Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/352

 330 HISTORY OF GREECE. life, and became a powerful instrument in popularizing new com- binations of thought with variety and elegance of expression, While the tragic muse presented the still higher advantage of in- spiring elevated and benevolent sympathies, more was probably lost than gained by the lessons of the comic muse ; not only bring- ing out keenly all that was really ludicrous or contemptible in the phenomena of the day, but manufacturing scornful laughter, quite as often, out of that which was innocent or even meritorious, as well as out of boundless private slander. The " Knights" and the " Wasps" of Aristophanes, however, not to mention other plays, are a standing evidence of one good point in the Athenian charac- ter ; that they bore with good-natured indulgence the full out- pouring of ridicule and even of calumny interwoven with it, upon those democratical institutions to which they were sincerely at- tached. The democracy was strong enough to tolerate unfriendly tongues either in earnest or in jest : the reputations of men who stood conspicuously forward in politics, on whatever side, might also be considered as a fair mark for attacks ; inasmuch as that measure of aggressive criticism which is tutelary and indispensa- ble, cannot be permitted without the accompanying evil, compara- tively much smaller, of excess and injustice ; l though even here we may remark that excess of bitter personality is among the most conspicuous sins of Athenian literature generally. But the warfare of comedy, in the persons of Aristophanes and other composers, against philosophy, literature, and eloquence, in the name of those good old times of ignorance, " when an Athenian seaman knew nothing more than how to call for his barley-cake, and cry,Yo-ho ;" a 1 Aristophanes boasts that he was the first comic composer who selected great and powerful men for his objects of attack : his predecessors, he affirms, had meddled only with small vermin and rags : if TU puxta oKunTovraf ad, KaiTolf tytieipalv nofafiovvTae (Pac. 724-736; Vesp. 1030). But this cannot be true in point of fact, since we know that no man was more bitterly assailed by the comic authors of his day than Perikles. It ought to be added, that though Aristophanes doubtless attacked the power- ful men, he did not leave the smaller persons unmolested. 'Aristoph. Ran. 1067; also Vesp. 1095. JEschylus reproaches Eu"i[ii33s : EZr' av haXiav kiriTritievaai /cat arupvhlav idida^ac, "H 'ZeKEVuaev raf TE irahaiarpac, ical raf Trvyuf iverpnpe Tut (teipaxiuv aTUfivhhoftevav, KOI rot)f irapuZovf uvexetacv