HERALD. Move on up, move on, move on, to get within the consecrated area.159
AMPHITHEUS. Has anyone spoken yet?
HERALD. Who asks to speak?
AMPHITHEUS. I do.
HERALD. Your name?
AMPHITHEUS. Amphitheus.
HERALD. You are no man.160
AMPHITHEUS. No! I am an immortal! Amphitheus was the son of Ceres and Triptolemus; of him was born Celeus. Celeus wedded Phaencreté, my grandmother, whose son was Lucinus, and, being born of him, I am an immortal; it is to me alone that the gods have entrusted the duty of treating with the Lacedaemonians. But, citizens, though I am immortal, I am dying of hunger; the Prytanes give me naught.161
A PRYTANIS. Guards!
AMPHITHEUS. Oh, Triptolemus and Ceres, do ye thus forsake your own blood?
DICAEOPOLIS. Prytanes, in expelling this citizen, you are offering an outrage to the Assembly. He only desired to secure peace for us and to sheathe the sword.
PRYTANIS. Sit down and keep silence!
DICAEOPOLIS. No, by Apollo, will I not, unless you are going to discuss the question of peace.
HERALD. The ambassadors, who are returned from the Court of the King!
DICAEOPOLIS. Of what King? I am sick of all those fine birds, the peacock ambassadors and their swagger.
HERALD. Silence!
DICAEOPOLIS. Oh! oh! by Ecbatana,162 what assumption!
AN AMBASSADOR. During the archonship of Euthymenes, you sent us to the Great King on a salary of two drachmae per diem.
DICAEOPOLIS. Ah! those poor drachmae!
AMBASSADOR. We suffered horribly on the plains of the Ca˙ster, sleeping under a tent, stretched deliciously on fine chariots, half dead with weariness.
DICAEOPOLIS. And I was very much at ease, lying on the straw along the battlements!163
AMBASSADOR. Everywhere we were well received and forced to drink delicious wine out of golden or crystal flagons.
DICAEOPOLIS. Oh, city of Cranaus,164 thy ambassadors are laughing at thee!
AMBASSADOR. For great feeders and heavy drinkers are alone esteemed as men by the barbarians.
DICAEOPOLIS. Just as here in Athens, we only esteem the most drunken debauchees.
AMBASSADOR. At the end of the fourth year we reached the King's Court, but he had left with his whole army to ease himself, and for the space of eight months he was thus easing himself in midst of the golden mountains.165
23
He points to the spectators.
24
The public meals were given in the Prytaneum; to these were admitted those whose services merited that they should be fed at the cost of the State. This distinction depended on the popular vote, and was very often bestowed on demagogues very unworthy of the privilege.
25
Islands of the Aegaean, subject to Athens, which paid considerable tributes.
26
Caria and Chalcedon were at the two extremities of Asia Minor; the former being at the southern, the latter at the northern end of that extensive coast.
27
As though stupidity were an essential of good government.
28
The Athenian citizens were divided into four classesthe Pentacosiomedimni, who possessed five hundred minae; the Knights, who had three hundred and were obliged to maintain a charger (hence their name); the Zeugitae and the Thetes. In Athens, the Knights never had the high consideration and the share in the magistracy which they enjoyed at Rome.
29
It is said that Aristophanes played the part of Cleon himself, as no one dared to assume the role. (See Introduction.)
30
They were two leaders of the knightly order.
31
The famous whirlpool, near Sicily.
32
Eucrates, the oakum-seller, already mentioned, when the object of a riot, took refuge in a mill and there hid himself in a sack of bran.
33
The chief Athenian tribunal only next in dignity to the Areopagus; it generally consisted of two hundred members; it tried civil cases of the greatest importance and some crimes beyond the competence of other courts, e.g. rape, adultery, extortion. The sittings were in the open air, hence the name ([Greek: _Elios], the sun).
34
The Heliasts' salary. (See above.)
35
Tributary to Athens; Olynthus and Potidaea were the chief towns of this important Peninsula.
36
Meaning he frightens him with the menace of judicial prosecution forces him to purchase silence.
37
The strategi were the heads of the military forces.
38
They presided at the Public Assemblies; they were also empowered to try the most important cases.
39
An allusion to Cleon's former calling.
40
A country deme of Attica.
41
Archeptolemus, a resident alien, who lived in Piraeus. He had loaded Athens with gifts and was nevertheless maltreated by Cleon.
42
This was easier than against a citizen because of the inferiority, in which the pride of the Athenian held those born on other soil.
43
When drunk he conceives himself rich and the man to buy up the rich silver mines of Laurium, in south-east Attica.
44
The Chorus throws itself between Cleon and Agoracritus to protect the latter.
45
An iron collar, an instrument of torture and of punishment.
46
A disease among swine.
47
Cleon wanted the Spartans to purchase the prisoners of Sphacteria from him.
48
With pissthe result of his drunken habits.
49
A tragic poet, apparently proverbial for feebleness of style.
50
Beginning of a song of Simonides.
51
A miser.
52
Guests used pieces of bread to wipe their fingers at table.
53
'Dog's head,' a vicious species of ape.
54
They were allowed to remain in the ground throughout the winter so that they might grow tender.
55
An allusion to the pederastic habits ascribed to some of the orators by popular rumour.
56
He imputes the crime to Agoracritus of which he is guilty himself.
57
A town in Thrace and subject to Athens. It therefore paid tribute to the latter. It often happened that the demagogues extracted considerable sums from the tributaries by threats or promises.
58
It was customary in Athens for the plaintiff himself to fix the fine to be paid by the defendant.
59
Athené, the tutelary divinity of Athens.
60
And wife of Pisistratus. Anything belonging to the ancient tyrants was hateful to the Athenians.
61
An allusion to the language used by the democratic orators, who, to be better understood by the people, constantly affected the use of terms belonging to the different trades.
62
He accuses Cleon of collusion with the enemy.
63
Cleon retorts upon his adversary the charge brought against himself. The Boeotians were the allies of Sparta.
64
Allusion to cock-fighting.
65
The tripping metre usually employed in the parabasis.
66
Hitherto Aristophanes had presented his pieces under an assumed name.
67
A comic poet, who had carried off the prize eleven times; not a fragment of his works remains to us.
68
An allusion to the titles of some of his pieces, viz. "the Flute Players, the Birds, the Lydians, the Gnats, the Frogs."
69
The Comic Poet, rival of Aristophanes, several times referred to above.
70
These were the opening lines of poems by Cratinus, often sung at festivities.
71
A poet, successful at the Olympic games, and in old age reduced to extreme misery.
72
The place of honour in the Dionysiac Theatre, reserved for distinguished citizens.
73
A Comic Poet, who was elegant but cold; he had at first played as an actor in the pieces of Cratinus.
74
Besides the oarsmen and the pilot, there was on the Grecian vessels a sailor, who stood at the prow to look out for rocks, and another, who observed the direction of the wind.