Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/436

414 414 HISTORY OF THE possessed still greater interest than the Acharnians, though modern readers, far removed from the times, have not been always ahle to resist the feeling of tediousness produced by the prolix scenes of the piece. The number of characters is small and unpretending; the whole dramatis per so nee consist of an old master with three slaves, (one of whom, a Paphlagonian, completely governs his master,) and a sausage-seller. The old master, however, is the Dermis of Athens, the slaves are the Athenian generals Nicias and Demosthenes, and the Paphlagonian is Cleon : the sausage-seller alone is a fiction of the poet's, — a rude, uneducated, impudent fellow, from the dregs of the people, who is set up against Cleon in order that he may, by his auda- city, bawl down Cleon's impudence, and so drive the formidable dema- gogue out of the field in the only way that is possible. Even the chorus has nothing imaginary about it, but consists of the Knights of the State,* i.e. of citizens who, according to Solon's classification, which still subsisted, paid taxes according to the rating of a knight's property, and most of whom at the same time still served as cavalry in time of war :f being the most numerous portion of the wealthier and better educated class, they could not fail to have a decided antipathy to Cleon, who had put himself at the head of the mechanics and poorer people. We see that in this piece Aristophanes lays all the stress on the political tendency, and considers the comic plot rather as a form and dress than as the body and primary part of his play. The allegory, which is obviously chosen only to cover the sharpness of the attack, is cast over it only like a thin veil ; according to his own pleasure, the poet speaks of the affairs of the Demus sometimes as matters of family arrangement, sometimes as public transactions. The whole piece has the form of a contest. The sausage-seller (in whom an oracle, which has been stolen from the Paphlagonian while he was sleeping, recognizes his victorious opponent) first measures his strength against him in a display of impudence and rascality, by which the poet assumes that of the qualities requisite to the demagogue these are the most essential. The sausage-seller narrates that having, while a boy, stolen a piece of meat and boldly denied the theft, a statesman had predicted that the city would one day trust itself to his guidance. After the parabasis, the contest begins afresh ; the rivals, who had in the meantime endeavoured to recommend themselves to the council, and the same. That no phyle, but the state paid the expenses of this chorus, (if Ave are so to explain %vpwla in the didascalia of the piece : see the examples in Bo'ckh's Public Economy of Athens, book iii. § 22, at the end,) is no ground for the former inference. f That Aristophanes considers the knights as a class is pretty clear from their known political tendency ; as part of the Athenian army, he often describes them as sturdy young men, fond of horsemanship, and dressed in grand military costume.
 * Hardly of actual knights, so that in this case reality and the drama were one