Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/88

 70 CLASSIFICATION OF GREEK PLAYS. did from the Dithyramb Its progress, however, and its successive advances from rudeness to. perfection, are involved in so much obscurity, that even Aristotle is unable to tell us any thing about it; but he is willing to concede that it was started in Sicily 2, or primarily in Megaris^. And this appears very probable; for not only was Susarion, who is generally admitted to have been the earliest comic poet*, a native of Tripodiscus in Megaris, but continual allusions are made in ancient writers^ to the coarse humour of the Megarians and their strong turn for the ludicrous, qualities which they seem to have imparted to their Sicilian colonists. But whatever may have been the birth-place of Greek Comedy, it is quite certain that it originated in a country festival : it was in fact the celebration of the vintage, when the country people went round from village to village, some in carts^, who uttered all the vile jests and abusive speeches with which the Tragedy of Thespis has been most unjustly saddled ; others on foot, who bore aloft the Phallic emblem, and invoked in songs Phales the comrade of Bac- chus'^. This custom of going round from village to village sug- gested the derivation of Comedy from kw^t), and Aristotle has been misled by his own learning into an apparent approbation of this, on many accounts, absurd etymology®. One reason which has been advanced in defence of this etymology is extraordinarily ridiculous. We are told^ that the word cannot be derived from atco/xo?, because ^ Above, p. 10, Thus we read that Antheas the Lindian /cWyuyStas eirolei koI 6Xa TToWa ev to^tu) r^J rpoiri^ tCjp TronjfMdTCJv, d ^^VPX^ ''^'^ //.ex' avrov (paXko(popov<XL. (Athen. p. 445 B.) 2 Ai fih odv TT)s rpayudias /zera/3acreis, Kal 5i' uv eyivovro, 01) XeXTjOaaiv. i] 5^ KU/xqjdLa, 5td to p.r} (Xirovdd^ecrdai e^ dpxv^, ^XaOe. Kal yap x^pov /cWjuySw;/ 6^^ Trore 6 dipx^v ^duKcv, dX' ideXopral rjaav ij^ri bk (rx?7/iaTd TLva avTTjS ixoijcrrji, oi Xeyo/xevoi auTTjs TTOLrjTal p-vrjixovevovTai' ris bk Trpoaojira dir^bwKev, 7/ Xoyovs, ij irX'qdyj vwoKpLTdv, Kal 6s TpayipSos (vi. p. 388, Lehmann) : iv ttj eopTrj tCjv Aiovvcricov trapb. Tols 'A6r]Paiots ewl d/io^cDj' Kad-qp-epoi '^crKwirTov dXXi^Xovs Kal iXoidopovpTO iroXXd. See the passages in Creuzer's note on Lydus, de Mens. p. 127, ed. Rother. ^ The reader will see these particulars in Aristoph. Acha7'n. 240 sqq. ^ TTOLOvfiepoi rd opSpLora (T7]p.€iop, ovtol p.h yap {UeXoTropp-rjaioi) Koofxai rds TrepioiKlSas KoXeiv (f>acrip, 'Kd-rjpatoi bk drjfiovs. cos KOjpupSoijs, ovk awb toO Kcop-d^eiu Xe^^e^ras dXXd T'Q KaTCL /fci/ias TrXdpT] dTip,a^op,ipovs ck toO dareos. Poet. c. III. ® By Schneider {de Orig. Comm. p. 5).
 * Proleg. Aristoph. Kiist. p. xi : Tr}v Kiap-oiblav rjvpTJadai 0a(ri virb "Zovaapioivo^.