Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/454

432 432 HISTORY OF TH^ a comic poet ; he was, however, any thing but an imitator of his master. On the contrary, lie entirely gave up the field which Cratinus and the other comedians had chosen as their regular arena, namely, political satire ; perhaps because in his inferior position he lacked the courage to attack from the stage the most powerful demagogues, or because he thought that department already exhausted of its best materials. His skill lay in the more artificial design and developement of his plots,* and the interest of his pieces depended 011 the connexion of the stories which they involved. Accordingly, Aristophanes says of him,f that he had feasted the Athenians at a trifling expense, and had with great sobriety given them the enjoyment of his most ingenious inventions. Crates is said to have been the first who introduced the drunkard on the stage ; and Pherecrates, who of the later Attic comedians most resembled Crates,| painted the glutton with most colossal features. § 4. Aristotle connects Crates with the Sicilian comic poet Epichar- mus, and no doubt he stood in a nearer relation to him than the other comedians of Athens. This will be the right place to speak of this celebrated poet, as it would have disturbed the historic developement of the Attic drama had we turned our attention at an earlier period to the comedy of Sicily. As we have already remarked, (chap.XXVII. § 3,) Sicilian comedy is connected with the old farces of Megara, but took a different direction, and one quite peculiar to itself. The Megarian farces themselves did not exhibit the political character which was so early assumed by Attic comedy ; but they cultivated a department of raillery which was unknown to the comedy of Aris- tophanes, that is, a ludicrous imitation of certain classes and conditions of common life. A lively and cheerful observation of the habits and manners connected with certain offices and professions soon enabled the comedian to observe something characteristic in them, and often something narrow-minded and partial, something quite foreign to the results of a liberal education, something which rendered the person awkward and unfitted for other employments, and so opened a wide field for satire and witticisms. In this way Mceson, an old Megarian comic actor and poet,§ constantly employed the mask of a cook or a scullion; consequently such persons were called MBesones (ficuvuyec) at Athens, ilia.;, KufoXw x'oyou; * pvfau; xotetr i. e. " Of the Athenian comedians, Crates was the first who "gave up personal satire, and began to make narratives or poems on more general subjects." f Knights, 535. Comp. Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Grac, p. 60. J Anonym, de Comadia, p. xxix. § There can be no doubt that he lived at a time when there existed by the side of the Attic comedy a Megarian drama of the same kind, of which Ecphantides, a predecessor of Cratinus, and other poets of the old comedy, spoke as a rough farcical entertainment. The Megarian comedian Solynus belongs to the same period.
 * Aristot. Poet. C. 5. Tuv Vi 'Aratwi K^drr,; <X$u-0i riol-v, d ; Tr,f IxfifiiKr,;