Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/355

 CHARACTER OF COMEDY. than to regard it in this point of view ; yot it is astonishing how many subsequent writers, from Diodorus and Plutarch down tc vdfjia^ov on TravTa TO. irp6aopa 6iti tipanuruv av- rotir idi6 aCKO v (p. 244, cd. Bckk.). " Eupolis, atquc Cratinus, Aristophancsquc poctae, Atquc alii, quorum C'omocdia prison, virorum est, Si qnis crat dignus dcscribi, quod mains, aut fur, Aut mocchus foret, aut sicarius, aut alioqui Famosus, multa cum libertatc notabant." This is til: early judgment of Horace (Scrm. i,4, 1) : his later opinion on tht Fescennina licentia, which was the same in spirit as the old Grecian comedy, is much more judicious (Epistol. ii, 1, 145) : compare Art. Poetic. 224. To assume that the persons derided or vilified by these comic authors must always have deserved what was said of them, is indeed a striking evidence of the value of the maxim : " Fortiter calumniare ; semper aliquid restat." Without doubt, their indiscriminate libel sometimes wounded a suitable sub- ject ; in what proportion of cases, we have no means of determining : but the perusal of Aristophanes tends to justify the epithets which Lucian puts into the mouth of Dialogus respecting Aristophanes and Eupolis not to favor the opinions of the authors whom I have cited above (Lucian, Jov. Accns. vol. ii, p. 832). He calls Eupolis and Aristophanes 6eivoiig uvSpat; i^LKtpTopjaaL TU. cffj.va KOI %7.f:vu.aai ru /caP.dif IXOVTCL. When we notice what Aristophanes himself says respecting the other comic poets, his predecessors and contemporaries, we shall find it far from countenancing the exalted censorial function which Bergk and others ascribe to them (see the Parabasis in the Nubes, 530. scq., and in the Pax, 723). It seems especially preposterous to conceive Kratinus in that character ; of whom what we chiefly know, is his habit of drunkenness, and the down- right, unadorned vituperation in which he indulged : see the Fragments nnd story of his last play, Hvrivr} (in Mcinckc, vol. ii, p. 116 ; also Mcincke, vol. i, p. 48, seq.). Meinckc copies (p. 46) from Suidas a statement (v. 'Eneiov tieMrepof) to the effect that Kratinus was raf lapx f r '/f Olvi/idof ijivXfjf. Ho construes this as a real fact : but there can hardly be a doubt that it is only a joke made by his contemporary comedians upon his fondness for wine ; and not one of the worst among the many such jests which seem to have been then current. Itunkel also, another editor of the Fragments of Kratinus (Cratini Fragment., Leips.1827, p.2, M.M.Kunkel), construes this ra^iap^of rf/f OlvtjiSot f fo/f, as if it were a serious function ; though he tells us about the general character of Kratinus : il ])c vit.'i ipsa et monbus pene nihil di- cere possumus : hoc solum constat,Cr<itinum poculis et puerorum amori valde de- dilumfuissc. Great numbers ol Aristophanic jests have been transcribed as serious