180 ARISTOPHANES. last, there was the literary paradox of a KcofKpSla without its kco/jlo^. The eleven extant Comedies of Aristophanes may be arranged in three groups corresponding to the three periods, to which we refer. In the first period, which extends to the time of the Sicilian expe- dition, we have six Comedies, all of which represent the unimpaired genius of the poet, and the complete machinery of the comic stage. These are the Acharnians, the Horsemen, the Clouds, the Wasjjs, the Peace, and the Birds. The second period, which corresponds to the later years of the war, is represented by three dramas, in which the political element and the chorus are both diminished in prominence and importance. These are the Lysistrata, the Thes- mopJioriazuscB, and the Frogs. The third and concluding period, which followed the downfal of the Athenian empire, exhibits the genius of Aristophanes in its feeblest form, and has transmitted to us only two Comedies, the Ecclesiazusm and the Plutus, in which the choral element is altogether insignificant, and the plots are derived from the ideal world rather than from the actualities of Athenian life, which furnished the materials for the Comedies of the first period. Aristophanes brought out his first Comedy, the Banqueters, (AatraXet?) in B.C. 427^; and it is from the known date of this play that we must infer his birth-year. It is stated ^ that he was at this time little more than a boy [o-'^e^ov /j.€cpaKLcrKo<;). We are told, indeed^, that he was thirty years of age when the Clouds was «acted. This would place his birth-year at 453, if the first edition, or at 452 B.C., if the second edition of that play is referred to^. But could a man born so early as 452 B.C. be called ayehov fjL€i,paKi,crKo<i at the time of the great plague? We think lie could not. If, then, these two authorities of the same kind contradict one another, which are we to adopt ? Now there is no reason to doubt the first statement, that Aristophanes was very young at the time when his first Comedy appeared; and there is reason to believe that the second statement is merely an inference drawn from a mis- interpretation of a passage in the Clouds. We feel inclined, there- 1 See the passages in Clinton, F. II. ii, p. 65. 2 Schol. Ran. 504. Mliller thinks {Hist. Lit. Gr. ii. p. 19, new ed.) that this state- ment is an exaggeration, and that Aristophanes was at least twenty-five in B.C. 427. 3 Schol, Nuh. p. 237, Dindorf.
- Unless we adopt Ranke's conjecture with regard to the date of the second
edition, which would make the two accounts nearly agree. See below, p. 184.
