Aristophanes
- I.A The most distinguished comic poet of Greece, from Lindus, on the island of Rhodes, a contemporary of Socrates, Hor. S. 1, 4, 1.—Hence,
- B Derivv.,
- 1 Ări-stŏphănēus or -īus, a, um, adj., Aristophanean: anapaestus Aristophanius, Cic. Or. 56, 190: metrum, Serv. Centim. p. 1818 P.—
- 2 Ăristŏphănĭcus, a, um, adj., the same, Hier. ad Isa. l. 15, c. 54, v. 11.—
- II A distinguished grammarian of Byzantium, pupil of Eratosthenes, and teacher of the critic Aristarchus, Cic. de Or. 3, 33, 132; id. Fin. 5, 19, 50; id. Att. 16, 11.
- 1. uit Athene, tijdgenoot v. Socrates; hij was de belangrijkste dichter v.d. oude Att. komedie (ca. 452—388 v. Chr.); — adj. Aristophanēus en -nīus, a, um;
- 2. uit Byzantium (ca. 257—180 v. Chr.), bibliothecaris v.h. Museion in Alexandrië, beroemd filoloog, grammaticus en criticus, grondlegger v.d. lexicografie, leermeester v. Aristarchus.
(Ἀριστοφάνης), the only writer of the old comedy of whom any entire works are left. His later extant plays approximate rather to the middle comedy, and in the Cocalus, his last production, he so nearly approached the new, that Philemon brought it out a second time with very little alteration.
Aristophanes was the son of Philippus, as is stated by all the authorities for his life, and proved by the fact of his son also having that name, although a bust exists with the inscription Ἀριστοφάνης Φιλιππίδου, which is, however, now generally allowed to be spurious. He was an Athenian of the tribe Pandionis, and the Cydathenaean Demus, and is said to have been the pupil of Prodicus, though this is improbable, since he speaks of him rather with contempt. (Nub. 360, Av. 692, Tagenist. Fragm. xviii. Bekk.) We are told (Schol. ad Ran. 502), that he first engaged in the comic contests when he was σχέδον μειράκισκος, and we know that the date of his first comedy was B. C. 427 : we are therefore warranted in assigning about B. C. 444 as the date of his birth, and his death was probably not later than B. C. 380. His three sons, Philippus, Araros, and Nicostratus, were all poets of the middle comedy. Of his private history we know nothing but that he was a lover of pleasure (Plat. Symp. particularly p. 223), and one who spent whole nights in drinking and witty conversation. Accusations (his anonymous biographer says, more than one) were brought against him by Cleon, with a view to deprive him of his civic rights (ξενίας γραφαί), but without success, as indeed they were merely the fruit of revenge for his attacks on that demagogue. They have, however, given rise to a number of traditions of his being a Rhodian, an Egyptian, an Aeginetan, a native of Camirus or of Naucratis.
The comedies of Aristophanes are of the highest historical interest, containing as they do an admirable series of caricatures on the leading men of the day, and a contemporary commentary on the evils existing at Athens. Indeed, the caricature is the only feature in modern social life which at all resembles them. Aristophanes was a bold and often a wise patriot. He had the strongest affection for Athens, and longed to see her restored to the state in which she was flourishing in the previous generation, and almost in his own childhood, before Pericles became the head of the government, and when the age of Miltiades and Aristeides had but just passed away. The first great evil of his own time against which he inveighs, is the Peloponnesian war, which he regards as the work of Pericles, and even attributes it (Pax, 606) to his fear of punishment for having connived at a robbery said to have been committed by Phidias on the statue of Athene in the Parthenon, and to the influence of Aspasia. (Ach. 500.) To this fatal war, among a host of evils, he ascribes the influence of vulgar demagogues like Cleon at Athens, of which also the example was set by the more refined demagogism of Pericles. Another great object of his indignation was the recently adopted system of education which had been introduced by the Sophists, acting on the speculative and inquiring turn given to the Athenian mind by the Ionian and Eleatic philosophers, and the extraordinary intellectual development of the age following the Persian war. The new theories introduced by the Sophists threatened to overthrow the foundations of morality, by making persuasion and not truth the object of man in his intercourse with his fellows, and to substitute a universal scepticism for the religious creed of the people. The worst effects of such a system were seen in Alcibiades, who, caring for nothing but his own ambition, valuing eloquence only for its worldly advantages, and possessed of great talents which he utterly misapplied, combined all the elements which Aristophanes most disliked, heading the war party in politics, and protecting the sophistical school in philosophy and also in literature. Of this latter