Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2008 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/aristoplianespoliOOcroiuoft ARISTOPHANES AND THE POLITICAL PARTIES AT ATHENS MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited LONDON BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. Ltd. TORONTO ARISTOPHANES AND THE POLITICAL PARTIES AT ATHENS BY MAURICE CROISET TRANSLATED BY JAMES LOEB, A.B. MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1909 )^P7 197Z // — — '...x'"' GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEBOSE AND CO. LTD. THE TEANSLATOR'S PREFACE My English version of the late Monsieur Paul Decharme's Eurijpide et I'esprit de sou Theatre met with so friendly a reception at the hands of both public and press, that I felt encouraged to translate the present excellent work by Mon- sieur Maurice Croiset, who very courteously gave me per- mission to do so. In this volume the attentive reader will find, not only a very scholarly treatment of the difficult question, so often discussed, of Aristophanes' attitude toward the political parties of his time and of the political purpose of his comedies, but also a very vivid account of many of the phases of Athenian life which he has satirized or held up to ridicule. I cherish the hope that this book will lead some of its readers to refresh their school-day memories of Attica's brilliant comic poet, and others to make the acquaintance, at first hand, or through translation, of one of the most original and enter- taining geniuses that ancient culture can boast of. In rendering the quotations from the plays into English I have made frequent use of Mr. Benjamin Bickley Rogers' masterly metrical translation and of the refreshing notes to Dr. W. W. Merry's edition of the plays. To my friend and teacher, Professor John Williams White, of Harvard University, I am greatly indebted for generously contributing an introduction to this volume. He has placed me under an additional obligation by making a critical revision of my translation, and I owe him thanks for constant encour- agement in the performance of a pleasant task. JAMES LOEB, A.B. Ml'xiCH, August, 1909. PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR The political history of Athenian comedy in the fifth century has yet to be written. Not that the connection of this form of literature with contemporary events has not been fully recognized. All writers of the history of ancient Greece, with- out exception, have profited by the very varied and interesting information which is scattered through Aristophanes' extant plays and in the fragments of contemporary writers of comedy. Some of them, indeed, have done so with an erudition and an acamen which leave nothing to be desired. From this point of view, Athenian comedy appears to have supplied all the material that one could expect of it, at least for the present. It should be remarked, however, that, in the works to which I have alluded, it has quite naturally been treated as a simple collection of documents. This amounts to saying that, in these works, Athenian comedy is not studied by itself and for its own sake — in its tricks and turns, in its relations to the life of the people, in the personality and special gifts of its writers. The history of literature, it is true, busies itself with just some of those phases of the investigation which are more or less neglected by political history. It seems to portray the psychology of the writers and of their audience ; it shows the development of the various styles and analyses their diverse forms ; it notes and discriminates traditions that l)ecame fixed as laws, and describes the special characteristics of each mind. These methods, when applied to the political part of Athenian comedy, may lead to its better appreciation. In viii PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR fact, they have, in no mean degree, contributed toward making our knowledge of it increasingly sound and exact. But, after all, politics is only a secondary consideration in the study of literature, and has only incidental relation to it. A proper political history of Athenian comedy should there- fore be based both upon general history and upon literary history, and yet be different from either. Its special object should be to study to what extent comedy as a whole, and each~]poet in particular, was influenced by political events, customs, public opinion and society, considered in its divisions into classes and factions ; and, on the other hand, to what extent society, customs and public opinion were influenced by comedy and its authors. It should follow the comic style from year to year, let us witness the composition of each of its great creations, tell us of the suggestions received by the poet, and of his intentions and of his likes and dislikes. It should take us to the theatre and make us onlookers, as it were, at the per- formances, acquaint us with the impressions gained by the audience, with the intrigues, the verdict of the judges, and finally, it should discuss and explain what may have been the effect of it all. One can readily imagine how greatly such an account would interest a person who cared to become acquainted with the inner workings of political life at Athens during the fifth century. Unfortunately it must be admitted that such a plan cannot be carried out at this late day. Most of the comic poets of that time are merely names to us. Their works are lost, barring a few titles and fragments, which, in most cases, are not sufficient even to enable us to determine the subjects of the plays to which they belong. The dates of these plays are nearly all unknown. We know practically nothing of the relations of the authors, either among themselves or with their contemporaries. Under such conditions, an attempt at history could be naught else than a tissue of guesswork or a series of avowals of ignorance. I hardly need say that I have never for a moment dreamed of imdertaking it. Aristophanes is really the only one of the comic poets of that period of whom we can speak with due PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR ix knowledge, and it is only with him that I have thought it possible to deal. But it is evident that what is said about one poet in particular, may often chance to apply to others of his contemporaries who cultivated the same style. So regarded, this series of essays may serve as a contribution to a history written on a much larger scale, of which an out- line has just been given. But it must be understood, at the outset, that it does not claim in itself to constitute even a complete chapter in such a history. "We are ignorant of too many important facts about Aristophanes himself. Only eleven of his plays have come down to us ; he wrote forty.