During the last three decades of the fifth century, Athens faced a serious intellectual and cultural crisis over the conflict between religion and philosophy that would lead to major religious trials and persecutions, famously culminating in the death of Socrates. In this lecture, John Lewis examines the nature of the traditional religious norms and rituals, contrasting them with the growing forms of scientific-philosophical thinking, and how these themes are immortalized in Aristophanes’s Clouds.
