ed with advantage in relation to this astronomer: | Aristides, without betraying who he was, asked the Histoire d'Aristarque de Samos, suivie de la traduction de son ouvrage sur les distances du soleil de la lune, &c., par M. de Fortia d'Urban). Paris, 1810, 8vo. peasant what harm Aristides had done him. None," replied the inan, nor do I even know him; but I am tired with hearing him called the Just." Aristides quitted his native city, praying the gods that nothing ARISTEAS, I. a poet of Proconnesus, who, as Herod- might occur to induce his countrymen to regret his otus relates, appeared seven years after his death to absence; but this very thing happened during the his countrymen, and composed a poem on the Arimas- sixth year of his exile, when Xerxes invaded Greece. pians. He then disappeared a second time, and, after He was then recalled, and was associated with Thethe lapse of three hundred and forty years, appeared mistocles in the command of the Athenian forces. He in the city of Metapontum in Magna Græcia, and di- took part in the battle of Salamis, and also shared rected the inhabitants to erect an altar to Apollo, and with Pausanias the glory of the field of Platea. After a statue by that altar, which should bear the name of the total defeat of the Persian forces, he played an imAristeas the Proconnesian. He informed them also portant part in the affairs of Athens and Greece, and that he attended this god, and was at such times a by his wise counsels and successful negotiations he crow, though now he went under the name of Aristeas. secured to his native city a decided pre-eminence over Having uttered these words he vanished. (Herod., the neighbouring republics. When the Greek con4, 15. Compare the somewhat different account giv- federacy were to have the quotas regulated which they en by Pliny, 7, 52.) The poem alluded to above paid towards a common fund for the purposes of dewas epic in its character, and in three books. The fence, Aristides was chosen to execute this commissubject of it was the wars between Griffons and Ari- sion, which he did to the satisfaction of all. Although maspians. Longinus (10) has recorded six of the having the control of large sums of money, in the verses of Aristeas, which he justly considers more management of the public finances, he notwithstandflorid than sublime; and Tzetzes (Chil., 7, 688) has ing died so poor, that the people had to pay the expreserved six more. (Larcher, ad Herod., l. c.)-Rit-penses of his funeral, and furnish marriage-portions to ter has made this singular legend the basis of some his two daughters. The Athenians, on one occasion, profound investigations. He sees in Aristeas a priest rendered a singular homage to the virtues of this disof the Sun (the Koros or Buddha of the early nations of India); and he compares with this the remark of Porphyry (de Abstin., 4, p. 399, ed. Lugd. Bat., 1620), that, among the magi, a crow was the symbol of a priest of the sun. He discovers also in the earlier name of that part of Italy where Metapontum was situate, namely, Bottica, an obscure reference to the worship of Buddha. Whatever our opinion of his theory may be, the legend of Aristeas certainly involves the doctrines of the metempsychosis. (Ritter, Vorhalle, p. 278, seqq.)-II. An officer under Ptolemy Philadelphus, to whom is ascribed a Greek work still extant, entitled, "A History of the Interpreters of Scripture," giving an account of the manner in which the Septuagint was written. The best edition is that printed at Oxford in 1692, in 8vo. It is found also, with a very learned refutation, in a work entitled Hodii de Bibliorum textibus originalibus libri iv., Oxon., 1705, fol.; and likewise in the second volume of Havercamp's edition of Josephus; and at the end of Van Dale's Dissertation, de LXX. Interpretibus super Aristeam, Amstelod., 1705, 4to. As to other works by Aristeas, consult Schard (Arg., sub fin.-Joseph., ed. Hav., vol. 2. p. 102). ARISTERA, an island lying to the southeast of the peninsula of Argolis, in the Sinus Hermionicus. (Pausan., 2, 34). tinguished man. During the representation of one of a native of Thebes. The refinements of the art were ARISTIDES, I. a celebrated Athenian, son of Lysimachus, and a contemporary of Themistocles. He entered upon public affairs at a comparatively early applied by him to the mind. Primus animum age, and distinguished himself so much by his integ-pinxit," says Pliny, “et sensus hominum expressit, rity, that, although inclined to the aristocracy, he nev-quæ vocant Græci On, item perturbationes" (35, 10). ertheless received from the people the remarkable ap- The passions which tradition had organized for Timanpellation of the Just. His conduct at Marathon did no less honour to his military talents than to his disinterestedness. Of the ten Athenian generals, he was the only one who agreed with Miltiades upon the propriety of risking a battle; and, renouncing his day of command in favour of this