^ Of his biography and his personality we know merely what he has told us here and there in his parabases or in the words of his dramatis personae. It is with such very insufificient documents that the attempt must be made to answer difficult and necessarily obscure questions. Those which constitute the real subject of this book bear almost exclusively upon Aristophanes' relations with the poli- tical parties that were active at Athens in his day. A rapid perusal of his plays is sufficient to reveal him as an adversary of the men who, at that time, exerted a preponderating influ- ence on the foreign and domestic politics of his country. Does it follow that he was, properly speaking, an enemy of democracy as such, or even of the democracy which existed in the city at that period ? It is true that he attacked it when he attacked its leaders ? And if he effectively criticised it in some instances at least, what was the meaning of his criticism and from what did it arise ? Did he wish to discredit democracy, with a view to bringing about its complete trans- formation, or simply to warn it, with a view to aiding it in correcting some of its shortcomings ? And again, was he, when writing his plays, the interpreter or mouth-piece of an organized opposition that was aware of his views and of the means he employed ? Or, on the contrary, did he take counsel of him- self only ? Such, approximately, are the questions which the ^ This excludes the four plaj's which, even in antiquity, were considered apocryphal : Uoi-rjais, 'Savayos, N^crot, Nio/3os. Vid. Kaibel, art. "Aristophanes," 12, in Pauly-Wissowa. X PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR reader will encounter and that I have tried to solve in the following chapters. These questions, of course, have not been ignored hitherto. Indeed nearly all the scholars, historians, or writers who have occupied themselves with Aristophanes, have made a point of saying what they thought about them. The prin- cipal works in which these opinions have been stated or vindicated will be found in the notes to this volume. It is not necessary to quote their titles here. I need hardly say that if these opinions had completely satisfied me, it would not have occurred to me to write another book on the same subject. On the other hand, I am far from considering them as generally incorrect. Truth, in historical and literary studies, gains its full value only through nicety in the dif- ferentiation of the facts that reveal it. It is only to the task of better pointing out these differentiations and of arranging them in a better manner that I thought I could profitably devote myself. My conclusions, as will subsequently appear, take issue only with preconceived opinions and unqualified statements. The first suggestion of this undertaking came with the perusal of the book written some years ago by my lamented comrade and friend Auguste Couat — Aristophane et I'ancicnne ComMie attique} In this work, which is replete with facts and stimulating ideas, I had met with several opinions, on the subject under discussion, that aroused my serious doubts. Frequent reflection intensified these doubts and led me to write this book. As, in substance, it records a difference of opinion between Couat and myself, I am par- ticularly desirous of minimizing this difference, as far as may be, by here rendering sincere homage to the great value of his work. October 1905. ^ Paris, Lec^iie et Oudin, 1SS9; second edition, 1903. INTEODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH VERSION Aristophanes is an elusive poet. The main religious convic- tions of Aeschylus may be determined with certainty from his extant plays ; attentive study of the dramas of Euripides reveals his cardinal opinions on politics, society and religion, and his philosophic attitude ; but who can affirm with con- fidence that he has penetrated the comic mask of Aristophanes and knows his beliefs ? The poet's mocking irony baffles and perplexes his reader at almost every turn. puvr]Kau o Aeyet ; — /ma rov KiroWw yw jmev ou. One element of the poet's irony is his apparent frankness. He has at times the air of desiring to be taken seriously and seems to be expressing honest convictions. He is very sug- gestive and provokes reflection, but the attempt to reduce his opinions to system reveals the illusion. We become uneasily conscious that the great satirist is laughing behind his mask. A proof of this deceptive quality of the poet's humor is found in the diversity of the opinions that have been held as to his purpose in writing. It was once the fashion among modern interpreters to take him very seriously, — the comic poet disappeared in the reformer. He was eulogized as a moralist and patriot, whose lofty purpose was to instruct his fellow-countrymen ; as an earnest thinker, who had reflected deeply on the problems of society and government and had made Comedy simply the vehicle of his reforming ideas ; as a wise and discerning counsellor, who was competent to advise the citizens of Athens at a critical time on political questions xii INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH VERSION and whose juclgnieni of men and measures was sound ; as a stern man withal, resohite in the performance of duty, the implacable and victorious foe of all, wherever found, who undermined the glory of Athens. This view, which Grote combated {History of Greece, Ixvii.), finds vigorous expression in the Apology of Eobert Browning : " Next, whom thrash ? Only the coaise fool and the clownish knave ? No ! strike malpractice that atfects the State, The common weal — intriguer or poltroon. Venality, corruption, what care I If shrewd or witless merely ? — so the thing Lay sap to aught that made Athenai bright And happy, change her customs, lead astray Youth or age, play the demagogue at Pnux, The sophist in Palaistra, or — what's worst, As widest mischief, — from the Theatre Preach innovation, bring contempt on oaths. Adorn licentiousness, despise the Cult. . . . But my soul bade Tight ! Prove arms efficient on real heads and hearts ! ' . . . I wield the Comic weapon rather — hate ! Hate ! honest, earnest and directest hate — Warfare wherein I close with enemy. . . . Such was my purpose : it succeeds, I say ! Have we not beaten Kallicratidas, Not humbled Sparte ? Peace awaits our word. Since my previsions, — warranted too well By the long war now waged and worn to end — Had spared such heritage of misery. My after-counsels scarce need fear repulse. Athenai, taught pi'osperity has wings. Cages the glad recapture." Thus vaunts the poet, as Browning interprets him, just after the great victory won at Arginusae. ' Sparta is at our feet, a new day dawns, the "War is at an end. For Athens has at length learnt the bitter lesson she might have been spared had she yielded to my pleas for peace.' The actual history of the next twelve months is pathetic. The battle at Arginusae, in which Callicratidas fell, restored the maritime INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH VERSION xiii supremacy of Athens, but peace was not secured. The Spar- tans made overtures, but the Athenian people, paying small lieed to the ' good counsels ' that their Poet had given them in the Acharnians, the Peace, the Lysistrata, and in other comedies no longer extant, followed the lead of drunken Cleophon and rejected the Spartan proposals, just as five years before they had committed the grave error of accepting liis advice after the Athenian victory at Cyzicus. Sparta bestirred herself, Lysander was sent out, and within a year Athenian arms suffered irretrievable reverse at Aegospotami. The poet's counsels of peace were rejected. Peace came only with disaster. His ' sage ' solutions of ' many other burning Cjuestions were equally ineffective. i^Jf Aristophanes was working for reform, as a long line of learned interpreters of the poet have maintained, the result was lamentably dis- appointing : he succeeded in effecting not a single change. ^ He wdngs the shafts of his incomparable wit at all the popular leaders of the day — Cleon, Hyperbolus, Peisander, Cleophon, Agyrrhius, in succession, and is reluctant to unstring his bow even when they are dead. But he drove no one of them from power : there is little evidence, indeed, that he damaged their influence or even disturbed their brazen self-confidence. Cleon, when the poet's libellous personal abuse became even in his judgment indecent, promptly brought him to his knees. "When Cleon pressed me hard and tanned my hide, and outsiders laughed to see the sport, I confess " — Aristophanes says in the "Wasps — " I played the ape a bit." He adds significantly that he failed to get popular support in this quarrel. The inference is that the people did not think 1)adly of Cleon ; but modern opinion of the popular leaders in Athens, formed, on the evidence that Aristophanes is supposed to furnish, has Ijeen persistently unfavorable, and Cleon's rehabilitation as a saga- cious, if turbulent, statesman who consistently maintained the imperial policy of Pericles has been slow. The poet vehemently protested, it has been said, against the New Education, and viewing the whole intellectual ten- dency of his time with alarm, pleaded for a restoration of the simple discipline that had moulded the morals and minds and xiv INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH VERSION manners of the hardy men who fought at Marathon, Further- more, he clearly apprehended the evils inherent in the Athenian system of judicature, which committed the administration of justice to a horde of common men, ignorant of the law, swayed by the impulse of the moment, ' monsters of caprice and in- justice,' and ruthlessly exposed the unrighteousness of its proceedings. Finally, reverent of the best traditions of the stage, he stood forth, it is alleged, as their uncompromising defender, and sternly resisted the innovations that were gradu- ally changing the spirit and the form of tragedy during the last third of the century and for a generation relentlessly pursued their chief exponent, concealing an attack that was meant to ruin him under the veil of caricature, parody, bur- lesque, and satire. But Socrates still frequented, winter and summer, the gymnasia, the market and the schools, and the Sophists continued to discourse and draw their pay; Philocleon, after a single experience of the pleasures of polite society, again foregathered with his cronies before the dawn of day and trudged away to Court; and Euripides, calmly disregarding the malicious strictures of his youthful critic, continued to write tragedy in his own manner and to present on the stage plays that were heard by the young men of Athens with wild acclaim. This extreme conception of the function of Greek comedy as chiefly censorial and monitory has been modified with larger and more exact knowledge of the times in which the poet lived and of the conditions of life under which he wrote, but it has had unfortunate consequences. These plays have been regarded as a trustworthy source of information in establishing the facts of Greek history, biography, and institutions. So serious an interpretation of a form of literature of which the primary intention must always be entertainment and amusement inevitably obscured the poet's elusive humor. A jest became a statement of fact, a caricature a portrait, a satire a document. The poet's conception, clothed in a fantastical disguise that rivalled the grotesque dress of his own actors, has been essen- tially misapprehended in an entire play. On the other hand the mistaken disposition, recently INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH VERSION xv manifested, to regard Aristophanes simply as a jester and '' to deny that he had any other purpose than to provoke laughter is an extreme, though natural, reaction.^ This view denies at the same time, as might have been expected, the cathartic efficacy of Greek tragedy. The highest comedy, typed in the earlier plays of Aristophanes, and in some of the comedies of Moliere, is regenerative. The purpose of Aristophanes in the Acharnians, in which the action turns upon the impossible and fantastic whimsey of an Athenian farmer securing peace with Sparta for himself and his family alone, is to ridicule the war-party. Nobody would have been more amused than the poet, if he had been told that his play was to stop the fighting, but he did believe that the War was an evil and so far his heart was honestly in his theme ; and I have no doubt that many a man who had laughed uproariously at the peace-loving farmer set single-handed in the comedy against a quarrelsome chorus, a powerful general, the whole tribe of sycophants, and the demagogue Cleon in the back- ground, went home from the play less content w"ith the course of his political leaders and longing in his heart for the good, old days of peace. The instrument by which the poet probed the popular discontent was that most* effective of all means when skilfully used — a^ laugh. To regard Aristophanes as merely a jester is to mistake the man. Eidicule of contemporary persons, that is generally good-natured, or systems or prevailing ideas is his main pur- pose, I think, in his plays. His praise is for the dead. This ridicule, which ranges from satire to airy conceit, is made humorous by centering it in a far-fetched fantastic conception that is not the less available if it is impossible. Facts are exaggerated or invented with superb nonchalance and be- wildering semblance of reality. In these mad revels of unrestrained fancy it is difficult to lay hands upon Aristo- phanes the man. Nevertheless we do discover probable indications of his attachments and beliefs. He lived in an age of intellectual unrest when many vital questions pressed for solution. Jhat a man of his intelligence did not give them consideration and reach conclusions is impossible. xvi INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH VERSION No doubt he detested a debauchee — let Ariphrades bear witness, — but he must have sympathized with the revolt of the young men of his day against the severe and meagre discipline in which youth were trained during the