Xenophon, a source between Aristophanes and Plato, on Socrates’ meteorological reputation.

Weather Gods

“The conversations [at the party] were so good that the Syracusan [entertainer] noticed everyone was ignoring his dinner show and enjoying one another. Feeling a bit jealous, he said to Socrates:

‘Hey Socrates, aren’t you the one they call The Thinker?’

‘Isn’t that better,’ he said, ‘than being called thoughtless?’

‘Sure, if you weren’t supposed to be a thinker of ta meteora.’

‘Do you know,’ Socrates said, ‘anything more meteorological than the gods?’

‘For heaven’s sake, obviously not,’ he said, ‘but they’re not what people say you’re concerned with. They say you’re concerned with the most unbeneficial things.’

‘Well even if that were so,’ he said, ‘I’d still be concerned with gods. When it rains from above, they are beneficial, as when they give light from above. If it’s an awkward pun*,’ he said, ‘it’s your fault for giving me trouble.’”

τοιούτων δὲ λόγων ὄντων ὡς ἑώρα ὁ Συρακόσιος τῶν μὲν αὑτοῦ ἐπιδειγμάτων ἀμελοῦντας, ἀλλήλοις δὲ ἡδομένους, φθονῶν τῷ Σωκράτει εἶπεν:

ἆρα σύ, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὁ φροντιστὴς ἐπικαλούμενος;

οὐκοῦν κάλλιον, ἔφη, ἢ εἰ ἀφρόντιστος ἐκαλούμην;

εἰ μή γε ἐδόκεις τῶν μετεώρων φροντιστὴς εἶναι.

οἶσθα οὖν, ἔφη ὁ Σωκράτης, μετεωρότερόν τι τῶν θεῶν;

ἀλλ᾽ οὐ μὰ Δί᾽, ἔφη, οὐ τούτων σε λέγουσιν ἐπιμελεῖσθαι, ἀλλὰ τῶν ἀνωφελεστάτων.

οὐκοῦν καὶ οὕτως ἄν, ἔφη, θεῶν ἐπιμελοίμην: ἄνωθεν μέν γε ὕοντες ὠφελοῦσιν, ἄνωθεν δὲ φῶς παρέχουσιν. εἰ δὲ ψυχρὰ λέγω, σὺ αἴτιος, ἔφη, πράγματά μοι παρέχων.

Xenophon, Symposium 6.6–7

*lit. “if I’m saying frigid things”, but he’s referring to a pun he’s making: anôphelestata (most unbeneficial) like anô ôphelestata (very beneficial things from above), so anôthen ôphelousin: “from above, when it rains, they are beneficial.”