school--the literary and poetical Sophists--Euripides was the chief, whose works are full of that μετεωροσοφία which contrasts so offensively with the moral dignity of Aeschylus and Sophocles, and for which Aristophanes introduces him as soaring in the air to write his tragedies (Ach. 374), caricaturing thereby his own account of himself. (Alc. 971.) Another feature of the times was the excessive love for litigation at Athens, the consequent importance of the dicasts, and disgraceful abuse of their power; all of which enormities are made by Aristophanes objects of continual attack. But though he saw what were the evils of his time, he had not wisdom to find a remedy for them, except the hopeless and undesirable one of a movement backwards ; and therefore, though we allow him to have been honest and bold, we must deny him the epithet of great. Works
We subjoin a catalogue of the comedies of Aristophanes on which we possess information, and a short account of the most remarkable. Those marked † are extant. B. C. 427. Δαιταλεῖς, Banquetters. Second prize. The play was produced under the name of Philonides, as Aristophanes was below the legal age for competing for a prize. Fifth year of the war. 426. Babylonians (ἐν ἄστει). 425. † Acharnians. (Lenaea.) Produced in the name of Callistratus. First prize. 424. † Ἱππεῖς, Knights or Horsemen. (Lenaea.) The first play produced in the name of Aristophanes himself. First prize; second Cratinus. 423. † Clouds (ἐν ἄστει). First prize, Cratinus; second Ameipsias. 422. † Wasps. (Lenaea.) Second prize. Γηρᾶς (?) (ἐν ἄστει), according to the probable conjecture of Süvern. (Essay on the Γηρᾶς, translated by Mr. Hamilton.) Clouds (second edition), failed in obtaining a prize. But Ranke places this B. C. 411, and the whole subject is very uncertain. 419. † Peace (ἐν ἄστει). Second prize; Eupolis first. 414. Amphiaraus. (Lenaea.) Second prize. † Birds (ἐν ἄστει), second prize; Ameipsias first; Phrynichus third. Second campaign in Sicily. Γεωργοί (?). Exhibited in the time of Nicias. (Plut. Nic. 100.8.) 411. † Lysistrata. † Thesmophoriazusae. During the Oligarchy. 408. † First Plutus. 405. † Frogs. (Lenaea.) First prize; Phrynicus second; Plato third. Death of Sophocles. 392. † Ecclesiazusae. Corinthian war. 388. Second edition of the Plutus.
The last two comedies of Aristophanes were the Aeolosicon and Cocalus, produced about B. C. 387 (date of the peace of Antalcidas) by Araros, one of his sons. The first was a parody on the Aeolus of Euripides, the name being compounded of Aeolus and Sicon, a famous cook. (Rheinisches Museum, 1828, p. 50.) The second was probably a similar parody of a poem on the death of Minos, said to have been killed by Cocalus, king of Sicily. Of the Aeolosicon there were two editions. Δαιταλεῖς
In the Δαιταλεῖς the object of Aristophanes was to censure generally the abandonment of those ancient manners and feelings which it was the labour of his life to restore. He attacked the modern schemes of education by introducing a father with two sons, one of whom had been educated according to the old system, the other in the sophistries of later days. The chorus consisted of a party who had been feasting in the temple of Hercules; and Bp. Thirlwall supposes, that as the play was written when the plague was at its height (Schol. ad Ran. 502), the poet recommended a return to the gymnastic exercises of which that god was the patron (comp. Eq. 1379), and to the old system of education, as the means most likely to prevent its continuance. Babylonians
In the Babylonians we are told, that he "attacked the system of appointing to offices by lot." (Vit. Aristoph. Bekk. p. xiii.) The chorus consisted of barbarian slaves employed in a mill, which Ranke has conjectured was represented as belonging to the demagogue Eucrates (Eq. 129, &c.), who united the trade of a miller with that of a vender of tow. Cleon also must have been a main object of the poet's satire, and probably the public functionaries of the day in general, since an action was brought by Cleon against Callistratus, in whose name it was produeed, accusing him of ridiculing the govermment in the presence of the allies. But the attack appears to have failed. Acharnians,
In the Acharnians, Aristophanes exhorts his countrymen to peace. An Athenian named Dicaeopolis makes a separate treaty with Sparta for himself and his family, and is exhibited in the full enjoyment of its blessings, whilst Lamachus, as the representative of the war party, is introduced in the want of common necessaries, and suffering from cold, and snow, and wounds. Knights
