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and easiness of his nature opposed to the cunning of Euripides. Agatho was now at the court of Archelaus.

79. It is plain, that Sophocles was just dead, and that Iophon, his son, had not yet published anything since his death.

86. Xenocles, the son of Carcinus, and Pythangelus, tragick writers, are mentioned with contempt. That kind of poets were then very numerous at Athens. The Alcmena of Euripides, and his Alexandra, and Hippolytus, also the Melanippe of Sophocles are alluded to.

104. Read ὡς και μοι δοκει, instead of σοι.

126. This is the usual effect of the cicuta, as Plato describes it in his Phædo.

131. The three Λαμπαδηδρομιαι celebrated in the Ceramicus, to Minerva, to Vulcan, and to Prometheus.

141. It is sure from the Vespæ, and from other plays, that in Cleon's time the Μισθος δικαστικος was three oboli: probably after his death, or when the republick began to decline, it might be again reduced to two oboli.

193. Περι των κρεῶν. The Scholia and the Commentators make out nothing here to one's satisfaction. 233. Schol. The strings of the lyre were made of the sinews of animals, and more anciently, as now, of their intestines; whence they were called XΧορδαι.

235. Ὑπολυριον. The bridge or some part of the lyre, made of a reed, afterwards of horn, as it seems. It is remarkable that the chorus of frogs does not appear, but is heard only, and that in a single scene, though the play takes its name from them. The true

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chorus of the drama consists of the ghosts of the initiated, the Μυσται, and enters not before v. 319.

295. A description of the phantom, called Empusa. 305. Hegelochus was an actor in the Orestes of Euripides. From this story of him, it should seem, that in pronouncing words joined by a synalæpha, they did not use totally to drop the vowel in the end of the first, but liquefied it, as it were, into the following. Otherwise, I do not conceive what difference there could be between the sound of γαλην ὁρῶ, and γαλῆν ὁρῶ.

323. The profanation of the mysteries by Diagoras. 369. Alluding to Cynesias, the dithyrambick writer. 370. Η τους μισθους των ποιητων, &c. seems to mean some attempt made by an orator (the Schol. on v. 103. of the Ecclesiasuzæ, say Archinus) to reduce the expense of the Choregi by limiting the sum they gave to their poets: and the two distinct persons (as Aristotle says in the Schol. 406.) under this Archon, were ordered to furnish the tragick and the comick chorus, which before were at the expense of one. This drama then was played a little before that order; and as the publick had suffered greatly by the war the chorusses were but poorly furnished out. From v. 412, it appears that the chorus consisted of both sexes.

431. The Callias, who was now Archon, could not be the son of Hipponicus, as he is here ridiculed by name; unless the change of his father's name into Hippobīnus might save the poet from the law. (See also v. 504.)

475. Alludes to the Theseus of Euripides.

478. Ταρτησια, παρ ὑπονοιαν for Ταρταρια. Μυραινα is to be understood, as some dæmon very dismal, derived from Μυρεσθαι; at the same time to raise laughter; the obvious meaning being nothing, but lampreys caught and salted on the Spanish coast, and imported by the Phœnicians perhaps into Greece.

490. These two uses of a sponge are easily comprehended from the Scholia.

504. The temple of Hercules Αλεξίκακος at Melite, a Δημος of Attica. Initiated there in the lesser mysteries-founded during the plague. Statue by Ageladas the Argive, the scholar of Phidias. Callias had a house at Melite.

511. A manner of civilly refusing a thing: Επαινω. καλλιστα, πανυ καλως.

546. See the history of Theramenes. Schol.

631. The horrid manner of torturing slaves, viz. Εν κλιμακι δησας, binding them down with their back on a pair of stairs, as it seems, or on a ladder; hanging them up by the arms; scourging them with the ὑστριξ, a whip made of leather with the bristles on it; stretching them on the wheel; pouring vinegar up the nostrils; pressing, by laying a weight of bricks on them, &c. &c.!!!

674. The iambicks of Ananias. The Laocoon of Sophocles. The Antæus of Phrynichus.

700. The poet's advice, given in this place, was actually followed the year after this, when, upon the battle of Ægos-Potami, and the siege of Athens, a decree was made upon the motion of Patroclides (still preserved in the oration of Andocides de Mysteriis), to restore the Ατιμοι to all the privileges from which they had been degraded. It seems from what he says, v. 701, that when the government of the Four Hundred was destroyed, many had been thus degraded for having a hand in those transactions.

730. The Athenian gold coin had been debased the year before this. Copper was first coined this very year, and again cried down thirteen years afterwards.

775. This may probably enough be borrowed from the Athenian customs, namely, that the principal artist in each kind, should have a maintenance in the Prytanèum, and be seated εν Θρονω, in a chair of distinction on some occasions.

800. The modesty and candour of Sophocles, and the envious and contentious nature of Euripides.

803. Νυνι δ' εμελλεν, I take to be a solecism, used by Clidemides, or some bad orator or poet.

913. The Scholia here seem to say, that there were dramas played during the celebration of the Eleusinea; and above, v. 357, they tell us, that the scene of this play lay at Eleusis. (v. 395.) Quære, Whether any rites in honour of Ceres were joined with those of Bacchus during the Lenæa?

961. The Median hangings were wrought with grotesque and monstrous animals.

1079. Ως τε γε καὐτον σε κατ' συνεβαλε. It should seem that love was the cause of the death of Euripides, and one would think, from the expression and from the Scholia, that his wife had not only been false to him, but that she destroyed him.

1106. Τω θαλαμακι. This seems to prove, that the three orders of rowers were placed directly over one another.

1100 and 1145. Reading and the arts of speaking were more universal among all orders of people than in these times; which the poet satirizes, as corrupting and enervating the minds of men, and especially of the younger sort; and he attributes it to the philosophers, to the sophists, and to the tragick writers, particularly Euripides.

1209. Στοιβη, a botch-word inserted only to fill up : literally, the stuffing of a mattrass.

1231. Ληκυθιου. I have no clear idea of this Ληκυθιον, on which so much of this scene turns; nor of the Ιηκοπον ου πελαθεις επ' αρωγαν which answers to it, or the Φλαττοθρατ, which two last seem to relate to the musick and the rhythm introduced by Æschylus in his chorusses, and not to the sense of the verses.

1349. Ειειειλισσετε. This shews that in the ancient musick they dwelt not on words alone, and repeated them, as we do, but also on syllables; or, does it only express the lengthening out of the vowels?

1580. It is here said, from Aristotle, that Cleophon, after the battle of Arginusæ, in the archonship of Callias, came into the assembly drunk and in armour, and rejected the peace, then offered by Lacedæmon. But Lysias (in his oration contra Agoratum) tells us that this happened not till the following year after the battle of Ægos-Potami, when the siege of Athens was actually formed. I cannot but believe the latter, as a contemporary author.

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