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40 scarce. Pestilence broke out in the overcrowded city; and in the second and third years of the war, the Great Plague carried off, out of their comparatively small population, above 10,000 of all ranks. The lands were either left unsown, or sown only to be ravaged before harvest-time by the enemy. No wonder that, as year after year passed, and brought no respite from suffering to the harassed citizens, they began to ask each other how long this was to last, and whether even national honour was worth purchasing at this heavy cost. Even the hard-won victories and the successful blows struck by their admirals at various points on their enemies' coasts failed to reconcile the less warlike spirits to the continuance of the struggle. Popular orators like Cleon, fiery captains like Alcibiades, still carried the majority with them when they called for new levies and prophesied a triumphant issue; but there was a party at Athens, not so loud but still very audible, who said that such men had personal ambitions of their own to serve, and who had begun to sigh for "peace at any price."

But it needed a pressure of calamity far greater than the present to keep a good citizen of Athens away from the theatre. If the times were gloomy, so much the more need of a little honest diversion. And if the war party were too strong for him to resist in the public assembly, at least he could have his laugh out against them when caricatured on the stage. It has been already shown that the comic drama was to the Athenians what a free press is to modern commonwealths. As the government of France under Louis