The Knights was directed against Cleon, whose power at this time was so great, that no one was bold enough to make a mask to represent his features; so that Aristophanes performed the character himself, with his face smeared with wine-lees. Cleon is the confidential steward of Demus, the impersonation of the Athenian people, who is represented as almost in his dotage, but at the same time cunning, suspicious, ungovernable, and tyrannical. His slaves, Nicias and Demosthenes, determine to rid themselves of the insolence of Cleon by raising up a rival in the person of a sausage-seller, by which the poet ridicules the mean occupation of the demagogues. This man completely triumphs over Cleon in his own arts of lying, stealing, fawning, and blustering. Having thus gained the day, he suddenly becomes a model of ancient Athenian excellence, and by boiling Demus in a magic cauldron, restores him to a condition worthy of the companionship of Aristeides and Miltiades. (Eq. 1322.) Clouds
In the Clouds, Aristophanes attacks the sophistical principles at their source, and selects as their representative Socrates, whom he depicts in the most odious light. The selection of Socrates for this purpose is doubtless to be accounted for by the supposition, that Aristophanes observed the great philosopher from a distance only, while his own unphilosophical turn of mind prevented him from entering into Socrates' merits both as a teacher and a practiser of morality; and by the fact, that Socrates was an innovator, the friend of Euripides, the tutor of Alcibiades, and pupil of Archelaus ; and that there was much in his appearance and habits in the highest degree ludicrous. The philosopher, who wore no under garments, and the same upper robe in winter and summer,--who generally went barefoot, and appears to have possessed one pair of dress-shoes which lasted him for life (Böckh, Economy of Athens, i. p. 150), who used to stand for hours in a public place in a fit of abstraction--to say nothing of his snub nose, and extraordinary face and figure--could hardly expect to escape the license of the old comedy. The invariably speculative turn which he gave to the conversation, his bare acquiescence in the stories of Greek mythology, which Aristophanes would think it dangerous even to subject to inquiry (see Plat. Phaedrus, p. 299), had certainly produced an unfavourable opinion of Socrates in the minds of many, and explain his being set down by Aristophanes as an archsophist, and represented even as a thief. In the Clouds, he is described as corrupting a young man named Pheidippides, who is wasting his father's money by an insane passion for horses, and is sent to the subtlety-shop (φροντιστήριον) of Socrates and Chaerephon to be still further set free from moral restraint, and particularly to acquire the needful accomplishment of cheating his creditors. In this spendthrift youth it is scarcely possible not to recognise Alcibiades, not only from his general character and connexion with the Sophists, but also from more particular traits, as allusions to his τραυλισμός, or inability to articulate certain letters (Nub. 1381; Plut. Alc. p. 192), and to his fancy for horse-breeding and driving. (Satyrus, apud Athen. xii. p. 534.) Aristophanes would be prevented from introducing hint by name either here or in the Birds, from fear of the violent measures which Alcibiades took against the comic poets. The instructions of Socrates teach Pheidippides not only to defraud his creditors, but also to beat his father, and disown the authority of the gods; and the play ends by the father's preparations to burn the philosopher and his whole establishment. The hint given towards the end, of the propriety of prosecuting him, was acted on twenty years afterwards, and Aristophanes was believed to have contributed to the death of Socrates, as the charges brought against him before the court of justice express the substance of those contained in the Clouds. (Plat. Apol. Soc. p. 18, &c.) The Clouds, though perhaps its author's masterpiece, met with a complete failure in the contest for prizes, probably owing to the intrigues of Alcibiades; nor was it more successful when altered for a second representation, if indeed the alterations were ever completed, which Süvern denies. The play, as we have it, contains the parabasis of the second edition. Wasps
The Wasps is the pendant to the Knights. As in the one the poet had attacked the sovereign assembly, so here he aims his battery at the courts of justice, the other stronghold of party violence and the power of demagogues. This play furnished Racine with the idea of Les Plaideurs. Peace
The Peace is a return to the subject of the Acharnians, and points out forcibly the miseries of the Peloponnesian war, in order to stop which Trygaeus, the hero of the play, ascends to heaven on a dung-beetle's back, where he finds the god of war pounding the Greek states in a mortar. With the assistance of a large party of friends equally desirous to check this proceeding, he succeeds in dragging up Peace herself from a well in which she is imprisoned, and finally marries one of her attendant nymphs. The play is full of humour, but neither it nor the Wasps is among the poet's greater works. Amphiaraus and Birds
