of a treatise on Natural Curiosities; and lastly a rhetorician who wrote a handbook on his art. Cuapter 5. SOCRATES (469-399 B.c.) Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and of Phaenarete, a midwife, as we read in the Theaetetus of Plato; he was a citizen of Athens and belonged to the deme Alopece. It was thought that he helped Euripides to make his plays; hence Mnesimachus ¢ writes : This new play of Euripides is The Phrygians ; and Socrates provides the wood for frying.® And again he calls Euripides ‘‘ an engine riveted by Socrates.” And Callias in The Captives ¢ : A. Pray why so solemn, why this lofty air ? B. I’ve every right ; I’m helped by Socrates. Aristophanes 4 in The Clouds : "Tis he composes for Euripides Those clever plays, much sound and little sense. According to some authors he was a pupil of Anaxagoras, and also of Damon, as Alexander states in his Successions of Philosophers. When Anaxagoras was condemned, he became a pupil of Archelaus the physicist ; Aristoxenus asserts that Archelaus was very fond of him. Duris makes him out to have been a slave and to have been employed on stoneand the draped figures of the Graces on the have by some been attributed to him. Hence the passage in Timon’s Silli¢ :