The circumstances of the Athenian government, in his time, could not invite a man of his disposition to offer himself for political situations. He thought he might be infinitely more useful to his country in the singular line, it might indeed be called a public line, which he had chosen for himself. Not only he would not solicit office, but he would take no part in political contest. In the several revolutions which occurred he was perfectly passive. But he would refuse nothing: on the contrary, he would be active in everything that he thought decidedly the duty of a citizen. When called upon to serve among the heavy-armed, he was exemplary in the duties of a private soldier; and as such he fought at Potidæa, Amphipolis, and Delium. We find him mentioned in civil office; at one time president of the general assembly, and at another a member of the council of Five Hundred. In each situation he distinguished himself by his unbending uprightness. When president, he resisted the violence of the assembled people, who voted a decree, in substance or in manner, contrary to the constitution. Neither entreaties nor threats could move him to give it the necessary sanction of his office. As a member of the council we have already seen him, in the office of prytanis, at the trial of the six generals, persevering in resistance to the injustice of popular tyranny, rendered useless through the want of equal constancy in his colleagues, who yielded to the storm. Under the Thirty again we have seen him, not in office indeed, but daring to refuse office, unworthy and illegal office, which the tyranny of the all-powerful Critias would have put upon him. We are not informed when Socrates first became distinguished as a sophist; for in that description of men he was in his own day reckoned. When the wit of Aristophanes was directed against him in the theatre he was already among the most eminent, but his eminence seems to have been then recent. It was about the tenth or eleventh year of the Peloponnesian War, when he was six or seven and forty years of age, that, after the manner of the old comedy, he was offered to public derision upon the stage, by his own name, as one of the persons of the drama, in the comedy of Aristophanes, called the _Clouds_, which is yet extant. The audience, accustomed to look on defamation with carelessness, and to hold as lawful and proper whatever might amuse the multitude, applauded the wit, and even gave general approbation to the composition; but the high estimation of the character of Socrates sufficed to prevent that complete success which the poet had looked for. The crown, which rewarded him whose drama most earned the public favour, and which Aristophanes had so often won, was on this occasion refused him.