Six years now elapse during which no plays are preserved to us. The object of the Amphiaraus and the Birds, which appeared after this interval, was to discourage the disastrous Sicilian expedition. The former was called after one of the seven chiefs against Thebes, remarkable for prophesying ill-luck to the expedition, and therein corresponding to Nicias. The object of the Birds has been a matter of much dispute; many persons, as for instance Schlegel, consider it a mere fanciful piece of buffoonery--a supposition hardly credible, when we remember that every one of the plays of Aristophanes has a distinct purpose connected with the history of the time. The question seems to have been set at rest by Süvern, whose theory, to say the least, is supported by the very strongest circumstantial evidence. The Birds--the Athenian people--are persuaded to build a city in the clouds by Peisthetaerus (a character combining traits of Alcibiades and Gorgias, mixed perhaps with some from other Sophists), and who is attended by a sort of Sancho Panza, one Euelpides, designed to represent the credulous young Athenians (εὐελπιδες, Thue. 6.24). The city, to be called Νεφελοκοκκυγία (Cloudcuckootown), is to occupy the whole horizon, and to cut off the gods from all connexion with mankind, and even from the power of receiving sacrifices, so as to force them ultimately to surrender at discretion to the birds. All this scheme, and the details which fill it up, coincide admirably with the Sicilian expedition, which was designed not only to take possession of Sicily, but afterwards to conquer Carthage and Libya, and so, from the supremacy of the Mediterranean, to acquire that of the Peloponnesus, and reduce the Spartans, the gods of the play. (Thuc. 6.15, &c.; Plut. Nic. 12, Alc. 17.) The plan succeeds; the gods send ambassadors to demand terms, and finally Peisthetaerus espouses Basileia, the daughter of Zeus. In no play does Aristophanes more indulge in the exuberance of wit and fancy than in this; and though we believe Siivern's account to be in the main correct, yet we must not suppose that the poet limits himself to this object : he keeps only generally to his allegory, often touching on other points, and sometimes indulging in pure humour ; so that the play is not unlike the scheme of Gulliver's Travels. Lysistrata
The Lysistrata returns to the old subject of the Peloponnesian war, and here we find miseries described as existing which in the Acharnians and Peace had only been predicted. A treaty is finally represented as brought about in consequence of a civil war between the sexes. Thesmophoriazusae
The Thesmophoriazusae is the first of the two great attacks on Euripides, and contains some inimitable parodies on his plays, especially the Andromeda, which had just appeared. It is almost wholly free from political allusions; the few which are found in it shew the attachment of the poet to the old democracy, and that, though a strong conservative, he was not an oligarchist. Plutus and Ecclesiazusae
Both the Plutus and the Ecclesiazusae are designed to divert the prevailing mania for Dorian manners, the latter ridiculing the political theories of Plato, which were based on Spartan institutions. Frogs
Between Plutus and the Ecclesiazusae appeared the Frogs, in which Bacchus descends to Hades in search of a tragic poet,--those then alive being worthless,--and Aeschylus and Euripides contend for the prize of resuscitation. Euripides is at last dismissed by a parody on his own famous line ἡ γλῶσσʼ ὁμώμοχʼ, ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος (Eur. Hipp. 608), and Aeschylus accompanies Bacchus to Earth, the tragic throne in Hades being given to Sophocles during his absence. Lost Plays
Among the lost plays, the Μῆδοι and Γεωργοί were apparently on the subject of the much desired Peace, the former setting forth the evils which the islands and subject states, the latter those which the freemen of Attica, endured from the war. The Triphales seems to have been an attack on Alcibiades, in reference probably to his mutilation of the Hermes Busts (Süvern, On the Clouds, p. 85. transl.); and in the Γηρυτάδης certain poets, pale, haggard votaries of the Sophists,-- Sannyrion as the representative of comedy, Melitus of tragedy, and Cinesias of the cyclic writers, visit their brethren in Hades. The Γῆρας appears from the analysis of its fragments by Süvern, to have been named from a chorus of old men, who are supposed to have cast off their old age as serpents do their skin, and therefore probably to have been a representation of vicious dotage similar to that in the Knights. From a fragment in Bekker's Anecdota (p. 430) it is probable that it was the 9th of the Aristophanic comedies.
