Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/14

4 of assimilating them in the course of of working out the parts, and thus of satirizing the one by means of the others."

In the first place, we detect a glaring inconsistency in the Professor’s main proposition. According to him Aristophanes considered the Sicilian expedition to be "an essentially chimerical phantom," and yet expected it to be crowned with such signal success as to make its originator Supreme Lord of the subjugated Grecian world. If the scheme is likely to succeed, how could it be "essentially chimerical?"

Waiving the inconsistency, I think I can show that both parts of the proposition are unworthy of our assent; the first being incapable of proof, and the second demonstrably false.

I say then, first, that we have no ground whatever for supposing that Aristophanes did not share fully in the sanguine hopes of the vast majority of his countrymen. The whole play contains no word of warning; not a hint of impending misfortunes troubles its exuberant gaiety. For, in truth, no human foresight could have anticipated the disasters which befel the armament; disasters for which Greek history afforded no precedent. The most timid might have supposed that the cautious Nicias would at all events secure a safe retreat for his forces. I have no doubt that the expedition and the extravagant hopes of further conquest which Thucydides tells us were entertained by his countrymen, suggested to the comic poet the wild plot of the "Birds," as a piece of innocent satire which quizzed but did not censure, which jumped with their humour rather than blamed it. I see no reason to doubt that he with all Athens (except perhaps Socrates and Meton, if any reliance can be placed on Plutarch’s gossip.) anticipated the fall of Syracuse, and only grumbled at the tardiness of the principal commander,, which delayed so glorious a consummation.

Secondly, it is demonstrably false that Aristophanes meant to warn his countrymen that the result of the expedition would be, to invest Alcibiades with the.

Süvern quietly tells us, near the end of his "Essay" (p. 141), "When the ’Birds’ came out it was not known what had been the result of dispatching the Salaminia for Alcibiades, how he had himself received the summons, or how it had been taken by the crew of the fleet, &c." Now on this point depends the whole question, and yet Süvern, so prodigal elsewhere of needless illus-