Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/346

 310 A R I S T I D E S. died about the age of fixty. His works were publifhed a Latin verfion, and notes by Dr. Samuel Jebb, at Oxford, 1723, in two volumes 410. ARISTOPHANES, a celebrated comic poet of Athens. His place of nativity, however has been contefled, for his enemies endeavoured to reprcfent him as a (hanger; but he fully confuted this fugge'ition, repeating on this occafion the two following lines from a fpeech of Telernachus in the Odyffey: /, i , > ' *  v_ r M>jrjp f/iiV T l{Ai (p'tVl TH |U,^AV>2, ai)T O-TH, '  - '  . >  tut oio , y&? "1 T; ? ov yovov auroc My mother told me fo: 'twas here, fhe faid ; I know not : and, pray, who has more to plead ? J-Je was contemporary with Plato, Socrates, and Euripides j asd moft of his plays were written during the Peloponnefian war. His imagination was warm and lively, and his genius particularly turned to raillery : he had aifo great fpirit and re- folution, and was a declared enemy to fiavery, and to a!l thofe who warned to opprefs their country. The Athenians fuffered themfelves in his time to be governed by men, who had no other views than to make themfelves mailers of the commonwealth. Ariftophanes expofed the defigns of thefe men with great wit and feverity, upon the ftage. Cleo was the firft whom he attacked, in his comedy of the " Equites:'* but none of the comedians venturing to perfonate a man of See Madam his great authority, Ariftophanes played the chara6ter him- Dacier's felf j and with fo rnuch fuccefs, that the Athenians obliged preface to (^i O {o p a y a ne of five talents, which were given to the ofAnfto- poet [A], He described the affairs of the Athenians in fo phases. exaft'a manner, that his comedies are a faithful hiftory of that people. For this reafon, when Dionyfius king of Syra- cufe defired to learn the ftate and language of Athens, Plato ient him the plays of Ariftophanes, telling him thefe were the beft representation thereof. He wrote above fifty come- dies, but there are only eleven extant which are perfect ; thefe are " Plutus, the Clouds, the Frogs, Equites, the " Acharnenfes, the Wafps, Peace, the Birds, the Ecclefia- [A"] This freedom of his was fo well decree, that he /hould be honoured with received by the Athenians that they a crown of the lacred olive-tree in the caft handfuls of flowers upon the head citadel, which was the greateft honour of the poet, and carried him through that could be paid to a citizen. D-Kier's the city in triumph with the greattft preface to Ariftophanes. acclamation. They made alfo a uublic "