W. Lucas Collins

“ And if the reproach brought against the Sophists was that they loved argument too much for argument’s sake, and thought more of confounding an opponent than of demonstrating a truth, we have only to read some of the dialogues in which Socrates bears a part, as we have them recorded by his friends and pupils, to see that he at least supplied abundant ground to an ordinary hearer to say the same of him. He could scarcely have realised to the public of his own day the definition which Schiller gives of the true philosopher—“One who loves truth better than his system.” ”

“ There was probably not a man among the audience—not a man in the state, except Cleon himself—who would not enjoy the wit far more than he resented its home application. That such a masterpiece was awarded the first prize of comedy by acclamation we should hardly doubt, even if we were not distinctly so informed. Those who know the facile temper of the multitude—and it may be said, perhaps, especially of the Athenian multitude—will understand, almost equally as a matter of course, that the political result was simply nothing. ”

“ A brief interval, filled by a choral ode, allows time enough in dramatic imagination for Lamachus’s expedition and for Dicæopolis’s feast. A messenger from the army rushes in hot haste upon the stage, and knocks loudly at the door of the former. “Hot-water, lint, plaister, splints!” The general has been wounded. In leaping a ditch he has sprained his ankle and broken his head; and here he comes. As the discomfited warrior limps in on the one side, groaning and complaining, Dicæopolis, with a train of joyous revellers, enters on the other. ”

“ If the satire had been bitter and trenchant as to the faults and follies of the present—that unfortunate tense of existence, social and political, which appears never to satisfy men in any age of the world—this brilliant reminiscence of the glories of the past, and anticipation of a still more glorious future, was enough to condone for the poet the broadest licence which he had taken. ”

“ It is to be regretted that the Comedies of Aristophanes are now less read at our universities than they were some years ago. If one great object of the study of the classics is to gain an accurate acquaintance with one of the most brilliant and interesting epochs in the history of the world, no pages will supply a more important contribution to this knowledge than those of the great Athenian humorist. He lays the flesh and blood, the features and the colouring, upon the skeleton which the historian gives us. ”

“ An Honest Man, who has spent his fortune on his friends and met with nothing but ingratitude in return, now finds his wealth suddenly restored to him, and comes to dedicate to the god who has been his benefactor the threadbare cloak and worn-out shoes which he had been lately reduced to wear. A public Informer—that hateful character whom the comic dramatist was never tired of holding up to the execration of his audience—has now found his business fail him, and threatens that, if there be any law or justice left in Athens, this god who leaves the poor knaves to starve shall be made blind again. ”

“ There shall be no more ruling by favour and corruption; right shall be might, and he will listen to no more flatterers. To crown the whole, his new minister leads forth Peace—beautiful Peace, in propria persona, hitherto hid away a close prisoner in the house of the Paphlagonian—and presents her to Demus in all her charms. And with this grand tableau the drama closes; it is not difficult{37} to imagine, without being an Athenian, amid what thunders of applause. ”

“ That is no business for women, argues the magistrate. “Why not?” says Lysistrata; “the wives have long had the management of the private purses of the husbands, to the great advantage of both.” In short, the women have made up their minds to have their voice no longer ignored, as hitherto, in questions of peace and war. Their remonstrances have always been met with the taunt that “war is the business of men;” and to any question they have ventured to ask their husbands on such points, the answer has always been the old cry—old as the days of Homer—“Go spin, you jade, go spin!” ”

“ Plutus is very unwilling to accompany his new friend home, though Chremylus assures him that he is a man of unusual probity. “All men say that,” is the god’s reply; “but the moment they get hold of me, their probity goes to the winds.” Besides, he is afraid of Jove. Chremylus cries out against him for a coward. Would the sovereignty of Jove be worth three farthings’ purchase, but for him? What do men offer prayer and sacrifice to Jove himself for, but for money? Money is the true ruler, alike of gods and men. ”

“ Æschylus had held the chair of tragedy until Euripides appeared below: but now this latter has made a party in his own favour—“chiefly of rogues and vagabonds”—and has laid claim to the chair. Æschylus has his friends among the respectable men; but respectable men are as scarce in the Shades—“as they are in this present company,” observes Æacus, with a wave of his hand towards the audience. ”

“ Chremylus appears on the stage accompanied by his slave Cario,—a clever rascal, the earliest classical type which has come down to us of the Davus with whom we become so familiar in Roman comedy, and the Leporello and Scapin, and their numerous progeny of lying valets and sharp servants, impudent but useful, who occupy the modern stage. They have encountered the stranger, and are following him; he is in rags, and he turns out to be blind. With some difficulty, and not without threats of beating, they get him to disclose his name: it is Plutus, the god of wealth himself. ”

“ So in ‘The Acharnians’ he takes Lamachus, a well-known general of the day, to represent the passion for war which he there holds up to ridicule, and dresses him up with gorgon-faced shield and tremendous crest, in parody of military splendour: though we have no reason whatever to suppose that he had any private grudge against the man, or that Lamachus was more responsible for the war than others. Here the representative figure must be a philosopher, and well known. ”

“ It is not probable that bribery could often be applied to so numerous a body. But the sense of dignity and personal importance which attaches to the right of giving a judicial decision, and the interest and excitement which are aroused by legal or criminal questions, especially in those who have to investigate them, are feelings perfectly well understood in our days, as well as in those of Aristophanes. Such feelings are not only natural, but have their use, more especially when the cause to be decided is, as it so often was at Athens, of a public character. ”

“ Poverty continues to argue the point in the presence of the Chorus of rustic neighbours, who now come on the stage, and naturally take a very warm interest in the question. She contends that were it not for the stimulus which she continually applies, the work of the world would stand still. No man would learn or exercise any trade or calling. There would be neither smith, nor shipwright, nor tailor, nor shoemaker, nor wheelwright—nay, there would be none either to plough or sow, if all alike were rich. “Nonsense,” interposes Chremylus, “the slaves would do it.” ”