commander, he prevailed upon the other generals to do the same. After services so important as these, he was, nevertheless, finally banished through the intrigues of Themistocles, and it was on this occasion that a singular circumstance is related to have taken place. While the shells were getting inscribed at the assembly that passed upon him the sentence of ostracism, a peasant approached Aristides, and taking him for a person of ordinary stamp, requested him to write upon his shell the name of Aristides, he himself being too illiterate to do so. thes, Aristides caught as they rose from the breast, or escaped from the lips of Nature herself. His volume was man, his scene society: he drew the subtile discriminations of mind in every stage of life, the whispers, the simple cry of passion, and its most complex accents. Such, as history informs us, was his suppliant, whose voice you seemed to hear; such his sick man's half-extinguished eye and labouring breast; such, above all, the half-slain mother, shuddering lest the eager babe should suck the blood from her palsied nipple. This picture was probably at Thebes when Alexander sacked that town; what his feelings were when he saw it, we may guess from his sending it to Pella. (Fuseli, Lectures on Painting, vol. 2 p. 64.) Attalus is said to have given a hundred talents for a single painting by this artist. (Plin., l. c.) Some of the ancients assigned to Aristides the invention of trolled by them. (Horat., Ep., 1, 18.-Diog. Laert., 4, painting on wax. (Sillig, Dict. Art., s. v.)—IV. A 66, seqq.) Aristippus was the first disciple of the Greek orator, born at Hadrianopolis in Bithynia, about Socratic school who took money for teaching. He A.D. 129, according to the common opinion; but more afterward was compelled to leave Athens, in consecorrectly in A.D. 117. After having applied himself, quence of the freedom of his manners, and visited, with extraordinary ardour, to the study of eloquence, among other parts, the island of Sicily. Here he behe travelled in Asia, Greece, and Egypt, leaving became one of the flatterers of Dionysius, and gained a hind him everywhere a high opinion of his talents and large share of royal favour. He left Syracuse before virtues. Many cities erected statues to him, one of the expulsion of the tyrant, and appears, in his old which is still preserved in the Vatican. On finishing age, to have returned to Cyrene, where we find his his travels, he took up his residence at Smyrna, where family and school. (Diog. Laert., 2, 86.) Aristiphe continued to live until his death, holding a station | pus taught, that good is pleasure, and pain is evil; in a temple of Esculapius. Aristides, by a diligent perusal of Demosthenes and Plato, was able to avoid the errors of the declaimers of his time. His compatriots ranked him equal to the Athenian orator; an honour, however, to which he had no just claims. His discourses are distinguished for thought and argument. His style is strong, but often wanting in grace. We have fifty-four declamations of Aristides remaining at the present day, most of them celebrating some divinity, or else the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and other personages. One of these discourses is in the form of a letter to the emperor, on the destruction of Smyrna by an earthquake, A.D. 178. The monarch was so much affected by it, that he immediately gave orders for rebuilding the city. There exists also, from the pen of this orator, a work on the style that is adapted to public affairs, and that suited to plain and simple topics (περὶ πολιτικοῦ καὶ ἀφελοῦς λόγου). Among the discourses of Aristides there are five, and the beginning of a sixth, which were regarded by the an- ARISTOBULUS, I. a name common to some of the cients as the fruit of imposture, or of a credulity un-high priests and kings of Judæa, &c. (Joseph )—II. worthy a man of so much general merit. Some of A brother of Epicurus.-III. A native of Potidæa, one them appear to touch on animal magnetism.-The Abbé of the generals of Alexander, who wrote a history of Mai found, not many years ago, a palimpsest manu- the expedition of that monarch into Asia. His work, script of Aristides in the Vatican Library, containing which has not reached us, was more remarkable for some unedited fragments of this orator. The best adulation than truth.-IV. An Alexandrean Jew, preeditions of Aristides are that of Jebb, Oxon., 1722-30, ceptor of Ptolemy Euergetes, flourished about 145 4to; and that of Dindorf, Lips., 3 vols. 8vo. The lat- B.C. He was an admirer of the Greek philosophy, ter is decidedly the better of the two, the text having and united the study of the Aristotelian system with been more carefully corrected by MSS. Reiske com- that of the Mosaic law. He endeavoured to identify, plains heavily of the former, on account of the want of in some degree, the traditions of the sacred books care in collating MSS., &c.