A R 1 S T O P 11 A N F, S. 31 r I* 7/jfoe or Female Orators, the Thcfmopbori.r/.uf;r or Prief!- " efi'es of Ceres and Lyhltrat .. ' The " Ci which he wrote in ridicule of Socrates [i:l. is the mn , 1 -bratcd of all his comedies : madam D.KKT tuts i:s, 'i,e wa<j !o much ' charmed with this performance, dm af'tur fin- had trai.fln I it, and rea'J it over two hundred times, it uid not become the leaft tedious to her; and that the pleafun /c.ci-cJ from it was fo exi}uifite, as to make her lui^/t ali the con- tempt and indignation which Ariftophanee deferved, for em- ploying h:s wit to ruin a man, who was wifJom itlelf, and the grcatelt ornament of the city of Athens. Ariltophanes having conceived i'ome averiion to the poet Euripides, fatirizes him in frvcral of his plays, particularly in hii ' Fro^s" and his " Thefmophoriazufae." He wro'e his " Peace" in the tenth year of the Peloponnefian war, when a treaty for fifty years was concluded between the Athenians and the Lacedce- monians, though it continued but (even. The" Acharnen-Tli-iryd'djj, " Ibb" v;as written after the death of Pericles, and the lofs llb - v< of the battle in Sicily, in order to dilTiade the people from irvtryfting the fafety of the commonwealth to Inch imprudent generals as Lamachus. Soon after, he reprefcnted his " Aves or Birds, by which he admonifhed the Athenians to fortify Dece!a?a, which he calls by a fictitious name Ncpheloccoccy- gia. The " Vefpae/' or Wafps, was written after another Jofs in Sicily, which the Athenians fullered from themifcoii- dul of Chares. He wrote the " Lyfiftrata" when all Greece was involved in a war; in which comedy the women are in- troduced debating upon the affairs of the commonwealth, when they come to a refolution, not to go to bed with irv ir hufbands, till a peace fhould be concluded. Hi* " Plu-
- ' tus [c]," and other comedies of that kind, were written
after the magistrates had given orders, that no perfon fhould be expofed by name upon the ftage. He invented a peculiar kind of verfe, which was called by his name, and is mentioned by Cicero in his 4i pjtus;" and SuiJas fays that IK ,. was the invcn;or of the tetrameter and o&jin^r veife. [B] Socrates had a contempt for the exprefTed to thr comic poet?, W.T; thi comic pools, and newi- went to (^ their fiMunJ of rheiravernon to him, and the plays, except when Alcibiades or Cri- motive of Artftopbani '-hf tias obliged him to go thither. He was ' Cluud 1 him. ./Elian. Var. /hocked a: the great licentioufnefs of Hift. lib. ii. cap. i-. the old comedy; anrt as he was a mm [c] The ,!eii,',u of Arirto(jhnej m of piety, probity, c.inviour, and vif- this corned), wa? to reproach the Atbc- tJom, could not bear that the characler=; nians with ti - -, which had oc- bf his teliow citizens fliould be infolted raf;ort',1 t!i rn to commit very g and abui'ed. This contempt which he cn<- . - ^no.fjnt :ii!iirs. X 4.