first half of the century, and must have shared in their eager interest in the new subjects of knowledge. No doubt he deprecated the vicious use of the skill for which Strepsiades clamors in the Clouds, but he had too keen a mind to fail to distinguish between the right and the wrong use of this power or to reject all study of the art of persuasion because it might be abused. He was himself a skilful dialectician, as the Debates found in nearly all his comedies prove. He was acquainted with Socrates and must have known that he never misused his wonderful dialectical power and must have felt an expert's special thrill of pleasure in observing with what skill he employed it. Furthermore, the times in which the poet lived were troublous, the fate of Athens again and again stood on the razor's edge. He was not indifferent to the welfare of his country nor of his fellow-countrymen. There is a serious undertone in the Acharnians that gives it an indescribable elevation, and in the Lysistrata, a Eabelaisian play, written after the disaster to Athenian arms in Sicily in which, Thucydides records, fleet and army utterly perished and of the many who went forth few returned home, there are verses of intensest pathos that betray the poet's poignant sympathy, "oi'/c ear IV aviip ev rtj yjipa] jua A/' ov Stjr', elcj)' eTepo^ T19." Aristophanes, then, was a man of quick sympathies and settled convictions, although positive expression of belief and feeling is naturally rare in his plays, since he was a writer of comedy. Despite this reticence, it is both interesting and important to determine, so far as this may be done, his opinions on the questions that in his day were pressing for answer, and among these especially his political position. Was he an aristocrat ? Was he, in particular, as M. Couat believed, a pamphleteer in the pay of the aristocrats ? Or was he a democrat ? And if a democrat, how is the satirical INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH VERSION xvii — but extremely comical — characterization of Athenian Demus in the Knights, which his countrymen viewed with good- natured amusement, to be interpreted ? To these weighty and significant questions M. Croiset makes convincing answer in the book which Mr. Loeb now publishes in an English version. JOHN WILLIAMS WHITE. Harvard Uxiversitt, September 1, 1909. CONTENTS PAOK The Translator's Preface v Preface by the Author vii Introduction to the English Version . . . . xi INTRODUCTION .... 1 CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING OF ARISTOPHANES' CAREER The Banqueters, 427. The Babylonians, 426. The 6 acharnians, 425 29 CHAPTER n. The Knights, 424 61 CHAPTER HI. The Clouds, 423. The Wasps, 422. The Peace, 421 . 89 XX CONTENTS CHAPTER IV. SECOND PERIOD. THE SICILIAN AND DECELEIAN WAKS PAGE The Bikds, 4U. The Lysistrata and the Thesmo- PHORIAZUSAE, 411. ThE FrOGS, 405 . . . .115 CHAPTER V. LAST PERIOD The Ecclesiazusae, 392. The Plutus, 388 . . .164 jf Analytical Index .... 187 ARISTOPHANES AND THE POLITICAL PARTIES AT ATHENS INTRODUCTION Athenian comedy was essentially rural in its origin. How- ever great the obscurity of its primitive history, we do at least know that it took form, in the sixth century B.C., in the country districts of Attica. It had its beginning in the rustic masquerades that travelled from village to village with their songs, during the festivals of Dionysus, the god of wine. Sooner or later, grotesque actors seem to have associated themselves with these choruses, wearing the costume and imitating the indecent buffoonery of the Peloponnesian peasants who had long been representing in dance and pantomime the exuberant life of certain deities of nature. It was from them, perhaps, that comedy adopted also the imitation, in caricature, of real life, which it was not slow to develop in an original manner. At all events the mixture of the most extravagant imagina- tion and the most daring satire was its strength and assured its future. As long as comedy served merely as a pastime of the peasants, this satire, however free it may have been, had little influence ; it did not spread beyond the village, or at most the district. But when it penetrated into those demes half urban, half rustic, which, in the time of Peisistratus and hie sons, constituted suburban Athens, and later, when toward ths beginning of the fifth century it was admitted to the festivals of Dionysus that were celebrated in the city proper, and the State gave it a place in the official contests, things 2 INTRODUCTION necessarily changed. Thereafter comedy had to take cog- nizance of the events and of the men who engaged attention in these new surroundings. It retained its fertile imagination and its bufibonery, but it aimed its shafts against people of more importance. At first it did so in what Aristotle calls the " iambic " form : that is to say, by attacking, apparently, persons rather than ideas, as Archilochus had done in earlier days, and without binding itself to the regular development of a dramatic theme. Later on, and bit by bit, it learned the art of construction, and attempted, with increasing success, to invent comic ideas and to exploit them ; it constructed regular stories or plots and endowed them with a certain logical quality, and, as a consequence, with a degree of unity. It even ventured on arguments and maintained theses on politics and morals. It is at this stage of its development that comedy appears in the hands of Aristophanes, in the first period of the Peloponnesian war, shortly after 431. The spirit that pervaded it was naturally that of the majority of its audience. We must therefore try to picture to ourselves the elements of which this majority was constituted, and like- wise the relations existing between it and its favorite poets. Thucydides, in his account of the beginnings of the war in 431, has given us, with his customary precision, a description of the kind of life the greater part of the Athenians led at that time. He informs us that they followed the advice of Pericles and decided to abandon their rural habitations, even to destroy them in part, to convey their flocks and their cattle either into Euboea or to the neighboring islands, and to take refuge themselves, with their wives and children, within the fortified enclosure of Athens. " This change," he adds, " was very painful to them, for the greater 'part of the Athenians had been acctistomed for generations to live in the country."