-V. A platonic philoso- with those of the Greeks; to explain Scripture and mypher, born at Athens. He became a convert to Chris- thology by the aid of each other; and in this design tianity, and presented to the Emperor Hadrian an he even went so far as to forge and interpolate verses "Apology" for the new religion, which, it is said, in- of Orpheus, Linus, Homer, and Hesiod. His wriduced the monarch to pass his edict, by which no one tings have not come down to us. (Clem. Alex., was to be put to death without a regular accusation Strom., 1, 305.-Enfield's History of Philos., vol. 2, and conviction. This edict was directly favourable p. 154.) to the Christians. The Apology is lost, but is highly praised by St. Jerome, who had read it.-VI. A Greek writer on music. He is supposed to have lived about the commencement of the second century of our era. His work is in three books, and the best edition of it is that contained in the collection of Meibomnius, Antique Musica Scriptores, Amstel., 1652, 4to. but, at the same time, he appears to have maintained, that, in true pleasure, the soul must still preserve its authority; his true pleasure was, consequently, nothing more than the Socratic temperance. He taught also that a man ought not to desire more than he already possesses; for all pleasures are similar, and none more agreeable than another, and that he ought not to suffer himself to be overcome by sensual enjoyment. (Diog. Laert., 2, 87.-Consult Ritter, Hist. Ant. Phil., vol. 2, p. 88, seqq., where a luminous account is given of the doctrines of the Cyrenaic school )—II. His grandson of the same name, called the Younger, was a warm defender of his opinions. He flourished about 363 years B.C.-III. A tyrant of Argos, protected by Antigonus Gonatas, whose life was one continued series of apprehensions. He was slain by a Cretan, in a battle with Aratus, near Mycenae, B.C. | 242. ARISTIPPUS, I. a philosopher of Cyrene, disciple to Socrates, and founder of the Cyrenaic sect, who flourished about 392 B.C. Socrates, however, with whom he remained till his execution (Plat., Phæd., p. 59), does not appear to have cured him of his inclination for pleasure. For although there is little consistency in the notices we have of his life and conduct, it is nevertheless clear, from a variety of anecdotes, that, notwithstanding he was able to endure privations and sufferings with equanimity and dignity, his serenity of mind arose principally from the readiness with which he could extract pleasures and gratifications from the most difficult situations of life. Hence he never avoided the society of the courtesan, or of the tyrant, or satrap, in full and calm reliance upon his tact in the management of men. Many anecdotes are told of him, which would seem to imply that Aristippus endeavoured to observe faithfully his own maxim, that a man ought to control circumstances, and not be con ARISTO. Vid. Ariston. ARISTOCLES, I. a peripatetic philosopher of Messene, who composed a critical examination of the different sects of philosophy, and wrote also on rhetoric and morals. He vigorously attacked the scepticism of Timon and Enesidemus, showing that this doctrine contradicted itself, and led to the most deplorable results. We have nothing remaining of his works, except a single fragment preserved by Eusebius.—II. A native of Pergamus, who applied himself first to the peripatetic philosophy, and afterward to eloquence, which last he studied under Herodes Atticus. He became one of the ablest rhetoricians of his time, though he is censured as having been deficient in energy. -III. The earlier name of Plato.-IV. A statuary, a native of Cydon in Crete, who flourished, according to Pausanias (5, 25), before Zancle was termed Messana, that is, before Olymp. 71, 3. (Sillig, Dict. Art., s. v.)-V. A grandson of the former, also a statuary, born at Sicyon. He made a statue of Jupiter with Ganymede, which was dedicated at Olympia. (Plin., 5, 24.-Sillig, Dict. Art., s. v.) ARISTOCRATES, I. a king of Arcadia, who ascended the throne B.C. 720. He was stoned to death by his subjects for offering violence to the priestess of Diana. (Pausan., 8, 5.)—II. A grandson of the preceding. He was stoned to death for taking bribes, ARI during the second Messenian war, and being the cause | man; dialectics or logic to be ill suited to him. He of the defeat of his Messenian allies, B.C. 682. (Id. ibid.) ARISTODĒMUS, I. son of Aristomachus, of the race of the Heraclidæ, who, together with his brothers Temenus and Cresphontes, conquered the Peloponnesus. He was the father of twin sons, Eurysthenes and Procles, and was, consequently, the parent-stem of the Eurysthenida and Proclidæ, the two royal lines at Sparta. Herodotus mentions the traditionary belief prevalent among the Lacedæmonians, that this monarch had led their forefathers into Laconia (6, 52), whereas the poetic account made him to have died by lightning while preparing to invade the Peloponnesus. This latter account is followed by Apollodorus (2, 8) and Pausanias (3, 1). Compare the remarks of Heyne (ad Apollod., I. c.) and Bähr (ad Herod., . c.). II. A Messenian leader, the successor of Euphaës on the throne of Messenia. He signalized his valour in the war against the Spartans. An account of him will be found in the remarks under the article Messenia.