Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/15

Rh tration, has not advanced an atom of proof in support of this all-important assumption. I say, all-important because if it can be disproved, all the theory, so far as Alcibiades is concerned, falls to the ground. That the Salaminia had already been sent, is obvious from lines 145 sqq.:

Now I do not dwell on the manifest improbability that this long play had been written and studied by the actors and performed in the interval between the sending of the Salaminia and its return—a month, I suppose, at most; I think it can be shown that the Salaminia had not only been sent, but come back, and Alcibiades in all probability condemned to death,, before the production of the play.

The first prefixed to the play tells us ; the second says the same,, with additional information that he produced the  at the Lenæan festival of the same year. There is no ground for questioning that this statement is derived from the : it has never been questioned by any one. The Birds then was first performed at the city Dionysia in the year 414 The city Dionysia were celebrated at the very close of winter. This is proved (if proof were necessary) by a multitude of passages, among others, by Thucyd. . 20:. Thucydides, as we know, divides the year into two seasons only, the summer and the winter, assigning to the latter about five months, ending with the vernal equinox, or thereabouts. Its length might vary by a few days or even weeks, according as the weather was more or less favourable for the continuance or resumption of military operations on a great scale. The winter in question must have been of the average length at least, to allow time for the incidents related by Thucydides from ch. 63 to 93 of (inclusive). There in the expedition to Syracuse, and the battle under its walls, the return to Naxos and Catana, the attempt upon Messene, where the Athenians remained thirteen days, and then returned to Naxos. After this a trireme is dispatched to Athens requesting that money and horses may be sent by the beginning of spring. The vote is passed; the money and horses are