Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/420

Euripides was on the side of the war party, while Aristophanes and the conservatives generally were for accommodation with Sparta. Even after the peace of Nikias (B.C. 421) there was strong distrust of Sparta, which Euripides perhaps gave expression to when he made Andromache utter her fierce denunciation of Menelaus (Androm. 445):—

“Of mortals hatefulest to the world of men,
Dwellers in Sparta! Crooked counsellors!
Kings among liars! Patchers-up of evil,
Tortuous, in nothing honest, with black souls
Set on all cunning! In the land of Greece
Unjustly do ye lord it! What dishonour
Is lacking to you? Murders manifold,
Base seekers of base gains, are in your midst,
And those who speak one thing with glozing lips
And mean another—my curse light on you!”

If this at all represents the political feelings ol Euripides it is quite enough to account for the animosity of Aristophanes. Towards the end of his life he retired to Macedonia, on the invitation of King Archelaus, and what is probably his latest play, the Bacchœ, was written there. It is not easy to define the poet's object in this charming and picturesque drama, or how far it was meant to convey a recantation of his old opinions in religion. It seems at least to suggest that he had given up hope of solving deep questions, and was content to let things be.

Of Attic Comedy we have only remaining the eleven plays of Aristophanes (circa B.C. 444–380). These plays, with two exceptions, were produced during the Peloponnesian war. The Acharnians, the