Suidas tells us, that Aristophanes was the author, in all, of 54 plays. We have hitherto considered him only in his historical and political character, nor can his merits as a poet and humorist be understood without an actual study of his works. We have no means of comparing him with his rivals Eupolis and Cratinus (Hor. Sat. 1.4. 1), though he is said to have tempered their bitterness, and given to comedy additional grace, but to have been surpassed by Eupolis in the conduct of his plots. (Platonius, περὶ διαφ. χαρ. cited in Bekker's Aristoph.) Plato called the soul of Aristophanes a temple for the Graces, and has introduced him into his Symposium. His works contain snatches of lyric poetry which are quite noble, and some of his chorusses, particularly one in the Knights, in which the horses are represented as rowing triremes in an expedition against Corinth, are written with a spirit and humour unrivalled in Greek, and are not very dissimilar to English ballads. He was a complete master of the Attic dialect, and in his hands the perfection of that glorious instrument of thought is wonderfully shewn. No flights are too bold for the range of his fancy : animals of every kind are pressed into his service; frogs chaunt chorusses, a dog is tried for stealing a cheese, and an iambic verse is composed of the grunts of a pig. Words are invented of a length which must have made the speaker breathless,--the Ecclesiazusae closes with one of 170 letters. The gods are introduced in the most ludicrous positions, and it is certainly incomprehensible how a writer who represents them in such a light, could feel so great indignation against those who were suspected of a design to shake the popular faith in them. To say that his plays are defiled by coarseness and indecency, is only to state that they were comedies, and written by a Greek who was not superior to the universal feeling of his age. Editions
The first edition of Aristophanes was that of Aldus, Venice, 1498, which was published without the Lysistrata and Thesmophoriazusae. That of Bekker, 5 vols. 8vo., London, 1829, contains a text founded on the collation of two MSS. from Ravenna and Venice, unknown to former editors. It also has the valuable Scholia, a Latin version, and a large collection of notes. There are editions by Bothe, Kuster, and Dindorf : of the Acharnians, Knights, Wasps, Clouds, and Frogs, by Mitchell, with English notes (who has also translated the first three into English verse), and of the Birds and Plutus by Cookesley, also with English notes. Translations
There are many translations of single plays into English, and of all into German by Voss (Brunswick, 1821), and Droysen (Berlin, 1835-1838). Wieland also translated the Acharnians, Knights, Clouds, and Birds; and Welcker the Clouds and Frogs. [G.E.L.C]
(Ἀριστοφάνης).
1. Of Byzantium, a son of Apelles, and one of the most eminent Greek grammarians at Alexandria. He was a pupil of Zenodotus and Eratosthenes, and teacher of the celebrated Aristarchus. He lived about B. C. 264, in the reign of Ptolemy II. and Ptolemy III., and had the supreme management of the library at Alexandria. All the ancients agree in placing him among the most distinguished critics and grammarians. He founded a school of his own at Alexandria, and acquired great merits for what he did for the Greek language and literature. He and Aristarchus were the principal men who made out the canon of the classical writers of Greece, in the selection of whom they shewed, with a few exceptions, a correct taste and appreciation of what was really good. (Ruhnken, Hist. Crit. Orat. Gr. p. xcv., &c.) Aristophanes was the first who introduced the use of accents in the Greek language. (J. Kreuser, Griech. Accentlehre, p. 167, &c.) Works Criticism and interpretation of Homer
The subjects with which he chiefly occupied himself were the criticism and interpretation of the ancient Greek poets, and more especially Homer, of whose works he made a new and critical edition (διόρθωδις). But he too, like his disciple Aristarchus, was not occupied with the criticism or the explanation of words and phrases only, but his attention was also directed towards the higher subjects of criticism : he discussed the aesthetical construction and the design of the Homeric poems. Criticism and interpretation of other poets
In the same spirit he studied and commented upon other Greek poets, such as Hesiod, Pindar, Alcaeus, Sophocles, Euripides, Anacreon, Aristophanes, and others. Criticism and interpretation of Plato and Aristotle
The philosophers Plato and Aristotle likewise engaged his attention, and of the former, as of several among the poets, he made new and critical editions. (Schol. ad Hesiod. Theog. 68; D. L. 3.61; Thom. Mag. Vita Pindari.) Editions
All we possess of his numerous and learned works consists of fragments scattered through the Scholia on the above-mentioned poets, some argumenta to the tragic poets and some plays of Aristophanes, and a part of his Λέξεις, which is printed in Boissonade's edition of Herodian's Partitiones. (London, 1819, pp. 283-289.) Γλῶτται and Ὑπομνήματα
His Γλῶτται and Ὑπομνήματα, which are mentioned among his works, referred probably to the Homeric poems. Other Works
Among his other works we may mention : 1. Notes upon the Πίνακες of Callimachus
(Athen. 9.408), and upon the poems of Anacreon. (Aelian, Ael. NA 7.39, 47.) 2. An abridgement of Aristotle's work Περὶ Φύσεως Ζώων
This is perhaps the same as the work which is called Ὑπομνήματα εἰς Ἀριστοτέλην. 3. A work on the Attic courtezans, consisting of several books.