-III. A painter, born in Caria, and the contemporary and host of Philostratus the elder. He wrote a treatise on eminent painters, on the cities in which the art of painting had been most cultivated, and on the kings who had patronised it. (Philostr., proœm. Icon., p. 4, ed. Jacobs.—Sillig, Dict. Art., s. v.) ARISTOGITON, I. the friend of Harmodius, who, together with the latter, slew Hipparchus, one of the sons of Pisistratus. Consult the account given under the article Harmodius.-II. A Theban statuary, who, in connexion with Hypatodorus, made the presents dedicated by the Argives at Delphi. (Pausan., 10, 10.) He is supposed to have exercised his art from Olymp. 90 to 102. (Sillig, Dict. Art., s. v.)-III. An Athenian orator, surnamed ó kúwv, the dog, from his consummate effrontery. He is the same with the Aristogiton against whom Demosthenes and Dinarchus both pronounced discourses. (Schöll, Hist. Lit. Gr., vol. 2, p. 270.) even limited the domain of ethics itself; for he taught ARISTONAUTÆ, the harbour of Pellene in Achaia, ARISTONICUS, I. son of Eumenes II. by a concubine of Ephesus, 126 B.C. invaded Asia and the kingdom of Pergamus, which Attalus III. had left by his will to the Roman people. He was at first successful, and conquered and put to death the consul P. Licinius Crassus, B.C. 128. Perpenna, however, having come on the scene soon after, defeated Aristonicus, who was led to Rome, where he died, or, according to some, was strangled in prison. (Justin, 36, 4.— Flor., 2, 20.)—II. A grammarian of Alexandrea, who wrote a commentary on Hesiod and Homer, besides a treatise on the Museum established at Alexandrea by the Ptolemies. (Strab., 38.) ARISTOMACHUS, I. son of Cleodæus, grandson of Hyllus, and great-grandson of Hercules. He was the father of Aristodemus, Temenus, and Cresphontes, the three Heraclide that conquered the Peloponnesus. He himself had previously made the same attempt, but fell in battle. (Apollod., 2, 8.-Pausan., 2, 7.-Herod., 6, 52.)-II. A native of Soli in Cilicia, who devoted ARISTOPHANES, I. a celebrated comic poet, with refifty-eight years of his life to studying the habits of bees. (Plin., 11, 9.)-III. A tyrant of Argos, suc-gard to whom antiquity supplies us with few notices, cessor to Aristippus, who resigned the sovereign power at the instigation of Aratus, and caused Argos to join the Achæan league. (Pausan., 2, 8.) and those of doubtful credit. The most likely account makes him the son of Philippus, a native of Egina; and, therefore, the comedian was an adopted, not a ARISTOMENES, a celebrated Messenian leader, who natural, citizen of Athens. (Acharn., 651, seqq.signalized his valour against the Spartans. A full ac- Schol. ad Acharn., I. c.-Athenæus, 6, p. 227.) The count of him will be found in the remarks under the exact dates of his birth and death are equally unknown; article Messenia.-II. An Acarnanian, who lived at the former, however, has been fixed, with some degree Alexandrea, and was appointed, by the Roman com- of probability, at 456 B.C., and the latter at B.C. 380, mander Æmilius, tutor to the young king Ptolemy when he would be seventy-six years of age. At a very Epiphanes. He executed this task with wisdom and early period of his dramatic career, Aristophanes ditalent, but was eventually put to death by his un-rected his attention to the political situation and ocgrateful pupil, when the latter had come to the throne, B.C. 196. ARISTON, I. the son of Agasicles, king of Sparta. He repudiated two wives in succession on account of their sterility, and then married a third, said to have been the most beautiful woman in Sparta. She bore him a son, Demaratus, whom he at the moment disowned, but afterward acknowledged to be his. Consult the full account as given by Herodotus (6, 61, seqq.)-II. A stoic philosopher, a native of Chios. He was one of the immediate pupils of Zeno, but, when he became himself an instructer, openly deviated from the views of his master, and founded an independent school. He rejected all other points of philosophy but ethics. He considered physiology to be beyond currences of Athens. His second recorded comedy, the Babylonians, was aimed against Cleon; and his third, the Acharnians, turns upon the evils of the Peloponnesian war, then in its sixth year, and the advantages of a speedy peace. His talents and address soon gave him amazing influence with his countrymen, as Cleon felt to his cost the succeeding year, on the representation of the Equites. This piece was exhibited the very year after that in which Cleon had undeservedly gained so much glory by the capture of the Spartans in Sphacteria. He was then in the height of his power and insolence. No actor durst personate his character in the comedy, and no artist model mask after his likeness. (Eq., 230-4.) Aristophanes himself was compelled to undertake the part, and ap peared for the first time on the stage, his face smear- | originally condemned has come down to us, with part ed with wine-lees. His success was complete.