Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/196

 178 ARISTOPHANES. however, from liis own silence, and that of his enemies, that it was respectable. More than one comitry claims the honour of being his birth-place. The anonymous writer on Comedy says merely that he was an Athenian ; the author of his life, and Thomas Magister, add that he was of the Cydathen^ean Deme, and Pandionid Tribe. Suidas tells us, that some said he was from Lindus in Ehodes, or from Camirus; that others called him an iEgyptian and others an ^ginetan. All this confusion seems to have arisen from the fact, that Cleon, in revenge for some of the invectives with which Aristophanes had assailed him, brought an action against the poet with a view to deprive him of his civic rights [^evla^ jpacj^r)). Now the defence, which Aristophanes is said to have set up on this occasion, shows the object of Cleon was to prove that he was not the son of his reputed father Philippus, but the offspring of an illicit intercourse between his mother and some person who was not an Athenian citizen. Consequently his nominal parents are tacitly admitted to have been Athenian citizens, and, as Cleon failed to prove his illegitimacy, he must have been one likewise. That he was born at Athens cannot but be evident to every one who has read his Comedies. Would a mere resident alien have laboured so strenuously for the good of his adopted country ? Would one who was not a citizen by birth have ventured to laugh at all who did not belong to the old Athenian (f>paTpLai^? and how are we other- wise to account for the purely Athenian spirit, language, and tone which pervade every line that he wrote ? It would not be difficult to explain why these different countries have been assigned as the birth-places of Aristophanes. With regard to the statement that he was a Ehodian ; he is very often confounded with Antiphanes and Anaxandrides, the former of whom was, according to Dio- nysius, a Ehodian, and the latter, according to Suidas, was born at Camirus. The notion that he was an Egyptian may very well have arisen from the many allusions which he makes to the people of that country, and their peculiar customs. With regard to the statement of Heliodorus that he was from Naucratis, it is possible that writer may be alluding to some commercial residence of his ancestors in that city, but his words do not imply that either Aris- ^ Heliodorus Trepl 'A/cpoTroXfws (apud Athen. VI. p. 229 E) says that he was of Naucratis in the Delta. 2 Han. 418 ; Avcs, 765.