Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/195

 CHAPTEK II. SECTION 11. ARISTOPHANES. le suys, moyennant ung peu de Pantagruelisme {vous enUndez que c'est certaine guayete desperit confide en mepriz des choses fortuites) sain et degourt; prest a hoyre, si voulez. Eabelais. OF the works of the other comedians we possess only detached fragments; but eleven of the plays of Aristophanes have come down to us complete. This alone would incline us to wish for a fuller account of the writer, even though the intrinsic value of his remaining Comedies were not so great as it really is. Unfor- tunately, however, we know much less about Aristophanes than about any of his distinguished contemporaries, and the materials for his biography are so scanty and of so little credit, that we willingly turn from them to his works, in which we see a living- picture of the man and his times. The following are the few par- ticulars which are known regarding his personal history ^ His father's name was Philippus^, not Philippides, as has been inferred from the inscription on a bust supposed to represent him^. Of the rank and station of his father we know nothing ; it is presumed, 1 The reader will find a full and accurate discussion of all questions relating to the life of Aristophanes down to the representation of the Clouds in Eanke's Com- mentatio de Aristophcmis Yitd, prefixed to Thiersch's edition of the Plutus. See also Bergk in Meineke's Fragm. ii. pp. 893 — 940, 2 This is stated by all the authorities of his life — namely, his anonymous biogra- pher, the writer on Comedy in the Greek prolegomena to Aristophanes, the Scholiast on Plato, and Thomas Magister. ^ The inscription is ' Xp(.(XTo<pdvrj% ^CKLTriribov. That this statue is not genuine is now generally agreed. See Winckelmann, II. p. 114. The fact that his son's name was Philippus is an evidence that it was also the grandfather's name. Ranke, clxxxiv. D. T. G. 12