deliver his country from the yoke of the oppressor, at an early period of his life Aristomenes secretly engaged the Arcadians to assist him in his operations; by whose leader he was, however, twice betrayed, after Aristocrates had consented to sell himself to the Lacedemonians. His earliest exploit was in the battle of Deræ, where, after enacting more wonders than a man, he was offered the crown, and on his refusal, elected general, or rather dictator. With the view of striking terror into the enemy, he stole by night into the temple called Chalcicous (brasshouse) and there hung up a shield with the inscription "This, from the spoils of Spartans, does Aristomenes to the goddess give." It was about this period that the Lacedemonians were required by the oracle of Delphi to obtain a counsellor from the Athenians; who sent them the poet Tyrtæus, who had been a schoolmaster of little note, and was lame with one foot; but though he was unable to take an active part in the bustle of the fight, he was of no little service to the Spartans, by introducing amongst them his spirit-stirring strains. But all the excitement of martial music could not prevent the defeat of the Lacedemonians at the battle of the Boar's-tomb; where Aristomenes, with a band of eighty picked men, gained a complete victory, although, in the ardour of the pursuit, he lost his shield, entangled, it would seem, in the boughs of a wild pear-tree; but which he afterwards recovered in the cave of Trophonius, and eventually placed it in the temple of Lebadea, where Pausanias saw it, surmounted by an eagle, whose wings were extended from rim to rim. He then made an attack on Pharæ, where he defeated the enemy, but received a wound in the lower part of the back, while retreating with the booty he had collected. He was not, however, equally successful at Ægila, where he was taken prisoner, but released through the kindness of the priestess of Ceres, who had fallen in love with him, but who pretended that Aristomenes had unloosed, duckλvoas, the bonds by which he had been bound, and not burnt them through, diakavσas, as we find in Pausan. iv. 17. Pursuing still his career of opposition, he engaged the Lacedemonians at the Great Ditch; where, however, in consequence of Aristocrates' treacherously drawing off his Arcadian troops, the Messenians were surrounded by the enemy, and Aristomenes was compelled to retire to a mountain fastness, Eira. Here he was besieged, but with so little

care, that he was enabled to harass the surrounding country, and even to produce a scarcity in Sparta, which drew its supplies of food from that part of Greece. Taken at last in one of his forays, he was sent to Sparta, and thrown into the pit called Ceadæ, where criminals were left to die of hunger. From this, however, he escaped by following the track of a fox that had found its way there to feed upon the carcases of the dead. After his unexpected escape, Aristomenes waylaid and cut to pieces a reinforcement sent by the Corinthians to the Spartans for the destruction of Eira; but being afterwards seized, during a truce of forty days, by some Cretan mercenaries, he again escaped from the hands of the enemy through the aid of a country girl, who made his guards drunk. Despite, however, all the efforts of the Messenians, Eira was taken, although Aristomenes, with some of the garrison, contrived to force their way through the camp of the enemy, and to retire to the mountain Lycæus, from whence he intended to make an attack upon Sparta itself, but was again betrayed by Aristocrates; when finding it useless to contend longer against the fate that had doomed his country to destruction, he retired to Rhodes, whither he accompanied his daughter, whom Damagetus, the prince of Jalysus, had married, and where he died. his death, his bones were carried back to Messene, where honours were paid to him as a hero, and a brazen statue erected to his memory.

After

There are several other persons of this name who deserve at least to be indicated.

2. The writer of the old comedy flourished about Ol. 87, and was nicknamed the door-maker, Oupoños, or, as others say, the door-breaker, OuрOKOTOS. The titles of only five of his plays have been preserved, and a few fragments in Athenæus and the Scholiast on Aristophanes.

3. The historian of Arcadia, quoted by the Scholiast on Apollon. Rhod.-4. A pupil of Plato, and a friend of Dionysius of Syracuse.-5. A friend of Aristotle, and named in the will of the latter as the guardian of his adopted son Nicanor.

ARISTON, (Apiorov,) one of the oldest Greek physicians, to whom is sometimes attributed the work-De Victu Salubri, which bears the name of Hippocrates. (Galen. De Medicam. κara TOTOUS, lib. ix. c. 4.)