^ That was, as he points out, an immemorial tradition in Attica, and even the destruction of the earlier political and religious centres, credited to Theseus, had not altered it. From the time that Athens had become the only city, the ancient towns of the district were transformed into hamlets, but habits 1 Thucydides, ii. cap. xiv. INTRODUCTION 3 remained the same. Families continued to reside on their estates, large or small, grouped in domestic communities which rarely sliifted their sites. The second Persian war had passed over these country districts like a destructive cyclone, but when the region was again free, the burned or ruined houses were rebuilt and the accustomed life was resumed. " For this reason," says the historian, " it was very hard for them to abandon their dwellings and those local forms of worship which, since the ancient towns had existed, had ever been handed down from father to son ; besides, it was a sore trial to them to find themselves obliged to change their manner of life, and it seemed to each one of them as though he were deserting from his native town." ^ This statement is of very great interest, and has not been sufficiently considered in its bearings on comedy. It clearly shows that, during the whole period in which comedy was developing, the greatest part of the Athenian democracy was ruial in fact as well as in its way of thinking.^ Thus, prior to the Peloponnesian war, the urban democracy really constituted a minority, and this minority was not even absolutely compact. Its most active part consisted of those who lived at the Piraeus.^ Here were assembled the sea- faring folk, and all those who furnished them with what they neecled, or who helped them in their various tasks — builders, longshoremen, manufacturers and merchants of every description, pedlars, bankers — a population without tradi- tions, without attachment to the soil, with a considerable admixture of resident aliens (fxeroiKoi) and in constant con- tact with foreigners. Life there was necessarily more agitated, more subject to chance, and, in a word, quite untouched by conservative traditions. ^ Thucydides, ii. c. xvi. - These rural dwellings were naturally much more comfortable than those in the city. There was ample room, and life was agreeable. See, on this subject, Isocrates, Areopagit. 52 ; cf. G. Gilbert, Beitrdge zur mnertn Geachichte Athena im Zeitalter des Pelopon. Krieges, p. 98 et seq., Leipzig, 1877. ^Busolt, Griechische Geschichle, vol. iii. first part, p. 489. 4 INTRODUCTION The city proper, which was rapidly growing larger round about the Acropolis, formed a bridge, as it were, between this turbulent maritime democracy and the peaceful rural demo- cracy. Here a certain number of rich citizens had their city houses in which they resided part of the year. Kound about them dwelt a population of moderate means — merchants, business men, owners of factories — who together made up that class so precious to the prosperity of the state, whose praises Euripides has sung in a celebrated passage in his Suppliants} But in proportion as Athenian industry had developed, there had grown up, in that large city, a proletariat that lived from hand to mouth on the gains of their daily toil. These earners of small wages were naturally often inclined to espouse the cause of the radicals of the Piraeus. Thus, there were in close proximity to one another two very different elements, which were either counterbalanced, or gained ascendancy in turn, according to circumstances. To return to the rural democracy — there is no room for doubt that it likewise was very devoted to Athenian institu- tions. Solon's laws, in the beginning of the sixth century, had enfranchised it and secured it in the quiet possession of its estates. The reign of Peisistratus and of his sons had afforded a long period of domestic peace, and had concen- trated in its hands the possession of landed property, and had favored its division into parcels, At the end of the sixth century, Attica probably contained a larger number of small rural estates than any other country in Greece. Cleisthenes' reforms had abolished the old naucraries and had organized the demes, and by so doing had spread the spirit of liberty throughout the rural centres. All these small farmers had become accustomed to deliberate, to reach decisions, to run their own affairs ; they were, in the true sense of the word, free men, and they had no desire whatever to cease to be such. Democracy had, without doubt, taken quite as firm a ^Euripides, Suppliants, 1. 244: "Of the three classes of citizens, it is the middle class which ensures the public weal, for it is they who preserve the order established by the state." These words the poet attributes to Theseus, the legendary founder of the Athenian State. INTRODUCTION 5 hold on them as on the people of the city or of the Piraeus, but they had a different conception of it.^ Quite naturally, they were much more attached to the old customs, to their ancient rites of worship, to tradition in all its forms. They were slow to adopt new ideas, and when they enconntered them unexpectedly, they thought them scandalous or ridiculous. The hereditary nobility, which was either hated or eyed with suspicion by the democrats of the city, continued, on the contrary, to enjoy the inborn respect of these peasants. For the representatives of the old families, scattered through the denies, were the guardians and hereditary priests of many of those local cults to which the country folk remained so much attached. Besides, the city politicians had little influ- ence over them. They were kept busy with their work, and had neither time nor inclination to lend an ear to the denunciations that gained credence among the common people of the city, and they held themselves aloof from fruitless agitation.- Euripides, in his Orestes, performed in 408, took pleasure in drawing a picture, probably idealized, but surely true in its essential features, of the peasant, as he appeared to his eyes. The countryman, whom he depicts attending a popular assembly, is engaged in defending precisely the cause of hereditary principles against the attacks of a demagogue : " Then another citizen arose ; his exterior was rough, but he was a true man. He spent his time neither in the city nor in the rounded market-place ; he worked in the fields. He was one of those who assure the welfare of a state. Besides, his mind was open to discussion, when he chose to discuss ; an honest man, who led an irreproachable life." ^ This peasant, ^ Busolt, Griech. Gesch. iii. 2nd part, p. 821, seems to me to confound the rural democracy quite too much with the oligarchy. The fact that they joined forces under certain circumstances, does not warrant the conclusion that they were, as a rule, animated by the same feelings. -Aristophanes, Peace, 1. 190. Trj'gaeus informs us of his name and character in two lines : " Trygaeus of Athmone, a clever vine-drcsser, no sycophant, nor fond of meddling in other people's affairs. " ^ Euripides, Orestes, 1. 917. 