Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/20

10 improbability that Alcibiades would be introduced under the circumstances—the play itself contains no ground for supposing that he is introduced; and (2) that the notion about Gorgias is as unsupported by internal, as it confessedly is by external, evidence. With regard, then, to Alcibiades—In the first place I cannot do better than quote the words of an author, perhaps the only one whose opinion Prof. Süvern would admit to be of equal weight with his own:

"Some commentators have, indeed, attempted to draw a comparison between Peisthetairos in this play, and Alkibiades; but this is totally without foundation; the former is no warloving commander, but the faithful counseller of the public, who unites the volatile, fickle people of the birds, and explains to them the power they would possess, if they would combine together in a well-fortified city, which being constructed midway betweeen the gods and the men, would make both dependent upon them. He then directs the foundation of the city, and the ordinary affairs of the community, whilst foreign relations, the forts, and garrisons are attended to by Epops, as commander-in-chief; he thus succeeds in securing to the birds the service of mankind, and recover for them from the gods the sovereignty which they had lost. Here is a demagogue and commander of a very different character from that of Alkibiades; and whilst Peisthetairos, instead of exerting himself to destroy the democracy, makes minced meat of the anti-democratical birds (v. 1584), Alkibiades finished his career by the overthrow of the democratic constitution of his country."

This passage, with which I cordially agree, occurs in Professor Süvern's Essay on the "Clouds" (p. 58, Eng. Tr.), and was published just one year before the production of the Essay on the "Birds." In the former Essay, his object was to prove that Pheidippides meant Alcibiades; in the latter Essay, that proposition is discreetly ignored: it would be too glaringly absurd to say that Pheidippides and Peisthetærus were derived from the same prototype.

But further, Alcibiades was in the prime of life, Peisthetærus is an elderly man; cf. 320, . Alcibiades was distinguished for restless activity, and entered with hearty enjoyment into all the busy phases of Athenian life; Peisthetærus, disgusted with the same life, for-