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295 On the Attic Dionysia. 295 that Sophocles put on mourning for the death of Euripides in common with all the Athenians, and brought on his actors without their usual garlands. The grammarian who relates this fact (Thorn. M. in vit. Eurip.) speaks as if Sophocles had paid this mark of respect to his brother poet immediately on receiving the first news of his death, which, if Euripides died in the first half of the third year of 01. 9^? (see Boeckh Gr. Trag. Princ. p. 209) would imply that the mourning took place at the rural Dionysia in Poseideon. Otherwise the de- scription might refer to the funeral rites performed at the Chytri, when, as we learn from Theopompus (Schol. Ran. 220), it was usual tov^ Trapayevofxevov^ virep twv OavovTcov IXacraaOac Tov * Ep/uifjv, and then it would harmonize with the statement, that the death of Sophocles occurred at the Anthesteria^^. We might adopt this view of Hermann'^s, without admit- ting his construction of the words of the law, which seems far less probable than that of Petitus. But at all events the utmost that can be inferred from the law is, that at a certain period comedies were exhibited at the Anthesteria : of tragedies we hear nothing, whereas both were performed at the Lenaea. On the other hand the theatrical regulations of the Lenaea were at variance with those of the rural Dionysia. For not to mention the improbability of the supposition, that the many new pieces brought out at the Lenaea should have been pro- duced for the first time at the rural Dionysia, the part which foreigners were allowed to take in the exhibitions at Lenaea, implies that they were under the immediate controul of the '2 In his treatise Gr. Trag. Princ. p. 211. the author came to the conclusion that Sophocles died shortly after producing his last work (a new edition of his Antigone) at the rural Dionysia. But he now retracts this opinion as having heen founded on the belief he then entertained that Sophocles died 01. 93. 3, which, as he observes, is impos- sible if the Frogs were as he now believes, performed in Gamelion of that year at the Le- naea : for Aristophanes must have begun his comedy before the rural Dionysia in Posei- deon. He says (p. 97) : Euripides probably died 01. 93. 2, as the Parian marble states, and the last piece of Sophocles, before which Euripides was already dead, may have been publicly read at the Choes of the same year that is, in Anthesterion, Ol. 93. 2, not ex- hibited at the rural Dionysia. — He had also conceived that the story from Ister and Ne- anthes about the manner of the poet's death (that Callippides sent him a bunch of grapes Trapd Tous Xoa?, and that Sophocles was choked fSaXovra eh to crn-ofxapdyaerL ofxcpa- Kilovcrav) is more consistent with the season of the rural Dionysia. He now observes: it is indeed incomprehensible how unripe grapes come to be mentioned along with the Choes : but, to pass over the well known allegorical interpretation of the anecdote, the difficulty is not removed by substituting the rural Dionysia. Vol. II. No. 5. Pp