6 INTRODUCTION the poet tells us, spent his time, neither in the city nor in the agora, which here means the assembly. Here we have, if we properly interpret this precious testimony, the explanation of a fact which is of the greatest importance to our subject. [The rural democracy, though numerous, had but little influence in the assembly and in the courts, because the majority did not take part in them. Indeed, this was the evil from which Athens suffered most, and which she was never able to remedy by the organization of a representative government, or by the creation of a referendum for certain questions of supreme importance. These dwellers in the villages did not, as a rule, care to abandon their work, to make a long journey and to incur expense, in order to go to the city and make use of their rights of citizenship. Thus it happened that the Athe- nians in the city and those of the Piraeus found that they made up the majority in the Pnyx as well as in the courts, except perhaps in some special cases.^ Of course it was different when there was a question of taking part in the Lenaean or the great Dionysiac festivals. These were considered the most beautiful, the most joyful and the noisiest that were celebrated at Athens.^ From all the suburbs of the city, and even from distant parts of Attica, people must have come in throngs.^ These rustic spectators brought with them their habits of mind, their tastes, their ideas, and as, either by themselves or together with that part of the city's population that shared their views, they were 1 See on this subject G. Gilbert, Beitrage, p. 98 et seq., and J. Beloch, Die attische Politih seit Perikles, p. 7 et seq., Leipzig, 1884; cf. Xenophon, Memor. vii. § 6. -Aristophanes, Clouds, 1. 311. ^ Isocrates, Areopag. 52, says, regarding these times : koL ttoWovs tCiv ttoKltCov fjir}8' eis ras eoprds ets darv Kara^aivetv, d\\' aipeiaOai fiiveiv iirl tois idiots dyadois /^iSXXoc rj tQv koivQv aTrdXaveiv. Of course it is quite clear that all the Athenian country folk did not come to join in the urban celebrations of the festivals of Dionysus ; many of them necessarily stayed at home ; but while the orator puts down this fact as a proof that they were comfortably off there, he admits by implication that the attractions of these festivals were felt throughout the whole of Attica, and that a large part of the rural population came to see them. INTRODUCTION 7 probably in the majority, they impressed these views on the poets and on the judges. They adored the tragedies of Aeschylus, who told them of the gods and heroes in noble language ; and if, by chance, they did not always exactly grasp his meaning, the sound of the words and the loftiness of the sentiments sufficed to move them profoundly.^ Sophocles also delighted them ; they loved the noble pathos of his dramas, the glowing beauty of his lyric songs, the strength of his characters, and the god invisible, but present, behind the human tragedy." On the other hand, they gave a cold welcome to the writings of Euripides, in which there was too much subtle rhetoric to suit them, and besides a disquieting predominance of uncontrolled impulse that upset the robust simplicity of their morals. But comedy delighted them even more perhaps than tragedy, because it was their true spokesman. It was the style in which ancient Attica, in its joyous rusticity, found amplest expression. The country, simple and contemptuous, used it to take revenge on the city and on those whom the city admired. To please them, the clever poets caricatured, on the stage, the men of the day — shrewd and selfish politicians, subtle philosophers, full of revolutionary theories, infatuated sophists, fashionable authors, musical composers of the new school, with all their notions, — in a word, all those who were the pets of the city folk, but who appeared prodigiously grotesque to these honest peasants of Athmone or of Chollidae. The country folk knew no greater pleasure than to overwhelm them with their shouts of revengeful derision. II This tacit alliance between the rural democracy and comedy would doubtless appear much more clearly, did we still possess a number of plays that were performed in Athens in the first two-thirds of the fifth century. It is, in fact, quite probable 1 Aristophanes, Achamiana, 1. 10 ; Clouds, 11. 1364-1368 ; cf. Froys, 1. 1413. '^Aristophanes, Peace, 1. 531. 8 INTRODUCTION that the peasant, who was the original actor and the official choreutes of comedy, must have continued to play an important part in the plays of Chionides and Ecphantides, of Magnes and Cratinus, of Crates and Hermippus. Unfortunately all these plays are lost, and what little we know of them does not lend itself to conjectures of sufficient probability. It is therefore better to limit ourselves to Aristophanes, the only comic poet of whom we can speak with knowledge. It is impossible, in our day, in view of contradictory and untrustworthy evidence, to determine whether or not he was the son of an Athenian father and an Athenian mother. This was the condition indispensable to bearing the title of citizen, by right of birth. An anonymous biographer does indeed tell us that he belonged to the deme of Cydathenaeon, and was of the tribe Pandionis.^ This is a definite statement that must be based on official documents, and must therefore be regarded as authentic.^ But it does not help us decide the question how Aristophanes acquired the rights of citizenship. Was he, as other traditions assert, of alien birth, and were the rights of citizenship conferred upon his father, or upon him, by a decree of naturalization, as one of his biographers affirms ? ^ We do not know, and the various theories of modern scholars have not succeeded in harmonizing these divergent views. The same may be said of the poet's relations to Aegina, for the evidence bearing on that ques- tion, found in the Aeharnians, has been variously inter- preted.* However the matter may have stood, we are 7. anon. Didot, xi. lines 1 and 3 ; cf. xv. ^Kaibel, art. "Aristophanes," No. 12, p. 971, in Pauly-Wissowa. ^ Biofjr. anon. Didot, xi. lines 30-35 ; cf . xiv. * Aeharnians, 11. 651-653. Some commentators claim that this passage refers, not to Aristophanes, but to Callistratus, under whose name the play was performed. This seems to me to be inadmissible. The true author was certainly known to the majority of the audience, and it is altogether impro- bable that Aristophanes should have given to the man, who allowed him to use his name, the role and the importance wliich these verses attribute to him. It is Aristophanes who speaks here, and what he says can only be said about himself. Thus there is reason to believe that Aristophanes had received an allotment of land at Aegina, as a colonist (kX»;poOxos), at the INTRODUCTION 9 almost sure that, at the time when Aristophanes made his appearance as a comic poet, he was considered an Athenian citizen and was entered on the register of the deme Cyda- t?ienaeon. This deme was one of the subdivisions of Athens, but it is well known that registry in a deme did not imply residence there.