he smeared his face with lees of wine, in order to represent the flushed and bloated countenance of the great demagogue, thus returning to the original mode of acting of the predecessors of Thespis. This, too, was the first of the comedies of Aristophanes which he published in his own name. “The Clouds,” published in 423, is aimed at Socrates and the philosophers. The fourth, “The Wasps,” published in B.C. 422, presents a satire on the litigious spirit of the Athenians. The fifth, entitled “Peace” (Ἔιρηνη), appeared in the year following, at the time of the peace of Nicias, and is another satire on the bellicose spirit of the Athenian democracy. The next in the list of extant plays comes after an interval of several years, having been published in B.C. 414, the first year of the Sicilian war, and relates to an irreligious movement in Athens, which had caused a great sensation. Two Athenians are represented as leaving Athens, in disgust at the vices and follies of their fellow citizens, and seeking the kingdom of the birds, where they form a new state, by which the communication between the mortals and the immortals is cut off, and is only opened again by an arrangement between all the parties. In the “Lysistrata,” believed to have been brought out in 411, when the war was still at its height, the women of Athens are represented as engaging in a cunning and successful plot, by which they gain possession of the government of the state, and compel their husbands to make peace. “The Thesmophoriazusæ,” appears to have been published in B.C. 410; it is a satire upon Euripides, whose writings were remarkable for their bitter attacks on the character of the female sex, who, in this comedy, conspire against him to secure his punishment. The comedy of “The Frogs” was brought out in the year 405 B.C., and is a satire on the literature of the day; it is aimed especially at Euripides, and was perhaps written soon after his death, its real subject being the decline of the tragic drama, which Euripides was accused of having promoted. It is perhaps the most witty of the plays of Aristophanes which have been preserved. “The Ecclesiazusæ,” published in 392, is a burlesque upon the theories of republican government, which were then started among the philosophers, some of which differed little from our modern communism. The ladies again, by a clever conspiracy, gain the mastery in the estate, and they decree a community of goods and women, with some laws very peculiar to that state of things. The humour of the piece, which is extremely broad, turns upon the disputes and embarrassments resulting from this state of things. The last of his comedies extant, “Plutus,” appears to be a work of the concluding years of the active life of Aristophanes; it is the least striking of them all, and is rather a moral than a political satire.

In a comedy brought out in 426, the year before “The Archarnians,” under the title of “The Babylonians,” Aristophanes appears to have given great offence to the democratic party, a circumstance to which he alludes more than once in the former play. However, his talents and popularity seem to have carried him over the danger, and certainly nothing can have exceeded the bitterness of satire employed in his subsequent comedies. Those who followed him were less fortunate.

One of the latest writers of the Old Comedy was Anaximandrides, who cast a reflection on the state of Athens in parodying a line of Euripides. This poet had said,—

ἡ φύσις ἐβούλεθ’ ἦ νόμων οὐδεν μέλει
(Nature has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws);

which Anaximandrides changed to—

ἡ πόλις ἐβούλεθ’ ἦ νόμων οὐδεν μέλει
(The state has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws).

Nowhere is oppression exercised with greater harshness than under democratic governments; and Anaximandrides was prosecuted for this joke as a crime against the state, and condemned to death. As may be supposed, liberty of speech ceased to exist in Athens. We are well acquainted with the character of the Old Comedy, in its greatest freedom, through the writings of Aristophanes. What was called the Middle Comedy, in which political satire was prohibited, lasted from this time until the age of Philip of Macedon, when the old liberty of Greece was finally crushed. The last form of Greek comedy followed, which is known as the New Comedy, and was represented by such names as Epicharmus and Menander. In the New Comedy all caricature and parody, and all personal allusions, were entirely proscribed; it was changed entirely into a comedy of manners and domestic life, a picture of contemporary society under conventional names and characters. From this New Comedy was taken the Roman comedy, such as we now have it in the plays of Plautus and Terence, who were professed imitators of Menander and the other writers of the new comedy of the Greeks.