ARISTONICUS, a natural son of Eumenes, king of Pergamus, attempted

to recover his father's kingdom, but was taken by Perpenna, and died a prisoner at Rome.

ARISTONICUS, a grammarian of Alexandria, was a contemporary of Strabo, and wrote a work, in six books, on the Irregularities of Syntax to be found in Homer; on the Wanderings of Menelaus; and on the Theogony of Hesiod.

ARISTONOUS, a statuary, born in the island of Egina, but of uncertain date, made the statue of Jupiter, dedicated by the people of Metapontum.

ARISTONÝMUS, a disciple of Plato, was sent by his master to legislate for the Arcadians. A few fragments of his Tomaria (i. e. little tomes), have been preserved in Stobæus; and from one of them, in xxi. p. 176, it would seem that Socrates merely followed Heraclitus, when he said " All that I know is, that I know nothing;" and it is Aristonymus that has perpetuated the witticism of Socrates, who said, that if the crier in the theatre were to bid all the cobblers, or tailors, or tinkers, to stand up, only the persons of those trades respectively would do so; but if he bade all the wise to get up, every man would rise. To him is likewise due the idea which has been worked into a couplet

"Envy doth merit like its shade pursue;

But like the shadow proves the substance true." ARISTOPHANES. On this the sole survivor of the comic stage of Athens, where the first of wits wrote for spectators who were at once the cleverest and most capricious of human beings, and who, after relishing equally the sublimity of Eschylus, and the pathos of Euripides, could split their sides with laughing at parodies upon both, so much has been written in the course of the last quarter of a century, that if only a tenth part of what others have said were put down, it would fill half a volume. And yet all that Ranke has heaped up in his Life of Aristophanes, extending to 400 octavo pages, may be compressed into a few columns, if we are to detail only admitted facts, and draw fair inferences from the conflicting evidence relating to the life and writings of the dramatist. The year of the birth and death of Aristophanes are equally unknown; and there is even some controversy respecting his country and the name of his father. According to his Greek biographer, some said he was the son of Philip, and born at Athens; others, of Philippides of Ægina. But as one of his children bore the name of Philip, it is probable that the grandfather's name

was Philip likewise, for such was the custom at Athens; and as the family was said by some to have been natives of Ægina, and to have possessed property in that island, it is possible that the father was one of those who settled there, after its subjugation to Athens, during the administration of Pericles; or, since, according to other accounts, the family came originally from Lindus in Rhodes, Camara in Crete, or Naucratis in Egypt, while Aristophanes himself was born at Athens, and of the tribe of Pandion, in the ward of Cydathene, there would have been ample ground for contesting his claim to the privileges of an Athenian citizen; which Cleon is said to have done in revenge for the ridicule thrown in The Babylonians, not only upon himself personally, but on the office he held of Tapas, in conjunction with nine others, as may be inferred by comparing an hitherto unnoticed fragment in Plutarch, ii. p. 853, Xyl. - εβαπτισ' ουχι ταμιας αλλα και Aapas i ovras, with the words of Aristophanes in Ɛpŋk. 1033, and Ep. 740.

So searching was the inquisition that took place, to ascertain who were the parties entitled to receive, in their character of Athenian citizens, a share of the corn sent by Psammetichus, that according to Aristophanes, in Ach. 481, the aliens, who were considered the chaff of the citizens, were carefully sifted, and 4700 persons, as we learn from the scholiast on Ep7x. 716, had their names erased from the parish registers, into which they had been improperly enrolled. From this ordeal, however, the dramatist not only escaped unhurt, but was even led, no doubt by the feelings of private hate and public wrongs, to attack with still greater violence than before the Demogorgon of the state. But such was the dread of the power which the political monster then possessed, just fresh from his victory over the Spartans at Pylus, that the performers, who had sustained the principal parts in the former plays, were unwilling to act the son of the tanner; and even the manufacturers of masks refused to make one to represent the great mob-leader; and hence Aristophanes was compelled to disguise himself with the lees of wine rubbed on his face, and to be at once author and actor. Such has been the interpretation hitherto put on the words of the dramatist, in 'I. 230, in consequence of what has fallen from the scholiast, whose story is repeated by another or the same commentator,-for

