the best interests of the polis. The reason for this, as I have
often said in your hearing in a variety of settings, is my experience of a divine and supernatural
entity, the very one that Meletus holds up to disrespectful ridicule in his indictment. This is
something that began for me in childhood. It comes in the form of a voice which, whenever it comes
to me, never prompts me to do something but always merely restrains me from doing what I am about
to do. It is this which has opposed my entering politics, and I think this opposition has been a
blessing. For you are well aware, my fellow Athenians, that if I had attempted at an early age to
enter political life I would have ended my life at an early age, without having done any good either
to you or to myself.” (Plato, The Apology of Socrates 31c–d)There is, however, additional evidence that Socrates held religious beliefs that were not shared by his
contemporaries, and this evidence comes from sources that are quite sympathetic toward Socrates. The
Athenians Plato and Xenophon, both of whom were devoted followers of Socrates and both of whom
composed works that attempted to convey in writing the experience of conversing with Socrates in
person, represent Socrates as mentioning an unnamed divine entity that communicated directly and
uniquely with him. Both men are very careful to make it clear that Socrates did not neglect traditional
ritual practices; indeed, both Plato and Xenophon go out of their way to claim that Socrates was the most
upright and pious of men. The Clouds was produced at a time when the Athenians were involved in a
major war and only a few years after their city had been ravaged by a devastating epidemic, which some
contemporaries undoubtedly attributed to divine disfavor. It is likely, therefore, that Aristophanes was
simply reflecting a popular view, that the advanced thinkers of the day, like Socrates and Euripides, were
engaged in a program of probing and questioning that was in danger of overturning traditional beliefs and
values. Most of the advanced thinkers of the day were not Athenians, but many of them spent time in
Athens and made a name for themselves, some of them as highly paid private teachers, whom we have
come to call SOPHISTS. Aristophanes is not concerned to ridicule non-Athenians, except incidentally;
the main targets of his humor are Athenian citizens, whom he can count on to be well known to his
Athenian audience. So, it seems, Aristophanes has attributed to Socrates some views that Aristophanes
may himself have known that Socrates did not hold but that were held by prominent non-Athenian
sophists. The fact that Socrates was thought to have personal contact with some mysterious divine entity
would have made it easy, particularly in the context of a farcical comedy, to pretend that Socrates had
turned his back completely on the gods that the rest of the polis worshipped.
SOPHIST One of a number of specialists in higher education who traveled through the Greek
world, beginning in the fifth century BC, giving public displays of their expertise and offering
instruction in a variety of subjects, particularly formal oratory.There were in fact, at the time of the Peloponnesian War, men who had turned, or who were thought to
have turned, their back on the traditional gods. Around 415 BC, the Athenian assembly set a price on the
head of Diagoras of Melos (often referred to in our sources as “Diagoras the Godless”) because he
allegedly ridiculed the mystery rites that were celebrated annually in the deme of Eleusis and because he
tried to discourage people from having themselves initiated into the mysteries. At about the same time,
shortly before the Athenian fleet was to set sail to attack Sicily, someone had gone through the streets of
Athens in the middle of the night and had vandalized the many statues of Hermes (called HERMS) that