^ Certain indications, found in Aristophanes' own plays, preclude all doubt that, in his childhood at least, he lived much in the country, among the peasants of Attica. His father, Philippus, must have been one of those hard-working, small landowners who, with the help of a few slaves, culti- vated their farms, planted with vines and olive-trees, in the environs of Athens. It was men of this class that the poet liked to put upon the stage, under the guise of a Dicaeopolis, a Strepsiades or a Trygaeus ; of them he constituted his chorus in the Feace, and in the Lohoiirers. It is evident that, especially in the early part of his life, he had a predilection for them. His comedies are full of allusions to their customs, their work and their pastimes, and these allusions are so concise, so varied, and portray so vividly conditions as they actually were, that they certainly seem to imply a personal knowledge of the things portrayed. One feels that the poet must, from childhood, have seen the peasant in his home, sitting in the inglenook in winter, before his house in summer, near the bubbling brooks and the well, encircled by violets. He is well posted about the ways of the country, the cultivation of the fields and of the gardens — about everything that the husbandman hopes or fears from fair or foul weather. time of the expulsion of the Aeginetans in 431. His age is not an obstacle, because we neither know exactly how old he was in 431, nor whether law or usage forbade the allotment of land to a minor. As for the legal quibble of Miiller-Striibing {Aristophanes, p. 607), it seems to me to be quite without value. Aristophanes is joking ; it is puerile to discuss his words as one would a legal document. Aristophanes is cited as a K\r]povxos of Aegina by Theogenes in his work irepl Aiylvris (Schol. Plato, Apolocjia, 19 c). ^ Alcibiades, who belonged to the deme Scambonidae, had his estate in the deme Erchia (Ps. Plato, Alcih. maj. p. 123 C). The Kk-qpovxoi continued to be regarded as members of their deme (Schoemann-Lipsius, Griech. Alter- thumtr, ii. p. 100). 10 INTRODUCTION He knows the names of trees, of plants and tools, of the birds that hide in the hedges or that fly over the fields. He also knows the season when the grapes swell and turn golden, earlier or later, according to their variety and to changes of tempera- ture.^ Not only does he know all these things, but we feel that he has a liking for them and loves to speak of them ; he is imbued with a lively appreciation of nature, which is not the dream of a tired city man, but seems to be made up of personal memories and impressions. How can we avoid drawing the conclusion that the future poet must have lived a rustic life at the age when we observe everything, and when those keen impressions are gathered that determine the turn our imagination is to take ? Thus, everything tends to make us believe that this pre- dilection for the rural democracy must have been due, in the first instance, not to study nor to influences met with at the beginning of his career as a poet, but to the very circumstance of his birth. He loved it because he was one of its sons, because he had seen it with his own eyes and felt, in his own heart, all its virtues. But here we must take note of the fact that this rural democracy never constituted an organized political party in the Athenian state, and that, as a consequence of not having a programme of reform, it could not supply one to the poets who voiced its views. At no time during the fifth century do we see it appoint a leader or take a part in public affairs as a separate and disciplined power. As a rule it held aloof. When it did take action, it was in the nature of support, by offering its co-operation to the factions which, in a given case, best represented its views. But it did so only when there existed urgent reasons to persuade it to shake off its natural in- difference. Aristophanes, like the other comic poets of the time, could, at best, only have borrowed from the rural democracy some vague suggestions, or rather some instinctive tendencies, which he put into preciser formulae of his own accord and on his ^Acharnians, 11. 32-.36, 241-279, 872 et seq. ; Clouds, 43-50; Peace, 535-538, 556-600, 1000-1006, 1128-1170; Birds, 227-304, 576 et seq. INTRODUCTION 11 own responsibility. In order properly to appreciate this per- sonal element in his work, we must make a study of his city education and of his relations to the political parties which at that time played a role in public life. Ill It was from about 431 to 427, that is to say in the first years of the Peloponnesian war, that he got the special training without which no comic poet of that time could get on. It was in 427 that he made his first appearance as an author — still a very young man — and his first play appears to have won at least the approbation and encouragement of some good judges.^ Moreover, it would not even have been admitted to the competition, had it been the work of a wholly inexperi- enced beginner. Even at this time, then, Aristophanes knew much about his calling; and this proves beyond doubt that, for some time previous, he must have moved in circles in which a man could gain this knowledge. What circles were these ? They were certainly not to be found in the rustic surroundings of which we have been speaking, and among which his childhood was doubtless spent. Comedy had at this time become a very complex work of art, which had its traditional forms and regular devices. Even its flights of imagination were bounded by certain conventions. Besides the versified text, it contained songs, dances, changing scenes, a complete equipment of masks and of stage-settings. However great his genius, Aristophanes could not have become thoroughly acquainted with these observances of his art with- out associating with people who had the necessary experience, and without apprenticing himself to them. Now, it is not doubtful that there existed, at this time, regular specialists in comedy : on the one hand, those who were at once poets and actors ; on the other, those who were merely actors. Still others were singers, dancers, costumers, impressarios and organizers of shows. In a word, there was a 1 CloMs, 1. 528. 12 INTRODUCTION whole company of low comedians and Thespians, who mutually supported one another with their varied talents, and through whose unceasing collaboration comedy had, notwithstanding its medley of paradoxes, gradually become the truly harmonious work of art that we still admire in the extant texts. In a town like Athens, these people, who had the same tastes and followed the same profession, must of course have met and known one another, either as friends and collaborators, as teachers and pupils, or as rivals and enemies. Our very scant knowledge of these friendships and enmities is gleaned from a few allusions of Aristophanes, and from the notes of ancient commentators who explained them, often without themselves fully understanding what they meant, and who tried to guess what they did not know. From lack of letters, memoirs and detailed bibliographies, these under- currents of the literary life of Athens are, as a general rule, beyond our ken. That is no reason why we should underrate the importance which they had in Aristophanes' mental and moral make-up. This world of