Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/191

 CONTEMPORARY WITH ARISTOPHANES. 173 stophanes, too, seems to have been on bad terms with Eupolis, whom he charges with having pillaged the materials for his Mapt/ca? from the 'Itttt^?^, and with making scurrilous jokes on his prema- ture baldness 2. Eupolis appears to have been a warm admirer of Pericles as a statesman and as a man^, as it was reasonable that such a Comedian should be, if it is true that he owed his unre- strained license of speech to the patronage of that celebrated minister. We may form an idea of the style of Eupolis from the Horsemen and Frogs of Aristophanes, which had many points in common with the Maricas and Demi of this poet. For as in the Maricas Hyperbolus, so in the Horsemen Cleon is represented as an intriguing and influential slave of the people, and in both Comedies the worthy Xicias appears as an under- valued and superseded domestic. As in the Frogs of Aristo- phanes, Bacchus visits the lower world to seek out and restore to Athens one of the older and better tragedians, so in the Demi of Eupolis, Myronides is made to bring back Solon, Miltiades, and Pericles, to their unworthy and degenerate countrymen. Other ^Titers of the Old Comedy are mentioned as the prede- cessors or contemporaries of Aristophanes; but we know little more of them than their names ; though it is probable that many of them (for instance, Ameipsias, who twice conquered Aristo- phanes) were (at least in the opinion of their contemporaries) by no means deficient in merit. Of those poets of the Old Comedy, who survived the fall vigour of Athenian democracy and lived till the period of transition to the 1 OvTOL 5' ws ctTral irape^wKev aj3riv 'Twip^oXos, TovTOv deiXacov KoXerpCoa' del Kai ttjv /xrjrepa. Ei'TToXts fxev rov "^lapiKdu Trpwrcarou wapeiXKvaev 'EKarpe-^as tovs 7]/j.eT€povi 'iTTTre'as /ca/c6s KaKws, Upoadels avT(p ypavu p.edvcn)v, rod KopSaKos eiVex', ^v ^pivLXOS TrdXat TreTroirjX) ^v to ktjtos rjadLev. Nubes, 551 sqq. Eupolis, however, had reasons for recriminating. See Meineke, Hist. Cnt. p. loi, and below, Section II. 2 See the Schol. on Nub. 532.: oi)5' ^(TKu^pe TOVS (paXaKpovs. 3 Eupolis, Arifjiois' Kparccrros ovros iycuer dvOpfhiro^v Xeyeiv. 'Ovore irapeXdot, oicrirep dyadol bpofxrjs, 'E/c 5e/ca irohOiv fjpei Xeyuu tovs prjropas. B. Haxvv X^yeis fxiu, irpos 5e y' avrov T<p Tax^i- Het^w TLS iireKddi'gev eirl rocs x^^f<^" OoTws iKTjXei, Kal p.bvos tCiv prjTopoju To Kevrpov ry/carAetTre rots dKpoio/x^vois. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. p. 794, Dindorf. See Meineke, Fragm. 11. 458.