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38 sometimes not to the advantage of a play or a trilogy. Did the one look upon orators with an unfavourable eye? so did the other; while both agreed that nobility of birth and depth of purse did not necessarily constitute the best citizen. Yet, in spite of so much harmony in their opinions, there were differences that could not be bridged over; there was repugnance that defied reconciliation, and views of Athens as it had been, and Athens as it was then, which kept them in the compass of one town as far apart as if rivers and mountains, clime or race, had sundered them.

The enmity of Aristophanes increased with the years, and did not relax with the death of Euripides. The first known attack upon him was made in his comedy of "The Acharnians" or "The Charcoal-Burners." The last was made two years after "sad Electra's poet" had been struck down by a yet more "insatiate archer" than Aristophanes himself. The spirit that breathes in "The Acharnians" reappears, but with increased bitterness, in "The Frogs," and to sharp censure on Euripidean art is added still sharper on Euripidean theology. Some modern writers on the subject of the Greek drama have contemplated Euripides through the eyes of his great satirist. They might, perhaps, have done better to consider, before following their witty leader, whether he was guiding them in the right road; whether the comic writer's objections rested on patriotic or moral, or on party or personal grounds. Aristophanes was a stubborn reactionist: the men of Marathon and Platæa, of