(Athen. xiii. pp. 567, 583.) 4. A number of grammatical works
Such as Ἀττικαὶ Λέξεις, Λακωνικαὶ Γλῶσσαι and a work Περὶ Ἀναλογίας, which was much used by M. Tarentius Varro. 5. Some works of an historical character
Such as Θηβαικά (perhaps the same as the Θηβαίων ὅροι), and Βοιωτικά, which are frequently mentioned by ancient writers. (Suid. s. v. Ὁμολώϊος Ζεύς; Apostol. Proverb. 14.40; Plut. de Mal. Herod. 31, 33; Schol. ad Theocrit. 7.103; Steph. Byz. s. v. Ἀντικονδυλεῖς, &c.) Aristodemus vs. Aristophanes
Some modern writers have proposed in all these passages to substitute the name Aristodemus for Aristophanes, apparently for no other reason but because Aristodemus is known to have written works under the same titles. Further Information
Compare Villoison, Proleg. ad Hom. Il. pp. xxiii. and xxix.; F. A. Wolf, Prolegom. in Hom. p. ccxvi., &c.; Wellauer, in Ersch. und Gruber's Encyclop. v. p. 271, &c.
2. Of Mallus in Cilicia, is mentioned as a writer on agriculture. (Varro, de Re Rust. i. l.)
3. A Boeotian (Plut. de Malign. Herod. p. 874), of whom Suidas (s. vv. Ὁμολωίος, Θηβαίους ὅρους ; comp. Steph. Byz. s. v. Ἀντικονδυλεῖς) mentions the second book of a work on Thebes (Θηβαϊκά). Another work bore the name of Βοιωτικά, and the second book of it is quoted by Suidas. (s. v. Χαιρωνεία.)
4. A Corinthian, a friend of Libanius, who addressed to him some letters and mentions him in others. (Liban. Epist. 76, 1186, 1228.) There is also an oration of Libanius in praise of Aristophanes. (Opera, vol. ii. p. 210; comp. Wolf, ad Liban. Epist. 76.) [L.S]
(Ἀριστοφάνης). (1) The greatest writer of Greek comedy. He lived at Athens, B.C. 444-388. His father, Philippus, is said to have been not a native Athenian, but a settler from Rhodes or Egypt, who afterwards acquired citizenship. However this may be, the demagogue Cleon, whose displeasure Aristophanes had incurred, tried to call in question his right to the citizenship. His first comedy appeared in B.C. 427, but was not performed under his own name because of his youth; and several more of his plays were brought upon the stage by Callistratus and Philonides, till in 424 he brought out The Knights in his own person. Forty-four of his plays were known to antiquity, though four of them were considered doubtful. Of these we possess eleven, the only complete Greek comedies which have survived, besides the titles and numerous fragments of twenty-six others. The eleven are: (1) The Acharnians (Ἀχαρνεῖς), which gained him the victory over Cratinus and Eupolis, B.C. 425, written during the great Peloponnesian War to induce the Athenians to make peace.
(2) The Knights (Ἱππεῖς) mentioned above, B.C. 424, also crowned with the first prize, and aimed directly against the demagogue Cleon.
(3) The Clouds (Νεφέλαι), B.C. 423, his most famous and, in his own opinion, his most successful piece, though when played it only won the third prize. We have it now in a second, and apparently unfinished, edition. It is directed against the pernicious influence of the Sophists, as the representative of whom Socrates is attacked.
(4) The Wasps (Σφῆκες), brought out in B.C. 422, and, like the two following, rewarded with the second prize; it is a satire upon the Athenian passion for lawsuits.
(5) The Peace (Εἰρήνη), of the year B.C. 421, recommending the conclusion of peace.
(6) The Birds (Ὄρνιθες), acted in B.C. 414, and exposing the romantic hopes built on the expedition to Sicily. This is unquestionably the happiest production of the poet's genius, and is marked by a careful reserve in the employment of dramatic resource.
(7) The Lysistraté (Λυσιστράτη), B.C. 411, a Women's Conspiracy to bring about peace; the last of the strictly political plays.
(8) Thesmophoriazusae (Θεσμοφοριάζουσαι), probably to be dated B.C. 410. It is written against Euripides's dislike of women, for which the women who are celebrating the Thesmophoria drag him to justice.
(9) The Frogs (Βάτραχοι), which was acted in B.C. 405, and won the first prize. It is a piece sparkling with genius, on the decay of tragic art, the blame of which is laid on Euripides, then recently deceased.
(10) Ecclesiazusae (Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι), or The National Assembly of Women, B.C. 392. It is levelled against the vain attempts to restore the Athenian state by cut-and-dried constitutions.
