Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/192

 174 THE COMEDIANS WHO PRECEDED OR WERE Middle Comedj, the most eminent were Plato, Theopompus, and Strattis. Plato, commonly known as 6 kwixiko^, to distinguish him from his great namesake the philosopher, first exhibited in B.C. 427^, and as he alluded in one of his plays to the appointment of Agyr- rhius as general of the army at Lesbos 2, he must have been flourishing in B. C. 389. In his Peisander he described himself as having laboured for others, like an Arcadian mercenary ^ And this has been interpreted as indicating his poverty It may, how- ever, simply mean that Plato did not at first represent under his own name; but, like Aristophanes and Ameipsias, published his dramas anonymously, until in the parabasis to the Peisander he thought it expedient to assert his literary claims^. There seems to be little doubt that Plato was one of the most distinguished of the contemporaries of Aristophanes. His style is described as "brilliant^" Though he inclined to the type of Middle Comedy in his later years, his earlier plays were full of political satire, and Dio Chrysostom mentions him along with Aristophanes and Cra- tinus as a specimen of the abusive personalities to which the Athenians were willing to listen'. His attacks were directed against demagogues like Cleon, Hyperbolus, Cleophon, Peisander, and Agyrrhius, against the general Leagrus, and the rhetoricians Cephalus and Archinus. And, like Eupolis, he ventured to ridi- cule Aristophanes himself ^ He left twenty-eight Comedies^, some of which bore the names of the persons against whom they were directed''. 1 Cyrill. ad Julian, i. p. 13 B. ^ Plutarch, Pra;c. resp. ger. p. 801 B. For Agyrrhius and his appointment see Xen. ffell. iv. 8, 31 ; Died. Sic. xiv. 99. Cf. Schoi. Eccles. 102. 3 Suidas, s. v. 'Ap/cdSas fXLfjLoifMevoi,. "* Suidas says 5ta ireviav 'ApKadas fjLtfx.e'LcrdaL ^(ptj, but there is nothing to show that this was the assertion of Plato himself. 5 Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. p. 162. ^ BekJcer. Anecd. p. 1461 : 6 to xapa/cr^pa Xafx-rrporaTos. Cf. Suidas, s. v. UXdruv. "^ Orat. XXXIII. p. 4, Reiske. 8 Schol. Plat. p. 331, Bekker : Kiofi'-odelTai 5^ otl to ttjs Wip-qvrjs KoXoaaiKov ^^rjpev dyaXfia Ei/'ttoAis AvtoX^kcx}, UXoltcov Nkats. ^ Anon, de Com. p. xxxiv. ; Bekker, Anecd. u. s. Suidas enumerates 30, but two of these, the Ad/cw^/es and Ma/x/uidKvdos, were merely two editions of the same play, 1° As the KX€o<pu;v, the 'Ttt^p/SoXos and the Ueiaapdpo^.