-The of a parabasis (or address to the audience) evidently fame of Aristophanes was not confined to his own city. intended for the second. The author here complains Dionysius of Syracuse would gladly have admitted the very bitterly of the injustice which had been done to popular dramatist to his court and patronage, but his this most elaborate of all his performances. In the invitations were steadily refused by the independent play of the Clouds, Socrates is made the chief subject Athenian. In B.C. 423, the Sophists felt the weight of ridicule. As a person given to abstraction and solof his lash, for in that year he produced, though un-itary speculation is proverbially said to have his head successfully, his Nubes. The vulgar notion that the in the clouds, it was but another step, therefore, in the exhibition of Socrates in this play was an intentional poet's creative mind, to make the clouds the chorus prelude to his capital accusation in the criminal court, of his piece, just as of the person, whose abstractions and that Aristophanes was the leagued accomplice of and reveries seemed to make him most conversant Melitus, has of late years been frequently and satis- with them, he had formed the hero of the piece. The factorily refuted. (See particularly Mr. Mitchell's effect of this personification in the original theatre was elegant and able introduction to his translation of Aris- no doubt very striking. A solemn invocation calls tophanes.) The simple consideration that twenty-four down the clouds from their ethereal abode; their apyears intervened between the representation of the proach is announced by thunder; they chant a Nubes and the trial of Socrates, affords a sufficient lyric ode as they descend to the earth; and, after answer to any such charge. In fact, after the per- wakening attention by a well-managed delay, they formance of this very comedy, we find Socrates and are brought personally on the stage as a troop of Aristophanes become acquainted, and occasionally females, "habited," says Mr. Cumberland, "no doubt meeting together on the best terms. (Plato, Sympos.) in character, and floating cloudlike in the dance." An imperfect knowledge of Socrates at the time, his The character of Strepsiades receiving the lessons of reputed doctrines, his face, figure, and manners, so Socrates, is the original of Molière's 'Bourgeois well adapted to comic mimicry, were doubtless the gentilhomme."-The Wasps (Zoñкεs, Vespa), repremain reasons for the selection of him as the sophistic sented B.C. 422, is a satire against the corruption of Coryphæus.In the Peace and the Lysistrata, Aris- justice and the mania of litigation. It is not a play tophanes again reverts to politics and the Peloponne- historically political like the Acharnians and the Equisian war in the Wasps, the Birds, and the Ecclesi- tes, nor personal like the Clouds: it is an attack, diazousa, he takes cognizance of the internal concerns rected in the author's peculiar manner, upon the jurispruof the state; in the Thesmophoriazouse and the Rana, dence of Athens, and levelled chiefly at that numerous he attacks Euripides, and discusses the drama; while class of her citizens who gained a livelihood by execuin the Plutus he presents us with a specimen of the ting the office of dicast, an office more nearly resemmiddle comedy. Eleven of his comedies are still ex-bling our juryman than judge. The hero of the piece tant out of upward of sixty. (Fab., Bibl. Gr., s. v. Aristophanes.) Their Greek titles are as follows: 1. Αχαρνείς: 2. Ιππεῖς : 3. Νεφέλαι : 4. Σφήκες : 5. Εἰρήνη : 6. Ορνιθες : 7. Θεσμοφοριάζουσαι: 8. Λυσιστράτη : 9. Βάτραχοι : 10. Εκκλησιάζουσαι : 11. IIλouros. The Acharnians ('Axapveis) was represented B.C. 425. In this piece the object which the poet proposes to himself is to engage the Athenians to become reconciled with the Lacedæmonians, by making them see, through the aid of an allegory, that peace is preferable to war. He feigns that an Acharnian, called Dicæopolis (the just city), had found the means of separating his cause from that of his fellow--The Birds ("Opvißeç), represented B.C. 414, turns citizens, by making peace, as far as it regarded him- upon political affairs: two Athenians, disgusted with self, with the enemy; while the rest of the Acharnians, the divisions that prevail at Athens, transport themled astray by the suggestions of their generals, are selves to the country of the birds, who build them a suffering all the calamities of war.