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290 290 On the Attic Dionysia. testimony of Aristophanes himself, appears still more violent. He supposes the play to have been acted at the great Dionysia, and that the passage in which Dicaeopolis reminds the specta- tors that no strangers are present this time, is mere irony: ovirio ^kvoi irapeiGiv^ not because they were still to come, but because there was now no tribute for them to bring : ovre. *yap CpopoL rjKovaiv^ ovt €k toov ttoXccou ol ^v^^.a-yoL. But even if history sanctioned the supposition, that such was the state of affairs at the time when the play was acted (01. S^. 3), which it would be very difficult to prove, it would be incredible that the poet should have made such a bitter jest on the ca- lamity of the state. If then we consider with Ruhnken the incidents of the drama, we find that it opens at Athens with the assembly at which Dicseopolis conceives the plan of negociating a separate truce with Lacedaemon, and sends off Amphitheus for that . purpose. The assembly is scarcely dismissed before the envoy returns with the object of his mission, after a narrow escape from the fury of the Acharnians. Dicaeopolis, after selecting the largest term, declares his intention of immediately using liis privilege, by going in and celebrating the rural Dionysia: eyu) ce TroAejuov Kat KaKcov aTraAAa^yet^ ^^^ '^^ '^^^ aypovs elaicoi/ Aiovvaia. €L(JL(joi^ must refer to his own house, where he means to make preparation for the festival. It must be supposed to be visible to the spectators : for there is no reason to imagine a change of scene : and the audience who were not shocked at seeing Amphitheus return from Lacedaemon in the course of a few minutes after he had set out from Athens, would not be more startled by the spectacle of the rural Diony- sia celebrated on the same ground which had just been occupied by the popular assembly. At all events the procession which presents itself in the next scene to the enraged chorus, is supposed to take place in the deme of Dicaeopolis; for he addresses the associate of Bacchus in the words : cktw cr erei Trpoorelirov^ €9 tov crjiiov eXOiov aaixevo's^ aTvovod^ Troirjcrafxevo^ 6/xafT^o, 7rpayixaT(!)v xe kul ^xaywv Kai Aafxa'^cov aTraWayei^. From which we may infer, that the festival is supposed to be except an oversight of the coHectors or a slip of the pen : and I regret that Spalding (De Dion. p. 75) ^should have countenanced the contempt that has been expressed for them.^^