“ The men seem well inclined to the new ruling powers, and many apply at once to be furnished with wings. But the state of things in the celestial regions soon gets so intolerable, owing to the stoppage of all communication with earth and its good things, that certain barbarian deities, the gods of Thrace, who are—as an Athenian audience would readily understand—of a very carnal and ill-mannered type, break out into open rebellion, and threaten mutiny against the supremacy of Jupiter, unless he can come to some terms with this new intermediate power. ”

“ For one poor instance which his opponent can adduce of virtue being rewarded upon earth, the fluent sophist quotes a dozen against him of those who have made their gain by the opposite qualities. Honesty is not the best policy among mortals; and most assuredly the moral virtues receive no countenance from the example of the gods. Sophistical as the argument is, and utterly unfair as we know it to be if intended to represent the real teaching of Socrates, the satirist seems to have been fully justified in his representation so far as some of the popular lecturers of the day were concerned. ”

“ That the love of disputation and the consciousness of power will tempt a clever man to maintain a paradox, and discomfit an opponent by what he knows to be a fallacy—that a keen intellect will delight in questioning an established belief—and that the shallow self-sufficiency of younger disciples will push any doctrine to its wildest extremes,—are moral facts for whose confirmation we have no need to go to ancient history. ”

“ It is Wealth, on the other hand, that gives men the gout, makes them corpulent and thick-legged, wheezy and pursy; “while I,” says Poverty, “make them strong and wiry, with waists like wasps—ay, and with stings for their enemies.” “Look at your popular leaders” (for the satirist never spares the demagogues) —“so long as they continue poor, they are honest enough; but when once they have grown rich at the public expense, they betray the public interest.” Chremylus confesses that here, at least, she speaks no more than the truth. ”

“ The Acharnians have scented their prey at last, and rush in upon the celebrant with a shower of stones. Dicæopolis begs to know what crime he has committed. They soon let him know it: he has presumed to separate his private interest from the public cause, and to make a private treaty with the detested Spartans. They will listen to no explanation ”

“ Too late he begins to see that this new liberal education has its inconvenient side. He protests it would have been better for him to allow his son to go on driving four-in-hand to his heart’s content, than to become so subtle a philosopher. ”

“ And so, with two choric hymns, chanted by Spartans and Athenians in turn—so bright and graceful that they would seem out of place in such wild company, but that we know the poet meant them to herald the joy with which a real Peace would be welcomed—this broad extravaganza ends.
For the humour is indeed of the broadest, in some passages, even for Aristophanes. But in spite of coarse language, it has been justly said by modern critics in the poet’s defence, that the moral of the piece is honest and true. ”

“ It is snowing hard; but the orders of the commanders-in-chief are imperative, and Lamachus must go to the front. And at this moment comes another messenger to call Dicæopolis to the banquet, which stays only for him. A long antithetic dialogue follows, pleasant, it must be supposed, to Athenian ears, who delighted in such word-fencing, tiresome to English readers. Lamachus orders out his knapsack; Dicæopolis bids his slave bring his dinner-service. The general, cursing all commanders-in-chief, calls for his plume ”

“ But a spectacle is nothing, as Dicæopolis feels, without spectators; so he bids his wife go indoors, and mount upon the house-top to see the procession pass. Next to a caricature of their great men, an Athenian audience enjoyed a caricature of their religion. They had this much of excuse, that Paganism was full of tempting themes for{48} burlesque, of which their comic dramatists liberally availed themselves. But in truth there is a temptation to burlesque and parody presented by all religions, more or less, on their external side. ”

“ The dramatist not only assumes on their behalf a familiarity with all the best scenes and points in the dramas of the great tragedians—which, in the case of such inveterate play-goers as the Athenians were, is not so very surprising—and an acquaintance with the political questions and the public celebrities of the day which possibly might be found, in this age when every man is becoming a politician, amongst a Paris or a London theatrical auditory ”

“ So Bacchus steps into the boat, begging Charon to be very careful, for it seems very small and crank, as Hercules had warned him. But Charon carries no slaves—Xanthias must run round and meet them on the other side. The god takes his place at the oar, at the ferryman’s bidding (but in very awkward “form,” as a modern oarsman would term it) , to work his passage across: and an invisible Chorus of Frogs, who give their name to the piece—the “Swans of the Marsh,” as Charon calls them—chant their discordant music, in which, nevertheless, occur some very graceful lines, to the time of the stroke. ”

“ He appears to the philosopher not so very unpromising a pupil, and the pair retire into the “Thinking-shop,” to begin their studies, while the Chorus make their usual address to the audience in the poet’s name,{91} touching chiefly upon topics of the day which have lost their interest for us moderns.
But the next act of the comedy brings in Socrates, swearing by all his new divinities that he never met with so utterly hopeless a pupil, in the whole course of his experience, as this very late learner, who has no one qualification for a sophist except his want of honesty. ”

“ In the drama now before us, the author is not only satirising the political weakness of his countrymen; he is fulfilling the threat which he had held out the year before in his ‘Acharnians,’—that he would “cut up Cleon the tanner into shoe-leather for the Knights,”—and concentrating the whole force of his wit, in the most unscrupulous and merciless fashion, against his personal enemy. ”

“ And as the younger generation—the modern school of thought—were there the subjects of the caricature, so here the older citizens, who took their seats in court as jurymen day by day, to the neglect of their private affairs and the encouragement of a litigious disposition, appear in their turn in the mirror which the satirist holds up. It is calculated that in the ten courts at Athens, when all were open, there might sometimes be required as many as six thousand jurymen, and there was never any difficulty in obtaining them. ”