Page:Acharnians and two other plays (1909).djvu/82

64 while at the same time he secured the benefit of his experience and ability by retaining him as a colleague. The reader, if he has the work at hand, will do well to refer to Mr. Mitford's History, c. xv. sec. x., for a detailed account of this most singular incident, strikingly illustrative of the distinct character of the two rival republics. It was then, immediately after this event, when his adversary's power and popularity were at their height, that the Poet, undeterred by these apparent disadvantages, produced this memorable and extraordinary drama.

For those readers to whom any further introduction may be necessary, a list of the Dramatis Personæ, with some accompanying explanations, will perhaps be sufficient.

.—A personification of the Athenian people, the John Bull of Athens, a testy, selfish, suspicious old man, a tyrant to his slaves, with the exception of one (a new acquisition), the Paphlagonian—Cleon, by whom he is cajoled and governed.

and .—The two most fortunate and able generals of the republic, of very opposite characters; the one cautious and superstitious in the extreme; the other a blunt, hearty, resolute, jolly fellow, a very decided lover of good wine. These two, the servants of the public, are naturally introduced as the slaves of Demus. After complaining of the ill-treatment to which they are subject in consequence of their master's partiality to his newly-purchased slave the Paphlagonian, they determine to supplant him, which they effect in conformity to the directions of a secret Oracle, in which they find it predicted that the Tanner (i.e., Cleon the Paphlagonian) shall be superseded by a person of meaner occupation and lower character.

.—The Tanner (as he is called from his property consisting in a leather manufactory), or the Paphlagonian (a nickname applied in ridicule of his mode of speaking from the word paphlazo, to foam), has been already described. He is represented as a fawning obsequious slave, insolent and arrogant to all except his master, the terror of his fellow-servants.

, whose name Agoracritus, "so called from the Agora where I got my living," is not declared till towards the conclusion of the play, is the person announced by the Oracle, as ordained by fate, to baffle the Paphlagonian, and to supersede him in the favour of his master. His breeding and education are described as having been similar to that of the younger Mr. Weller, in that admirable and most unvulgar exhibition of vulgar life, The Pickwick Papers. Finally, after a long struggle, his undaunted vulgarity of superior dexterity are crowned with deserved success. He supplants the Paphlagonian, and is installed in the supreme direction of the old gentleman's affairs.