(11) Plutus (Πλοῦτος), or The God of Wealth. The blind god is restored to sight, and better times are brought about. This play was acted first in B.C. 408, then in 388 in a revised form suitable to the time, and dispensing with chorus and parabasis. This play marks the transition to the Middle Comedy. See Comoedia.
In the opinion of the ancients, Aristophanes holds a middle place between Cratinus and Eupolis, being neither so rough as the former nor so mild as the latter, but combining the severity of the one with the grace of the other. What was thought of him in his own time is evident from Plato's Symposium, where he is numbered among the noblest of men; and an epigram attributed to that philosopher says that the Graces, looking for an enduring shrine, found it in the soul of Aristophanes. He unites understanding, feeling, and fancy in a degree possessed by few poets of antiquity. His keen glance penetrates the many evils of his time and their most hidden causes; his scorn for all that is base, and his patriotic spirit, burning to bring back the grand days of Marathon, urge him on, without respect of persons or regard for self, to drag the faults he sees into daylight, and lash them with stinging sarcasm; while his inexhaustible fancy invents ever new and original materials, which he manipulates with perfect mastery of language and technical skill. If his jokes are often coarse and actually indecent, the fact must be imputed to the character of the Old Comedy and the licentiousness of the Dionysiac festival, during which the plays were acted. No literature has anything to compare with these comedies. Ancient scholars, recognizing their great importance, bestowed infinite pains in commenting on them, and valuable relics of their writings are enshrined in the existing collections of scholia.
The principal MS. of Aristophanes is that of Ravenna, which contains the eleven extant plays. Next in importance is the Codex Venetus Marcianus of nearly the same date, but which lacks the Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae, Ecclesiazusae, and Lysistraté. Both of these are probably derived from one Alexandrian archetype. The editio princeps of Aristophanes is that of Aldus (Venice, 1498), containing nine plays, to which Junta added two more (1515). The ed. of Invernizzi-Beck contains a collation of the Ravenna MS. Other editions are those of Bekker (1829); Dindorf (5th ed. 1869); Meineke (1860); Blaydes (1886); Holden (5th ed. 1887). Eng. trans. of eight plays by Rudd (1867); of five plays by Frere (1871). There is a complete concordance by Dunbar (1883).
(2) Aristophanes the Grammarian (or Scholar) of Byzantium, born about B.C. 260, went in his early youth to Alexandria, and was there a pupil of Zenodotus and Callimachus. On the death of Apollonius of Rhodes, Aristophanes, when past his sixtieth year, was appointed to be chief librarian, and died at the age of seventy-seven. His fame was eclipsed by that of his pupil Aristarchus, but he still passed for one of the ablest grammarians and critics of antiquity, distinguished by industry, learning, and sound judgment. In addition to the Homeric poems, which formed his favourite study, and of which he was the first to attempt a really critical text, he devoted his labours to Hesiod; the lyric poets, especially Alcaeus and Pindar; and the tragic and comic poets, Aristophanes and Menander in particular. The received introductions to the plays of the tragedians and Aristophanes are in their best parts derived from him. He was also the author of a large and much-quoted work of a lexicographical character, considerable fragments of which still survive. See Homerus; Textual Criticism.
- mentions Lepreus: Paus. 5.5.3
Aristophanes, judged in antiquity to be the foremost poet of the ‘old’ Attic comedy, was the son of one Philippos, of the urban deme Kydathenaion. He was born ca. 447/6 and died probably between 386 and 380. Aside from his theatrical career little is known about his life. By his twenties his hair had thinned or receded enough that he could be called bald; early in the fourth century he served as a councillor; and he had two sons, Araros and Philippos, both of whom had careers as comic poets in the mid-fourth century. In his dialogue Symposion, Plato portrays Aristophanes as being at home among the social and intellectual elite of Athens, but the historical veracity of this portrayal is uncertain.
Aristophanes’ first comedy was produced in 427 and his last in 386 or later. At least once he produced a comedy in the theater at Eleusis. Forty-four comedies ascribed to him were known to Alexandrian scholars (four of these they thought spurious); from the Alexandrian edition(s) eleven complete comedies and some 1000 brief fragments of the lost comedies survive. In competition Aristophanes won at least six first prizes and four second prizes, and only two last-place finishes are attested. After his victory with Frogsin 405, the people voted him an honorific crown of sacred olive for the advice he had given in the parabasis and decreed that the play should have the unique honor of being performed a second time. Aristophanes’ eleven extant plays are: Acharnians (Lenaea 425), Knights (Lenaia 424), Clouds (Dionysia 423; the surviving version is an incomplete and never-staged revision dating from 419-17), Wasps (Lenaea 422), Peace (Dionysia 421), Birds (Dionysia 414), Lysistrata (Lenaea 411), Women at the Thesmophoria (Dionysia 411), Frogs (Lenaea 405), Ecclesiazusae (ca. 391), Plutus (388).
