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 the tribute from the islands long to see him. The King of Persia, he says, asked two questions about the combatants in the Peloponnesian War. Which side had the strongest navy? and which side had Aristophanes? Thirlwall, in his History of Greece, denies that Aristophanic Comedy produced any serious effect. "We have no reason," he says, "to believe that it ever turned the course of public affairs, or determined the bias of the public mind, or even that it considerably affected the credit and fortunes of an obnoxious individual." Grote's opinion is much the same, except that he is disposed to credit Comedy with a greater influence on the reputations of particular men. The question is much of the same nature as might be raised concerning the precise effect of political writing in newspapers, or of literary reviews. The effect is one which it is impossible to measure accurately, but which may nevertheless be both wide and deep.

In the first place, we must dismiss the notion that Comedy could make no serious impression because the occasion was a sportive festival. The feelings of Athenians at Comedy were not merely those of a modern audience at a burlesque or a pantomime. Comedy, like Tragedy, was still the worship of Dionysus. Precisely in those comedies which most daringly ridicule the gods—such as the Birds and the Frogs—we find also serious expressions of a religious sense, illustrating what might be called the principle of compensatory reverence. Again, the power of the Old Athenian Comedy is