comedians was by no means shunned by the best Athenian society — the most open-hearted, most variously constituted and most liberal society that has ever existed. There is precious evidence on this subject in Xenophon and in Plato. Xenophon's Symposium is supposed to have taken place in 421, in the house of the wealthy Callias, son of Hipponicus, that is to say in the house of a member of one of the great and rich Athenian families. In it we meet all sorts of people, rich and poor, philosophers and ignoramuses. Seated at the same table, they converse familiarly ; a pro- fessional buffoon comes without being invited, but is generously admitted and joins in their conversation. Even a Syracusan mime, called in to give a lewd performance, begins chatting with the banqueters, gives his views on the subject under discussion, and finally is so bold as to make very unfitting pleasantries at Socrates' expense, but is neither thrown out nor even called to order. Here we have equality and liberty carried to a point which it is hard for us to understand. The Memorabilia and the Oeconomicus show us the same INTRODUCTION 13 customs. In them Socrates talks to whomsoever he chooses, questions, discusses, makes himself heard in all places. His manner of life, as it is there pictured to us, would have been impossible in any other surroundings. Plato presents the same picture. The Athens that he shows us is a sort of talking place, where everybody is supposed to know everybody else, and where each person has a perfect right to make acquaintance with those he meets. His Sym- posium, in particular, the portrayal of a more or less imaginary reunion held at the house of Agathon in 416, is of quite special interest, because it lets us see Aristophanes himself in an Athenian social gathering. Though, it is true, we do not know the standing of all the guests, we do here discover the same intermixture of classes and professions — and Aristophanes is by no means represented as belonging to an inferior rank. Thus, we can be sure that he was not at all isolated nor limited to a particular circle, either at the beginning of his career or in later life. From youth on, he certainly lived in Athens, at the centre of intellectual life, enjoying perfect freedom of speech and unhampered exchange of views. This is not the place to enlarge on the influence that city life, with its effervescence and its constant changes, had on his art. No reader of Aristophanes can help feeling, in every page of his plays, what he owed to the streets, the agora, the harbor, to chance encounter and to social gatherings. All that there is of actual life in his comedies hails from there, and even his fancy, in large measure, draws its inspiration thence. But at present we are intent only upon his connection with political parties, and it is from this point of view only that we wish to consider his contact with society in the city. The Athenians, critical and acute by nature, were bound to discover the hidden meaning of things, to invent novel explanations, to impute secret motives to men who were active in politics. A man acquired a reputation for cleverness and far- sightedness only by outdoing his fellows in matters of this sort. And it was not the avowed enemies of the constitution nor the open adversaries of the popular leaders who took the greatest delight in these insinuations. The oligarchical party, c 14 INTRODUCTION properly speaking, counted among its members theorists and statesmen, who met doctrine with doctrine and policy with policy. But these personal slanders and invidious explanations did not come from them in particular ; they originated in daily gossip at the clubs, without difference of party. It was from this source that a number of accusations sprang that were lodged against Pericles and his friends, and that circulated and gained strength especially from 443 on, when, after the exile of Thucydides, son of Melesias, Pericles was no longer confronted by an organized opposition. At that time people began to say that the statesman obeyed the caprices of Aspasia, even that the fair woman from Miletus wrote his speeches for him. One spoke of Phidias' misappropriation of funds, com- mitted with his knowledge ; another held him responsible for the bold theories of Anaxagoras ; and when he made war on Sparta, the report was spread that he had done so in order to conceal his fallen fortunes and to escape certain condemnation.-^ True or false, or even true and false at once, we see that this talk passed from mouth to mouth — that it was generally believed, and that, in the end, it had grave consequences. Comedy in general, and that of Aristophanes in particular, battened on it by preference, but this fact does not warrant our considering comedy as the recognized mouthpiece of an anti-constitutional opposition. Living on satire, it merely repeated, on the stage, what was constantly being said throughout the city. True, by thus repeating this gossip, comedy lent it much added force and authority, so that, in some instances, it imposed it on history. It is the privilege of true works of art to perpetuate whatever they have once held up to our gaze ; but the elements which they appropriate and immortalize were originally very far from having the importance imputed to them, later on, on account of these works of art. ^Plutarch, Pericles, c. xiii. Plutarch traced these slanders to the comic poets, but he fully understood that they, in turn, had gathered them from daily gossip : de^d/xtvoi d^ rov \6yov ol kw/j.ikoI troWrjv acriXyeiai' airov Kareun^daaav. INTRODUCTION 15 IV We must not, however, ignore the fact that, when Aristo- phanes wrote his first comedies, there existed at Athens an oligarchical faction, which detested democracy; that this faction counted among its adherents men who were distinguished in society ; that our poet may have known them, have heard them speak and have adopted at least some of their views, and that he may have had friends and patrons among them. There is, therefore, good reason for examining his relations with them as closely as we can at this late date.^ The Athenian aristocracy constituted, for a considerable time after the Persian wars, an organized party, of which Cimon, the son of Miltiades, was the principal leader. This party accepted the democracy of Solon and of Cleisthenes, but it brought its own traditions into the management of public affairs, and endeavored to make a conservative policy prevail. We know how it was defeated by the democratic reforms of Ephialtes and of Pericles, by the curtailing of the powers of the Areopagus and by the exile of Cimon.^ Notwithstanding all this, it seems to have regained strength in the years following the death of Cimon — between 449 and 443. This was the time of those memorable debates on the rostrum between Pericles, the undisputed leader of the popular party, and Thucydides, the son of Melesias, the chief orator of the opposition, of which Plutarch has preserved us a record. '