Page:Acharnians and two other plays (1909).djvu/48

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was produced, the same scandals and abuses continued to be perpetrated in the subject states, under the cover of the Athenian supremacy; while the avidity for further conquest and dominion still remained predominant in the minds of the Athenian people.

The Poet then, in the fervour of youthful patriotism and the pride of conscious genius; not as he was soon afterwards tempted to become and to constitute himself, a professional play-wright, the poetical serf of the community; but with the option of active life still open before him, comparatively therefore independent of his audience, and confident in his own wit and courage as a defence against the resentment of the most powerful opponents; had ventured an appeal to the Athenian people against their whole system of imperial policy both internal and external, against the grievances which they authorised or overlooked, and against their insatiable avidity for empire, tending, if attainable, in its unavoidable results, to the wider extension and aggravation of a system of abuses disgraceful to the name and character of the Athenian people.

With this view, therefore, taking for his canvas an imaginary empire, extending to the furthest limits to which the wildest ambition of his countrymen would have aspired, he had transferred to its remote localities the practices of the most notorious Athenian characters, and the most flagrant instances of existing oppression and corruption. The demagogues and informers of Athens (under this supposed unlimited extension of Athenian supremacy) were represented as transacting business on a larger scale, and extending to the richest and most distant regions of the East the practices which had hitherto been limited to the Islands of the Archipelago and the shores of Asia Minor.

The Poet, however, must have been aware that he had undertaken a task of extreme difficulty and hazard; one in which, more than in any other theatrical attempt, it was necessary for him, at the first outset, to secure the sympathy of his audience; or, more properly speaking, to excite an antipathy against the objects of his attack, similar to that by which he himself was animated. It seems probable, therefore, that the order of subjects in the comedy must have been the same as that which is observable in the Parabasis which follows, and which may be considered as an apologetical analysis of the preceding play. It had begun then with the least criminal perhaps, but to the feelings of the Athenians the most invidious and irritating topic of accusation; namely, the occasional instances of undue advantages obtained for a subject state, by the hired agency of Athenian statesmen and orators, co-operating with the panegyrical cajolery of its deputies and envoys. A fragment has been preserved, evidently belonging to what was called a "long rhesis," a narrative speech, in which a character of this kind is making a triumphant report to his employers; describing his success in captivating the attention of an Athenian auditory, and giving a ridiculous picture of the effect which his oratory had produced upon them.