The Eleven Comedies Vol 1 Part 26

[183] Meaning, securing allies for the continuance of the war.

[184] When Athens sent forth an army, the soldiers were usually ordered to a.s.semble at some particular spot with provisions for three days.

[185] These feasts were also called the Anthesteria or Lenaea; the Lenaeum was a temple to Bacchus, erected outside the city. They took place during the month Anthesterion (February).

[186] A celebrated athlete from Croton and a victor at Olympia; he was equally good as a runner and at the 'five exercises' ([Greek: pentathlon.]).

[187] He had been Archon at the time of the battle of Marathon.

[188] A sacred formula, p.r.o.nounced by the priest before offering the sacrifice ([Greek: kan_ephoria]).

[189] The maiden who carried the basket filled with fruits at the Dionysia in honour of Bacchus.

[190] The emblem of the fecundity of nature; it consisted of a representation, generally grotesquely exaggerated, of the male genital organs; the phallophori crowned with violets and ivy and their faces shaded with green foliage, sang improvised airs, called 'Phallics,' full of obscenity and suggestive 'double entendres.'

[191] The most propitious moment for Love's gambols, observes the scholiast.

[192] Married women did not join in the processions.

[193] The G.o.d of generation, wors.h.i.+pped in the form of a phallus.

[194] A remark, which fixes the date of the production of the 'Acharnians,' viz. the sixth year of the Peloponnesian War, 426 B.C.

[195] Lamachus was an Athenian general, who figures later in this comedy.

[196] At the rural Dionysia a pot of kitchen vegetables was borne in the procession along with other emblems.

[197] Cleon the Demagogue was a currier originally by trade. He was the sworn foe and particular detestation of the Knights or aristocratic party generally.

[198] That is, the baskets of charcoal.

[199] The stage of the Greek theatre was much broader, and at the same time shallower, than in a modern playhouse.

[200] A mountain in Attica, in the neighbourhood of Acharnae.

[201] Orators in the pay of the enemy.

[202] Satire on the Athenians' addiction to lawsuits.

[203] 'The Babylonians.' Cleon had denounced Aristophanes to the senate for having scoffed at Athens before strangers, many of whom were present at the performance. The play is now lost.

[204] A tragic poet; we know next to nothing of him or his works.

[205] Son of Aeolus, renowned in fable for his robberies, and for the tortures to which he was put by Pluto. He was cunning enough to break loose out of h.e.l.l, but Hermes brought him back again.

[206] This whole scene is directed at Euripides; Aristophanes ridicules the subtleties of his poetry and the trickeries of his staging, which, according to him, he only used to attract the less refined among his audience.

[207] "Wheeled out"-that is, by means of the [Greek: ekkukl_ema], a mechanical contrivance of the Greek stage, by which an interior was shown, the set scene with performers, etc., all complete, being in some way, which cannot be clearly made out from the descriptions, swung out or wheeled out on to the main stage.

[208] Having been lamed, it is of course implied, by tumbling from the lofty apparatus on which the Author sat perched to write his tragedies.

[209] Euripides delighted, or was supposed by his critic Aristophanes to delight, in the representation of misery and wretchedness on the stage. 'Aeneus,' 'Phoenix,' 'Philoctetes,' 'Bellerophon,' 'Telephus,' 'Ino' are t.i.tles of six tragedies of his in this genre of which fragments are extant.

[210] Line borrowed from Euripides. A great number of verses are similarly parodied in this scene.

[211] Report said that Euripides' mother had sold vegetables on the market.

[212] Aristophanes means, of course, to imply that the whole talent of Euripides lay in these petty details of stage property.

[213] 'The Babylonians' had been produced at a time of year when Athens was crowded with strangers; 'The Acharnians,' on the contrary, was played in December.

[214] Sparta had been menaced with an earthquake in 427 B.C. Posidon was 'The Earthshaker,' G.o.d of earthquakes, as well as of the sea.

[215] A song by Timocreon the Rhodian, the words of which were practically identical with Pericles' decree.

[216] A small and insignificant island, one of the Cyclades, allied with the Athenians, like most of these islands previous to and during the first part of the Peloponnesian War.

[217] A figure of Medusa's head, forming the centre of Lamachus' s.h.i.+eld.

[218] Indicates the character of his election, which was arranged, so Aristophanes implies, by his partisans.

[219] Towns in Sicily. There is a pun on the name Gela-[Greek: Gela] and [Greek: Katagela] (ridiculous)-which it is impossible to keep in English. Apparently the Athenians had sent emba.s.sies to all parts of the Greek world to arrange treaties of alliance in view of the struggle with the Lacedaemonians; but only young debauchees of aristocratic connections had been chosen as envoys.

[220] A contemporary orator apparently, otherwise unknown.

[221] The parabasis in the Old Comedy was a sort of address or topical harangue addressed directly by the poet, speaking by the Chorus, to the audience. It was nearly always political in bearing, and the subject of the particular piece was for the time being set aside altogether.

[222] It will be remembered that Aristophanes owned land in Aegina.

[223] Everything was made the object of a law-suit at Athens. The old soldiers, inexpert at speaking, often lost the day.

[224] A water-clock used to limit the length of speeches in the courts.

[225] A braggart speaker, fiery and pugnacious.

[226] Cephisodemus was an Athenian, but through his mother possessed Scythian blood.

[227] The city of Athens was policed by Scythian archers.

[228] Alcibiades.

[229] The leather market was held at Lepros, outside the city.

[230] Meaning an informer ([Greek: phain_o], to denounce).

[231] According to the Athenian custom.

[232] Megara was allied to Sparta and suffered during the war more than any other city, because of its proximity to Athens.