[The original of these notes was contained in a separate manuscript, dated July 1747, in the possession of Mathias, which was presented to him by Richard Stonehewer, one of Gray's executors. They were published by Mathias in 1814, and have never since been reprinted. It has been thought best to print the Greek, in this instance, as Gray wrote it.-ED.] 1 ACHARNENSES. Olymp. 88. 3. Ir1 appears from several passages in the drama itself and in the Scholia, that it was played in this olympiad and year, Archont. Euthydemo, and consequently the year before his Equites. In the sixth line he mentions the fine imposed on Cleon, of five talents; so that it is not true, that his Equites was the occasion of that disgrace (see v. 300), as the author of his life has written, and the Scholia here say. v. 11. This Theognis, satirized as a bad writer of tragedy, and from his coldness nicknamed Xɩwv, was twenty-two years afterwards one of the thirty tyrants. Moschus, Dexitheus, and Chæris, mentioned here, were tibicines of this time. 47. Euripides, in his Iphigenia in Tauris, is here ridiculed. 66. The allowance to an Athenian embassy consisted of two drachmæ a day to each person employed. 119. The Medea of Euripides is here parodied. I 1 It was not any oligarchy, or tyranny, which retrenched the chorus in the Athenian comedy, or prohibited the representation of real characters, as Platonius asserts, in his observations entitled Περι διαφορᾶς κωμωδιών.—[GRAY.] read, eέupnμeve, which improves the parody of Euripides. Effeminate persons began to shave their chins even in these times. (V. Athenæum, L. 13. and Thesmoph. v. 225.) p. 565. 233. The action against Pisistratus at Pallene, one of the Anuo of Attica, is mentioned by Andocides, de Mysteriis, whose great-grandfather Leogoras was Στρατηγος there. 346-47. Ανασείειν βοην, Ολιγου τ' απεθανον ανθρακες Παρνασσιοι. κτλ. Should we not read Παρνηθιοι 387. &c. Hieronimus a tragick and lyrick poet.Euripides and Cephisophon ridiculed.-The Eneus, Phoenix, Philoctetes, Bellerophon, Telephus, Thyestes, and Ino of Euripides, are laughed at, where he had introduced the principal characters in poor apparel to move compassion. The sententious pertness of his personages, and the inactiveness and folly of his chorusses, are all noticed. The poverty of his mother is alluded to. 442.—Τους δ' αυ Χορευτας ηλιθιους παρεστάναι, &c. Euripides is here satirized for making his chorusses take little part in the action of the drama, but either telling long fables, or impertinently questioning and answering the characters. 504.Ουτε γαρ φοροι Ηκουσι, &c. The time, when the contributions of the allies were brought to Athens, was during the Dionysia Tа καт' aσTv, (see Isocrat. de Pace, 175,) in spring time in the month Elaphebolion; the Lenæa were celebrated in winter pretty late, two months before the other, and in the country, at which time this piece was played. Ηστραπτεν, εβροντα, ξυνεκυκα την Ελλαδα, &c. The fine fragment from the Anuo of Eupolis on Pericles. 602. Μισθοφορουντας τρεις δραχμας, δε He seems to mean that they sent their Erparno on various useless embassies, who gladly accepted them, as well to be out of the way of danger, as to earn the publick allowance, two or three drachmæ a day, and to be out of the power of their creditors. 628. Εξ ούγε χοροισιν εφεστηκε τρυγικοις ὁ διδασ‐ καλος ἡμων, &c. Tpvywdia seems always to mean comedy here. See above, v. 498 and 499. Is this Parabasis to be understood of Aristophanes himself, or of Callistratus the actor, in whose name he seems to have exhibited all his dramas, before the Equites? Some of the Scholia take it of the latter (see v. 654); they also rightly understand in a ridiculous light what is here said of the Persian king, which the writer of the Poet's life, and Mad. Dacier also, seriously report as a fact. 703. Is this the Thucydides, son of Melesias, who underwent the ostracism, or, as Idomeneus says (see Schol. ad Vespas, v. 941), perpetual banishment, and that he fled into Persia, Ol. 83, 4, nineteen years before this? Cephisodemus seems to have been his accuser. 875. Νασσας, Κολοιους, &c. Is Κολοιος the jay, or the jackdaw, or the magpye? It was, as it appears, an eatable bird. It appears also, that the Greeks eat hedge-hogs, foxes, locusts, moles, otters, and cats. (see Athenæus, L. 17, p. 300.) The Megareans brought |