with the famous saying ‘man is the measure of all things’, often understood to imply
a doctrine of relativity in relation to knowledge and scepticism as to the universality
ofany science. About the gods he was agnostic. He is said to have been the first to
propose that on every subject there can be two conflicting opinions. He features in
a dialogue of Plato that bears his name, where he is treated respectfully and debates
with Socrates various questions relating to politics, pleasure and knowledge. He
exhibits common sense and at one stage offers an account of his purposes as a
teacher:
When he comes to me, Hippocrates will not be put through the same things that
another sophist would inflict upon him. The others treat their pupils badly; these
young men, who have deliberately turned their backs on specialisation, they take
and plunge into special studies again, teaching them arithmetic and astronomy
and geometry and music... but from me he will learn only what he has come to
learn. What is that subject? The proper concern of his personal affairs, so that he
may best manage his own household, and also his state affairs, so as to become
a real power in the city, both as a speaker and man of affairs.
(Protagoras, 318d–e)Plato draws a sharp distinction between Socrates and the sophists, whom he repre-
sents as men who taught skills without genuine interest in moral truth or in the higher
ends which knowledge should be made to serve. Certainly there is a gulf between the
practical aim of worldly success expressed by Protagoras here and the divine mission
of Socrates. In method they differed too. The sophists gave lectures in schools for a
fee; Socrates did not give lectures nor did he set up a school or take fees.
Nevertheless, when Aristophanes satirised the sophists in the Cloudsof 423, he
chose Socrates as the representative of the new learning. An elderly farmer called
Strepsiades (‘The Twister’) has heard of Socrates, as a man who can make the worse
case appear a better one, and hopes to profit from his teaching to cheat those
towhom he is in debt. He goes to the ‘thinking school’ of Socrates where he is
introduced to the clouds, whom Socrates alleges to be responsible for producing rain
rather than Zeus. (There is a tradition that Socrates began with physics before turning
to ethics.) But Strepsiades is too stupid to learn anything, so he sends his son
Pheidippides instead. The son hears the unjust argument defeat the just argument,
and as a result of the new learning is able to teach his father to cheat his creditors.
But he then beats his father, proving that he is justified in doing so and disowns the
authority of the gods. Strepsiades sets fire to Socrates’ school in disgust.
The comic indictment of Aristophanes proved to be uncannily prophetic. In 399,
in the restored democracy, Socrates was put on trial on the serious charge of corrupt-
ing the minds of the young and of believing in deities of his own invention instead
192 THE GREEKS