40 Aristophanes 



and wealthy men are coupled together. The class more especially 

 meant are probably those represented in Aristophanes by the sub- 

 stantial farmers of the Peace. But capitalists with investments in land 

 are also included, and small-holders or tenants; these last working the 

 land themselves, but not necessarily without employing hired or slave 

 labour. 



X. ARISTOPHANES. 



Aristophanes is a witness of great importance. Of eleven surviving 

 plays the Acharnians appeared in 425 BC, the Plutus in 388. Thus we 

 have from this prince of wit and humour a series of comments on the 

 social and political life of Athens and Attica from the point of view 

 of conservative admirers of good old times. The evidence of Comedy 

 is liable to be suspect, on the ground of a tendency to exaggerate and 

 distort facts: but to make allowances for this tendency is not a task 

 of extreme difficulty. Nor can it fairly be said that the political bias 

 of the poet is such as to deprive his evidence of all authority. If he 

 seems at times to be singularly detached from the prejudices of the 

 war-party, dominating Athens under the democratic leaders, and able 

 to discern and boldly to declare that the right was not solely on their 

 own side in the war; still he was a warm patriot, devoted to the Athens 

 whose defects he could not ignore. Among the striking events of the 

 time nothing seems to have impressed him more forcibly than the de- 

 vastation of Attica and the consequent ruin of the agricultural interest. 

 That the cooping-up of the rural population 1 within the walls month 

 after month was a progressive calamity, could hardly escape the notice 

 of any one then resident. It was not merely the squalor or the appalling 

 sickness, though these were in themselves enough to produce a terrible 

 strain. Discontent and recklessness took hold of the masses, and other 

 observers beside Aristophanes remarked the degeneration of the demo- 

 cracy. Aristophanes was an opponent of the war-policy, and strove hard 

 to rally the farmer-folk in favour of peace. He spared no pains to 

 discredit the noisy demagogues, accusing them of prolonging the war 

 in order to retain or increase their own importance at the cost of the 

 soundest element in the civic body. But, while he turned the farmers' 

 grievances to account in political advocacy, he was no mere unscrupu- 

 lous partisan. His frequent references to the homely joys of country 

 life, sometimes in sympathetic rural vignettes, have the ring of sincerity. 

 Like many another dweller in the unwholesome city, he sighed for the 

 fresh air, the wholesome food, the peace and quiet of Attic farmsteads: 

 no doubt he idealized the surroundings, though he did not depict them 



1 Equites 792-4, Pax 632-6, Eccl 243. 



