Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/419

397 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 397 This -was the reason why comedy continued so long an obscure amusement of noisy rustics, which no archon superintended, and which no particular poet was willing to avow : although, even in this modest retirement, it made some sudden advances, and developed com- pletely its dramatic form. Consequently, the first of the eminent poets received it in a definite and tolerably complete form* This poet was Chionides, whom Aristotle reckons the first of the Attic comedians, (omitting Myllus and some other comedians, though they also left then- works in writing,) and of whom we are credibly informed f that he began to bring out plays eight years before the Persian war (01. 73, b.c. 488). He was followed by Magnes, also born in the Bacchic village Icaria, who for a long time delighted the Athenians with his cheerful and mul- tifarious fictions. To the same age of comedy belongs Ecphantides, who was so little removed from the style of the Megarian farce, that he expressly remarked in one of his pieces, — " He was not bringing for- ward a song of the Megarian comedy ; he had grown ashamed of making his drama Megarian. "J § 4. The second period of comedy comprises poets who flourished just before and during the Peloponnesian war. Craiinus died 01. 89, 2. b.c. 423, being then very old ; he seems to have been not much younger than ^schylus, and occupies a corresponding place among the eomic poets ; all accounts of his dramas, however, relate to the latter years of his life ; and all we can say of him is, that he was not afraid to attack Pericles in his comedies at a time when that statesman was in the height of his reputation and power. § Crates raised himself, from being an actor in the plays of Cratinus, to the rank of a distinguished poet : a career common to him with several of the ancient comedians. Telccleides and Hermippus also belong to the comic poets of the time of Pericles. Eupolis did not begin to bring out comedies till after the beginning of the Peloponnesian war (01. 87, 3. b.c. 429) ; his career terminated with that war. Aristophanes made his first appearance under another name in 01. 88, 1. b.c. 427, and under his own name, 01. 88, 4. b.c. 424 ; he went on writing till 01. 97, 4. b.c. 388. Among the contemporaries of this great comic poet, we have also P/irynichus (from 01. 87, 3. b.c. 429) ; Plato (from 01. 88, 1 . b.c. 427 to 01. 97, fivnpimtvovTai. f Suidas,v. Xiaviln; . Consequently, Aristotle, Poet. 3, (or, according to F. Ritter, a later interpreter,) must be in error when he places Chionides a good deal iater than Epicharmus. + M'.yaoixr,; x.ufx.wYtas a<ry' tv oitip.'' w^t/vo/^v to ioa/ta Mtyacixov rroiav. According to the arrangement of this fragment, (quoted by Aspasius on Aristot. Eth. Nic. iv. 2,) by Meineke, Ilistona Critica Comicorum Greecorum, p. 22, which is undoubtedly the correct one. j As appears from the fragments referring to the Odeion and the long Malls,
 * Aristot. Poet. 5. s$»j o; tr%r,f&ccTu. rivet abrns ix"^'^ °'' teyoy.ivoi ali-Ti; ^rnr,rai