About a possible meaning of the invocation to Aér in Aristophane´s Clouds

Abstract

In the comedy The Clouds, from the comic poet Aristophanes, the Aér is mentioned three times, twice by Socrates and one by Strepsiades. Translators, commentators and critics have always considered that when this element was mentioned, it referred to the cosmological doctrines of the philosophers of the phýsis, especially of the physikós Diogenes of Apolonia. According to the testimonies of Plato, Socrates would have developed, at the same time or even with preference to the philosophical activity, the practice of spirituality, exercising and developing control and breathing concentration techniques. The Clouds also offers testimonies to elucidate this aspect of Socrate’s historic personality.