it matters not which,-on Enk. 1016, and by the Greek biographer of Aristophanes. Ranke, however, in his Commentat. p. xciv. and again, p. ccxvi. asserts, that the words do not necessarily convey such a meaning; that they merely account for the fact, why Cleon appears without a mask; and that the whole account is solely the invention of the scholiast on one passage, which has been repeated on the other, if the commentator be the same person; and if a different one, has been copied, and thus became the foundation for the anecdote in the biographical article. That the scholiasts sometimes drew upon their fancy for interpretations may be conceded, without admitting that such is the fact in the present case. Unless the story had been handed down from authentic sources, it is difficult to understand how it could have occurred to the scholiast, especially as there is nothing in the text to lead directly to it. With equal justice Ranke might object to every anecdote mentioned in the Scholia, but not stated distinctly in the text. Until then some stronger arguments are brought forward to prove that Aristophanes was not both author and actor, we may stick to the old story, which bears at least probability on the face of it, and continue to believe that partly by his acting, but more by the continued fun of the piece, where from the first appearance of Cleon to the last, there is no breathing-time given to his antagonist, the success of the dramatist was complete. By this victory, coming as it did close after another achieved in the preceding year with his Acharnians, Aristophanes was placed amongst the brightest wits of the day; nor was it without reason that Plato said of the man, whose writings, according to Olympiodorus, were found on the death-bed of the philosopher—

"In Aristophanes' soul the Graces found

A shrine, that e'en Time's scythe shall never

wound."

The prophecy has been, however, unfortunately not verified; for of the fortyfour plays, or rather forty, since four were rejected as spurious, only eleven have come down to us, and these too, with the exception of the Plutus, Clouds, Knights, and Birds, in a castrated form. For their preservation we are indebted to the good taste of John Chrysostom; who, if Aldus is to be believed, had a Manutius MS. volume, containing twenty-eight plays of Aristophanes, which he used for a pillow, just as Alexander is said to have slept upon the twenty-four books of the

Iliad. The story is, however, rejected by Ranke, who conceives that it owes its origin to the tradition, that St. Jerome used a MS. of Plautus for a similar purpose, or that Aldus wrote down by mistake, John Chrysostom, instead of his namesake Dio, who has frequently, according to Reiske, alluded to Aristophanes. Porson, on the other hand, as stated by Dobree, conceived that Aldus took the story from a scholiast; for it is borne out by the fact, that the eloquent father of the church has frequently imitated the language of the no less powerful dramatist. The question, however, is one that we cannot enter upon at present. Our own impression is, that the eleven were selected by some father of the Greek church, from their containing more or less decided allusions to, and ridicule of, the mysteries of pagan worship; for though Aristophanes was never initiated himself, yet he had the talent to see through the real aim of rites which, under the cloak of solemnity, carried on a disgusting farce, and by which, at one and the same time, the many were led to believe in twelve gods at least, and the few to deny any power but that of matter. Be it, however, design or accident, to which we owe the preservation of the eleven plays, it is a fact that the whole fortyfour are quoted by Athenæus and Julius Pollux; and it is equally certain that in the time of the author whom Suidas transcribed in his short life of Aristophanes, only the eleven still surviving were to be found; and so Meineke (in Quæstion. Scenic. ii. 12.) and Ranke (in Commentat. p. c.) might have guessed, had they seen that in άπερ δε πεπραχαμεν Αριστοφανους δραματα, the word πεπραχαμεν is merely a literal error for Temрax', a eper-i. e. "of the dramas, which Aristophanes composed, eleven have remained. Amongst this number are to be found the Acharnians and Knights, which were respectively the third and fourth plays Aristophanes wrote; and likewise the second Plutus, which appeared towards the close of his dramatic career; and they thus enable us to see the different phases of the comic stage exhibited at Athens during a period of nearly forty years. In none of the plays, however, do we meet with what was peculiar to the old comedy, real characters with real names, and perpetual allusions to passing events: for even in the Acharnians, the principal character is a fictitious person; unless it be said that there was an actual Dicæopolis, as well known by the mask the