-The Equites or city. The design of the poet appears to have been to Knights (Inmeiç) was represented B.C. 424, a year prevent his countrymen from fortifying Decelia, from after the Acharnians. The professed object of this the fear lest this place might become a rallying-point singular composition is the overthrow of that power- for the Lacedæmonians, and also to induce them to reful demagogue, the vainglorious and insolent Cleon, call their forces from Sicily, in order to oppose them whom the author had professed in his Acharnians that to their enemies at home. The Females celebrating it was his intention, at some future day, to "cut into the festival of Ceres (Oεσμоpoρiášovσat) was represhoe-leather;" and his assistants on the occasion are sented B.C. 411. The female Athenians take the opthe very persons for whose service the exploit was to portunity this festival affords, of deliberating on the take place, the rich proprietors, who among the Athe- means of destroying Euripides, the enemy of their sex. nians constituted the class of horsemen or knights. In order to save himself, Euripides is compelled to For this purpose Athens is here represented as a practise a thousand expedients, and at last obtains parhouse; Demus (a personification of the Athenian peo- don.-The Lysistrata (Avoιorpúrn), represented the ple) is the master of it; Nicias and Demosthenes are same year with the preceding, has for its object to dishis slaves, and Cleon is his confidential servant and pose the people to make peace with the Lacedæmonislave-driver. The levelling disposition of the Athe- ans. Lysistrata, the wife of one of the first magistrates nians could not have been presented with a more of Athens, prevails upon all the married females of agreeable picture. If the dramatis persona are few, Athens, as well as of all the hostile cities, to separate the plot of the peace is still more meager: it consists themselves from their husbands until peace is made. merely of a series of humiliating pictures of Cleon, The Frogs (Bárpaxoi, Rana), represented B.C. and a succession of proofs to Demus that his favourite servant is wholly unworthy of the trust and confidence reposed in him.-The Clouds (Nepéλai, Nubes) was twice represented; at first, B.C. 423, when it failed; and the second time, during the succeeding year. By some curious accident, it so happens that the play is an Athenian citizen absolutely phrensied with a passion for litigation. His son endeavours to reclaim him to a better mode of life, by flattering his madness, and instituting a mock court of justice at his own house. The colleagues of the old gentleman are represented under the form of wasps, which circumstance has given name to the piece.-The Peace (Eipvn) was represented B.C. 419, at the period when the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, after having concluded what was called the peace of Nicias, formed an alliance with the view of compelling the other states of Greece to accede to the pacification. The play turns on this point. 405, gave Aristophanes the prize, over Phrynichus and Plato. The people demanded a second representation of the piece, which was regarded as an extraordinary distinction. The poet, in this play, ridicules the tragic writers, but especially Euripides, who had died the year before. The chorus is composed of the frogs at Athens, but that he confessed the deep knowledge of the world displayed by the poet, and his sound views of the whole machinery of that government of citizens. But, however low and corrupt Aristophanes may have been in his personal inclinations, and however much he may have offended morals and taste by sev eral of his jests, yet, in the general management and conduct of his poems, we cannot deny him the praise of the diligence and masterly excellence of an accomplished artist. His language is elegant to the last de of the Styx, over which stream Bacchus passes, in or- | might learn to know the state of Athens. It is not der to bring back to earth the poet Eschylus, in prefer- likely that he merely meant that the piece was a proof ence to Euripides.-The Females met in Assembly of the unbridled democratic freedom which prevailed (Ekkλŋσiúgovσai), represented B.C. 392, is directed against the demagogues that disturbed the tranquillity of the state. It contains also some attacks levelled at the republic of Plato, and, above all, at the community of goods, of women, and of children, which formed the basis of Plato's system. The wife of one of the leading men in the state forms a plot with her female companions, the object of which is to force the people to give the reins of government into their hands. They succeed by a stratagem, and pass some absurd laws, which are a parody on those in existence at Athens.