Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/200

 182 ARISTOPHANES. This accusation has Ibeen confounded with the indictment of ^evta, brought bj Cleon against Aristophanes himself. It does not appear that Cleon was successful in establishing his charge, for we find Callistratus again upon the stage the following year, when the Acharnians was performed at the Lena^a. The object of this play, the earliest of the Comedies of Aristophanes which have come down to us entire, is to induce the Athenians, by holding before them the blessings of peace, and by ridiculing the braggadocios of the day, to entertain any favourable proposals which the Lacedaemonians might make for putting an end to the disastrous war in which they were engaged ; and while he ventured to utter the well-nigh forgotten word Peace, he boldly told his countrymen that they had sacrificed, without any just or sufiicient cause, the comforts which he painted to them in such vivid colours. Aristophanes, having conferred, upon the nominal authors of his early plays much, not only of reputation, but also of danger, now thought it right to appropriate to himself both the glory and the hazard of his undertaking, and in 424 B. C. demanded a chorus in his own name. The Comedy, which he exhibited on this oc- casion, and in the composition of which Eupolis claimed a share, was the Horsemen; it was acted at the Lenaea, and gained the first prize: Cratinus was second, and Aristomenes third^. The object of this play is to overthrow Cleon, who was then flushed with his undeserved success at Sphacteria in the preceding year, and had excited the indignation of Aristophanes and all the Athe- nians who wished well to their country, by his constant opposition to the proposals of the Lacedaemonians for an equitable arrange- ment of the terms of peace. The demagogue was considered at that time so formidable an adversary, that no one could be found to make a mask to represent his features, so tKat Aristophanes, who personated him on the stage, was obliged to return to the old ^evLov TrapovTCjv Trjv ttoKlv KaKus y(i}, AvTol yap ia/xev ovirl Arjvaiu) r aywv, Koi'TTo; ^evoL irdpeiaLV and the Scholiasts. On the relations between Aristophanes and Cleon, and on the character of the latter, the student will find some striking remarks in Grote, Hist. Gr. Vol. VI. pp. 657 sqq. ^ Argum. Eqq. The reference of this piece to the Lenaea is supported by the allusion in vv. 881 — 3, to the wintry weather, which prevailed in the month Lenseon, according to Hesiod. On the claims of Eupolis to a share in this Comedy, see Bern- hardy, Grundriss, ii. p. 973; and for the passage attributed to him, Meineke, Fragni. IL I, p. 577.