actor put on, as were Nicias and Demosthenes in the Knights by theirs, even without the mention of their respective names; while in the second Plutus, all the characters and events are fictitious: nor is there, except in the parts introduced from the first edition of the play, any allusion to contemporary persons or circumstances. The fact is, that during the period which elapsed between the exhibition of the first and last plays of Aristophanes, which were respectively the Aairakeis and Kwkaλos, the license originally granted to the stage had been withdrawn; and instead of levelling his keenest shafts at individuals, the dramatist was compelled to aim at general characters; and thus the muse of comedy underwent the same reducing regimen, that tragedy did in passing from Eschylus to Euripides, until in both cases the spirit of the drama, which had once figured on the boards with the helm, shield, and spear of Minerva, was content to appear as the Goddess of Love; while the tricks of clever servants, aiding their youthful masters to cheat penurious parents, were substituted for the ridicule of philosophers without pence, and of politicians without honesty. Nor was it in the conduct of the piece alone that the old comedy differed from the new; for while the dread of the law put a curb upon the imagination of the poet, the scarcely less dread of expense curtailed the scenery, dresses, and decorations of the theatre. But when the Chorus was silenced, the lyre of the comic muse was left unstrung, which had formerly rambled through all the varied melodies of song; and instead of the lively Trochee and stately Anapest, and the mixed measures of the corps-de-ballet, nothing was heard but the monotonous recitative of the prosy Senarian. In the eyes of the sober Plutarch, quite shocked, it would seem, with the coarse ridicule thrown upon his favourite hero Pericles by Aristophanes and his contemporaries, this change from the broad humour of the old comedy to the delicate sallies of the new, was considered a decided symptom of mental improvement, instead of being then, as it has been ever since, the herald of intellectual decay. In his celebrated comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, he finds fault with the want of keeping in the characters of the older dramatist; and this, he observes, is carried to such a length, that the reader is quite unable to say whether the speaker is a father or a son; a god or

a clown; a hero or an old woman; that the wit of Aristophanes affords no delight to the many, while it is absolutely insufferable to the few; that his muse, like a faded courtezan, affecting the staid demeanour of a wife, is equally disagreeable to persons of vulgar taste, from her assumed prudery, and to men of more elegant minds, from her real immodesty ; that the acidity of his Attic salt excoriates the tongue instead of tickling the palate; nor is it easy to say where his boasted cleverness is to be found; for his characters are caricatures; his jokes to be rather laughed down than laughed at; while all his notions of love are full, not of gaiety but grossness. So too Voltaire said of Aristophanes-" Ce poëte comique, qui n'est ni comique ni poëte, n'aurait pas été admis parmi nous à donner ses farces à la foire de St. Laurent." But other writers, as well among the ancients as the moderns, have adopted a different tone; and he is now considered by the Schlegels and their admirers as a poet second only to Homer, and superior to Socrates as a moralist, and, as a patriot, equalled by Phocion alone. Instead, however, of penning panegyrics, whose very extravagance carries a doubt of their sincerity, it were wiser to speak of Aristophanes as he really was. The bold antagonist of bad men in power, and the clever detector of specious knaves, united to a keen perception of the ridiculous, ready to shoot folly as it flies, the versatility of a parodist, prepared to put on every garb of thought; but, like all parodists, he was unable to sustain, except for a short period, the towering flight of the monarch bird, whose eyrie is on the pinnacle of Parnassus.

