Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/356

 334 HISTORY OF GREECE. the present day, have thought themselves entitled to deduce theii facts of Grecian history, and their estimate of Grecian men, events, and institutions, from the comedies of Aristophanes. Standing pre- eminent as the latter does in comic genius, his point of view is only so much the more determined by the ludicrous associations suggested to his fancy, so that he thus departs the more widely from the conditions of a faithful witness or candid critic. He pre- sents himself to provoke the laugh, mirthful or spiteful, of the festival crowd, assembled for the gratification of these emotions, and not with any expectation of serious or reasonable impressions. 1 Nor does he at all conceal how much he is mortified by failure ; like the professional jester, or " laughter-maker," at the banquets of rich Athenian citizens; 2 the parallel of Aristophanes as to pur- pose, however unworthy of comparison in every other respect. This rise and development of dramatic poetry in Greece so abundant, so varied, and so rich in genius belongs to the fifth century B.C. It had been in the preceding century nothing more than an unpretending graft upon the primitive chorus, and was then even denounced by Solon, or in the dictum ascribed to Solon, as a vicious novelty, tending by its simulation of a matter-of-fact, and have found their way into Grecian history. Whoever follows chapter vii of K. F. Hermann's Griechische Staats-Alterthiimer, containing the Innere Gesdiichte of the Athenian democracy, will see tho most sweeping assertions made against the democratical institutions, on the authority of passages of Aristophanes : the same is the case with sev- eral of the other most learned German manuals of Grecian affairs Horat. de Art. Poetic. 212-224. " Indoctus quid enim saperet, liberque laborum, Rusticus urbano confusus, turpis honesto 1 ., . lUecebris erat et gratA novitate morandus Spectator, functusque sacris, et potns, et exlex." Vespae (1015-1045). Compare also the description of Philippus the ye?.uro;ro0f, or Jester, in the Symposion of Xenophon ; most of which is extremely Aristophanic, ii, 10,14. The comic point of view is assumed throughout that piece; and S'.krates is introduced on one occasion as apologizing for the intrusion of a serious reflection (rt> aKOvdaio'koyElv, iiii, 41). The same is the case throughout much of the Symposion of Plato ; though the scheme and purpose of this latter arc very difficult to follow.
 * See the Parabasis of Aristophanes in the Nubes (535, seq.) and in the