extreme accuracy in speaking and singing the most finished poetry, together with the magnificence and extent of the stage, we shall have an idea of such theatrical enjoyments as have since that time nowhere been seen in the world.”

Aristophanes, during the whole of his career, had a numerous body of rival comedians to oppose. Ecphantides, Pisander, Callias, Hermippus, Myrtilus, Lysimachus, Lycis, Leucon, and Pantacles, besides the more celebrated writers whom we have noticed above,

a little his seniors; Aristomenes, Ameipsias, Teleclides, Pherecrates, Plato, Diocles, Sannyrio, Philyllius, Philonides, Strattis, and Theopompus, with several others, to the number of thirty in all, were somewhat his juniors; with most of whom Aristophanes had to contend in the course of his dramatic exhibitions. Of these poets little is left us beyond their names and a few isolated fragments. Yet Plato, Pherecrates, and Philonides were men of superior talent. With Theopompus, who flourished B. C. 386, closes the list of the old comedians.

SECTION II.

THE MIDDLE COMEDY.

«* TOWARDS the end of the Peloponnesian war, when a few persons had possessed themselves of the sovereignty in Athens contrary to the constitution, it was decreed that whoever was attacked by the comic poets might prosecute them; it was forbidden to bring real persons on the stage, to imitate their features with masks, &c. Hence arose what is called the MIDDLE COMEDY. Its characteristics are differently specified. Some say its peculiarity consists merely in refraining from personal ridicule and the introduction of real persons, and some in the omission of the Chorus. The introduction of real persons, with their real names, was never an indispensable requisite. We even find in Aristophanes many not merely historical, but feigned personages, with significant names, after the manner of the writers of the New Comedy; and personal ridicule is employed only in a few. The right of using it was indeed essential to the more ancient kind, as I have already shown, and when it was lost it was impossible for the poets to represent public life and the state in a comic manner. But if they confined themselves to private life, the meaning of the Chorus was lost : meanwhile an accidental circumstance contributed to its abolition. The dress and instruction of the Chorus cost a great deal: hence when Comedy, together with its political rights, had lost its festive dignity, and sunk down to a mere amusement, the poet could no longer find rich patrons to undertake the equipment of the Chorus.

† Platonius specifies another characteristic of the Middle Comedy. He says, that on account of the danger of political subjects, the comic writers turned their ridicule against all poetry of the graver kind, whether epic or tragic, and pointed out its absurdities and contradictions; and that the Eolosicon, one of the later pieces

The following is a brief biographical list of the most eminent writers assigned to the Middle Comedy.

* EUBULUS, who exhibited about Olymp. c1, 2, B. C. 375, is called by Suidas μεθόριος τῆς μέσης κωμῳδίας καὶ τῆς παλαιᾶς. He was a native of Atarnea, and the author of fifty comedies t.

ARAROS, son of Aristophanes, was the contemporary of Eubulus. Under his name the two last pieces of his father were represented, || whose talents he by no means possessed. ¶ Nicostratus and Philippus, two other sons of Aristophanes, are also recorded amongst the poets of the Middle Comedy. The titles of several comedies written by these three brothers are preserved in Athenæus.

** ANTIPHANES of Rhodes, Smyrna, or Carystus, was born (B. C. 408) of parents in the low condition of slaves. This most prolific poet (he is said to have composed upwards of three hundred dramas), notwithstanding the meanness of his origin, was so popular in Athens, that on his decease a decree was passed to remove his remains from Chios to that city, where they were interred with public honours.

†† ANAXANDRIDES of Camirus in Rhodes, was the author of sixty-five comedies. Endowed by nature with a handsome person and fine talents, Anaxandrides, though studiously elegant and effeminate in dress and manners, was yet the slave of passion. ‡‡ It is said that he used to tear his unsuccessful dramas in pieces, or send them as waste paper to the perfumers' shops. He introduced upon the stage scenes of gross intrigue and debauchery; and not only ridiculed Plato and the Academy, but proceeded to lampoon the magistracy of Athens. §§ For this attack he is by some reported to have been tried and condemned to die by starvation.

§§ Some commentators understand these two lines in the Ibis, a poem commonly

ascribed to Ovid, as referring to Anaxandrides:

Utque parum stabili qui carmine læsit Athenas,

*

of Aristophanes, belonged to this class. This description involves the idea of parody, which we showed to be the primary foundation of the Old Comedy. Platonius gives, as an example of this genus, the Ulysseid of Cratinus, a travesty of the Odyssey. But from the order of time, no piece of Cratinus, whose death Aristophanes mentions in the Peace, could belong to the Middle Comedy. And what was that play of Eupolis, in which he painted what we call Lubberland, but a parody of the poetic stories of the golden age? Are not Trygæus's ascent to heaven, and Bacchus's descent to hades, in Aristophanes, ludicrous imitations of the deeds of Bellerophon and Hercules, sung by the epic and tragic writers? To these might be added many parodies of scenes in the tragedians. It is in vain, then, to seek for a real boundary in this limitation. When poetically considered, humorous caprice and the allegorical meaning of the composition are the only essential characteristics of the more ancient genus. Wherever they are found, we must consider a work to belong to it, in whatever time and under whatever circumstances it may have been composed.

"As the New Comedy was caused by a mere negation, namely, the abolition of the political freedom of the Old Comedy, it is easy to comprehend that an intermediate state of vacillation and seeking after something to supply the loss would take place, until a new form of art was developed and established. Hence we might recognise several sorts of the Middle Comedy, several intermediate steps between the Old and the New, as in fact several scholars have done. Historically speaking, this is well founded; but when viewed as it regards art, a transition is not a genus." +

See below (part ii.) Schlegel on the Old Comedy.

It is difficult to define the precise limits of the Middle Comedy, either in respect of its nature or its age. Mr. Clinton has touched upon the subject in the Introduction to his admirable Fasti Hellenici, (p. xxxvi. &c.). He has shown that the generally received idea, which would distinguish the Middle from the Old Comedy by its abstinence from personal satire, is completely at variance with the fragments still extant; and that the celebrated law-18 μn ovoμaori xwμwdeîv TivC simply forbade the introduction of any individual on the stage by name as one of the dramatis persona. This prohibition, too, might be evaded by suppressing the name and identifying the individual by means of the mask, dress, and external appearance alone. "This law, then, when limited to its proper sense, is by no means inconsistent with a great degree of comic liberty, or with those animadversions upon eminent names with which we find the comic poets actually to abound," (Fast. Hell. p. xlii.). The date of the law is uncertain; probably about B. C. 404, during the