From the few fragments which have been preserved of the writings of his contemporaries, it is impossible to say how far he was justified in decrying the bad taste of the judges in rejecting The Clouds; which, according to modern notions, is the most complete comedy of the whole eleven, as it is the only one that has a beginning, middle, and end. The failure is, perhaps, to be attributed to the fact, that in selecting Socrates as the butt for his ridicule, he merely followed in the wake of Cratinus, who had done as much in the case of Hippon, not Hippasus; whose theory, that heat was the principle of creation, as stated by Aristot. Metaphys. i. 3, was derided by Cratinus; who compared the world to an oven, and human beings to charcoal, as may be inferred from the words of the

scholiast on Aristoph. Nep. 96, and from whence we can understand that in the word Пavorras, the title of the play of Cratinus, there is a pun upon the equivocal meanings-"all-seeing," or "allbaking," as applied to the gods. And though Aristophanes lays no little stress on the originality of his ideas, and complains of his competitors pilfering his best thoughts; yet it appears from the scholiast, on Nep. 552, that a similar charge of plagiarisin was made against him by Eupolis, who asserted that the Knights was a joint production, and that he made a present of his share of it to the baldfellow, for such Aristophanes was. But even allowing that the plot, incidents, and ideas, were not taken from others, still there were probably grounds enough for rejecting the favourite play of the author. For the scholiast well observes, that the tenets attributed to Socrates were not his at all, but the doctrines rather of the philosophers and sophists to whom he was constantly opposed; and hence, the Greek commentator adds, "is seen the folly of those, who fancy that Aristophanes wrote the play from any feeling of enmity to Socrates;" for both were lions of the same lair, and naturally pursued the same quarry. At all events, the charge brought against Aristophanes, of being the cause of the death of the philosopher, is well refuted by Palmer, in Exercitat. p. 729, who shows that the first representation of the Clouds preceded the trial of Socrates by at least twentyfour years; and even then it produced so little sensation, that it obtained only the third prize after the plays of Cratinus and Connus-a failure for which the author was quite unprepared, and by which he was not a little mortified. And yet independent of the incorrectness of the portrait which he gave of Socrates, there were sufficient causes then operating to render his ill success not improbable. At that time the party of the philosophers, backed as they were by Pericles, the patron of Anaxagoras, were too strong to be destroyed by a juvenile play-writer, even fresh from his victory over Cleon, who was at once hated and feared by the better sort of citizens and domiciled aliens; who were delighted to see their

• The charge, however, was more easy to make than prove; for it is not very probable that one so fertile in invention as the writer of forty plays is never found to borrow from himself, with the exception of the allusion to his victory over Cleon, repeated in the Wasps and Peace, would condescend to pilfer from others, and those too whom he considered inferior to himself.

must have been, and who in the eleven that remain

enemy assailed by the weapons of wit; which men in power feel the most acutely, for they are the only ones it is impossible to parry or prevent. When, however, the tide of popular indignation was running against Socrates, for the part he had taken, in refusing to condemn the officers who had neglected to pick up the bodies of those who had fallen in the sea-fight at Arginusæ; and still more, when his friends Theramenes and Critias had shown that the Socratic philosophy was no friend of democracy; it is not unlikely that Anytus, whose vanity had been wounded by finding that Alcibiades had given up his society for that of Socrates, endeavoured to bribe Aristophanes to bring out again the play, which the author considered one of his best. We are told indeed that the Nubes was repeated in the year immediately following its first exhibition, when it was even less successful than before, for it obtained not even the third prize. But Elmsley has shown in the Classical Journal, No. xi. p. 135, that the second representation did not take place in that year at all; and that Eratosthenes doubted, as we learn from the scholiast on Nep. 552, whether it ever appeared more than once; but as this doubt is at variance with the fact, that the Parabasis of the second edition has been actually preserved, Elmsley is disposed to believe that the second representation did not take place till the people had time to forget the first; for thus the Plutus was not repeated till twenty years after its first appearance. If then a similar period be supposed to elapse between the first and second representation of the Clouds, it will be brought sufficiently near to the time of the trial of Socrates to give rise to the story, that Aristophanes was bribed by Anytus and others to write the play for the purpose of raising a clamour against the philosopher; whereas, in fact, the play was merely revived for that purpose. Fritzsche indeed, on Aristoph. Thesm. p. 68, says, that the second edition of the Clouds appeared four years after the first; but he produces no arguments for deciding so positively upon a point which every other critic confesses to be a matter of doubt.

Of the plays that are lost, the one to be regretted the most is the AairaλEIS, which Aristophanes wrote first, and when he was too young to be a competitor for the dramatic prize, according to the scholiast on Nep. 530, who says that the legal age was forty, cr, as some