—gree; it is a specimen of the purest Attic; and he emThe Plutus (1200тoç) appears to have been first rep- ploys it with the greatest dexterity in all its shades of resented B.C. 409. It was re-exhibited twenty years difference, from the most familiar dialogue to the lofty after this. It would seem that our present text is made flights of dithyrambic songs. We cannot doubt, that up of these two editions of the play. The play has no he would have succeeded in more serious poetry, when parabasis, and belongs to the Middle Comedy. A cit- we see how he sometimes lavishes it in the mere wanizen of Athens meets with a blind man, and entertains tonness of abundance in order immediately to destroy him at his house. This blind personage is Plutus, the its effect. This high degree of elegance is the more god of riches. Having recovered his sight by sleep- attractive by contrast; as, on the one hand, he eming in the temple of Esculapius, he is made to take ploys the roughest dialects and provincialisms of the the place of the ruler of Olympus, which affords the common people, and even the broken Greek of foreignpoet an opportunity of satirizing the cupidity and cor- ers; and, on the other hand, applies the same caprice, ruption of his countrymen. "Never," observes to which he subjects all nature, to speech likewise, and Schlegel, did a sovereign power, for such was the creates the most astonishing words by composition, by Athenian people, show greater good-humour in permit- allusion to proper names, or by imitating sounds. We ting the boldest truths to be spoken of it; nay, more, may boldly assert, that, in spite of all the explanations jestingly thrown in its teeth, than in the case of Aris- which have come down to us, in spite of all the learntophanes. Even though the abuses of government ing which has been accumulated on him, half of the might not be corrected thereby, yet it was a mark of wit of Aristophanes is lost to us. It was only from magnanimity to permit this unsparing exposure of them. the incredible quickness of Attic intellect that these Besides, Aristophanes shows himself throughout to be comedies, which, with all their buffoonery, are cona zealous patriot: he attacks the powerful misleaders nected with the most important relations of life, could of the people, the same who are represented as so de- be regarded as a diversion for the common people. structive by the grave Thucydides; he advises them We may envy the poet who could come before the to conclude that internal war which irreparably de- public with such pre-suppositions; but it was a danstroyed the prosperity of Greece; he recommends the gerous privilege. It was not easy to please spectators simplicity and rigour of ancient manners.-But I hear who understood with so much ease. Aristophanes it asserted that Aristophanes was an immoral buffoon. complains of the too fastidious taste of the Athenians, Why, yes; among other things he was this too; nor with whom the best of his predecessors were no longdo I mean to justify him for sinking so low with all er in favour as soon as the smallest decay in their fachis great qualifications, whether he was incited to it ulties was perceptible. On the contrary, he says, the by natural coarseness, or whether he thought it ne- rest of the Greeks were out of the question as judges cessary to gain over the mob, in order to be able to of the dramatic art. All persons who had talents in tell the people such bold truths. At any rate, he boasts this line endeavoured to shine at Athens; and here of having striven for the laughter of the commonalty, again their contest was compressed into the short space by merely sensual jests, much less than any of his com- of a few festivals, when the people always desired somepetitors, and of having thus contributed to the perfec-thing new, and obtained it in abundance. It was settion of his art. To be reasonable, we must judge him, in those things which give us so much offence, from the point of view of a contemporary. The ancients had, in certain respects, a completely different and much freer system of morals than we have. This was derived from their religion, which was really the worship of nature, and which had hallowed many public usages grossly offensive to decency. Moreover, since, from the retired manner in which the women lived, the men were almost always by themselves, the language of social intercourse had obtained a certain coarseness, which always seems to be the case under similar cir cumstances. Since the age of chivalry, women have given the tone to society in modern Europe, and we are indebted to the homage which is paid them for the sway of a loftier morality in speech, in the fine arts, and in poetry. Lastly, the ancient comic writer, who took the world as it was, had a very corrupted state of morals before his eyes. The most honourable testimony for Aristophanes is that of the wise Plato, who says, in an epigram, that the graces had selected his mind as their place of habitation, who read him constantly, and sent the Clouds to the elder Dionysius with the information, that from this piece (in which, however, together with the trifling of the sophists, philosophy itself and his teacher Socrates were attacked) he tled, by a single representation, to whom the prize was |