fore, to reject the latter altogether, and take the former as the only
means we have of approximating to the birth-year of Aristophanes,
which, if he was (
Greek characters) or nearly seventeen in 427
B.C., must have been about the year 444B.C.
The Banqueters, which was acted in the name of Philonides[1],
was an exposition of the corruptions which had crept into the
Athenian system of education. A father was introduced with two
sons, one of them educated in the old-fashioned way, the other
brought up in all the new-fangled and pernicious refinements of
sophistry; and by drawing a comparison between the two young-
men to the disadvantage of the latter, the poet hoped to attract the
attention of his countrymen to the dangers and inconveniences of
the new system>[2]. The second prize was awarded to Philonides,
and the play was much admired[3]. In 426 B.C. he brought out
the Babylonians, and, in the following spring, the Acharmans,
both under the name of his actor Callistratus[4]. The latter gained
the first prize, the second and third being adjudged to Cratinus
and Eupolis. The chorus of the Balylonians consisted of barbarian
slaves employed in the mills[5]: this is all that we know of the plot
of the piece. It appears to have been acted at the great Dionysia,
and to have been an attack upon the demagogues; for Cleon, who
was then (Pericles having recently died) at the head of afiiars[6],
brought an (Greek characters) before the senate against Callistratus, on the
grounds that he had satirized the public functionaries in the presence of their allies, who were then at Athens to pay the tribute[7].
- ↑ Dindorf, fr. Aristoph. p. 527, Oxford edition. Ranke (p. cccxx) thinks it was Callistratus. If there is truth in the statement that he handed over to Callistratus his political dramas, and to Philonides those which related to private life, the (
Greek characters) was probably transferred to the latter.
- ↑ See S{{subst:u:}}vem, {{Subst:u:}}ber die Wolken, pp. 26 foil.
- ↑ Schol. Nub. 529.
- ↑ Clinton, F. H. under those years.
- ↑ See Hesych. s. vv. (Greek characters) And Suid. s. v. (Greek characters)
- ↑ Thucydides, writing of the year before the performance of The Babylonians, says (III. 36), that (Greek characters) was (Greek characters)
- ↑ Comp. Acharn. 355 foll.:
(Greek characters)
with vv. 476 foll.:
(Greek characters)