Aristophanes’ early career was enlivened by a four-year legal and political battle with his fellow-demesman, Cleon, who from ca. 428 until his death in 422 was the most influential politician in Athens. Attacked in Aristophanes’ play Babylonians (Dionysia 426), Cleon unsuccessfully denounced the poet to the council for having slandered the magistrates, councillors and the people of Athens in the presence of foreigners. In Acharnians the following year, Aristophanes both defended his critique and announced that he was preparing a new attack on Cleon in his next year's play, Knights. That play, which savagely caricatured Cleon and bitterly condemned his public career, inaugurated a novel type of political comedy, which singled out the new-style popular politicians like Cleon for portrayal as dishonest ‘demagogues’ and which has deeply influenced the verdict of posterity about this period of Athenian history. After Knights, Cleon again tried to prosecute Aristophanes (on what charge is unclear), and this time the case was settled out of court. Evidently Aristophanes promised to mitigate subsequent attacks, but the attacks continued nevertheless in both Cloudsand Wasps, where the poet boasted about his failure to live up to his agreement.
Aristophanes created influential portrayals of at least two other major contemporaries as well. In Clouds, the philosopher Socrates is made to stand for everything intellectually and socially threatening about the sophistic movement in Athens; in Apology, a re-creation of Socrates’ defense-speech at his capital trial in 399, Plato has the philosopher say that Aristophanes’ portrayal created a public prejudice against him that was more dangerous than his accusers’ actual charges. In Acharnians, Women at the Thesmophoriaand Frogs, Aristophanes portrayed Euripides and his tragic art as degenerate and as harmful to the polis, but at the same time he incorporated the sophisticated Euripidean spirit so thoroughly into his comic modes that his old rival, Cratinus, could coin the word ‘euripidaristophanizer’ to describe modish theatergoers. As in the case of Cleon (but not Socrates, who was lucky enough to have Plato and Xenophon to establish his good name for posterity), Aristophanes’ judgment on Euripides (especially in Frogs) has done much to establish his status among literary historians as a tragedian inferior to Aeschylus and Sophocles.
Aristophanes was a sharp observer of the social and political life of Athens, but his plays reveal no systematic or original political credos. In Acharniansand Lysistratathe sympathetic characters denounce the folly and greed of Athens’ wartime leaders and urge that more should be done to negotiate a peaceful settlement, but Birdssupports vigorous prosecution of the war-effort, particularly the expedition against Sicily. In Knightsand Waspsthe wickedness of popular leaders like Cleon is vehemently exposed, but at the same time the people are criticized for their ignorance and gullibility in following such leaders. On the whole, Aristophanes compares contemporary Athens, which he sees as being in decline, unfavorably with the Athens that had defeated the Persians and built a great empire, while at the same time he urges his countrymen to recapture the ideals, policies and leadership that had made Athens great. To judge from the kinds of people he satirizes and does not satirize, Aristophanes thought that democracy worked best when the ordinary citizens deferred to the well-born, wealthy and educated citizens, though he never suggests the adoption of an oligarchic arrangement to accomplish that goal.
Aristophanes reacted in a similar way to contemporary morality, education and the arts. Although he was fully a part of his own generation and thoroughly versed in its latest fashions, Aristophanes was also a nostalgic student of the past and thought that Athenian culture had been sounder, grander and stronger in the old days. In Cloudshe trenchantly skewers what was hidebound about the old education, and in Frogshe makes telling criticisms of Aeschylus’ tragic art, but we are meant to come away with the feeling that modern educators and artists, like their contemporaries, were not accomplishing what their counterparts in the good old days had accomplished.
As a playwright, Aristophanes was resourceful and ingenious in creating lively drama, especially in creating efficient devices (like Socrates’ Thinkery in Clouds or the House of Demos in Knights) for the expression and exploration of complex ideas. As a stylist, he is graceful, urbane, consistently witty and humorous, with a fine ear for speech (human or otherwise!) and a great gift for parody.
The best texts of Aristophanes’ plays are those being issued (with introductions and commentaries) by various authors from the Oxford University Press; A.H. Sommerstein's editions-in-progress from Aris & Phillips (with translations and notes) are also good; meanwhile, the Bude edition by V. Coulon is serviceable. For the fragments see R. Kassel and C. Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci, vol. III.2 (Berlin/N.Y. 1984).
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