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THE BIRDS OF ARISTOPHANES 
 
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME 
 
 By Edward George Harman 
 
 THE ' PROMETHEUS BOUND ' OF AESCHYLUS 
 Represented in English and Explained 
 
 10s. 6d. net 
 
 LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 POEMS. Crown 8vo, 6s. net 
 
 LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
THE BIRDS 
 OF ARISTOPHANES 
 
 CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO 
 ATHENIAN POLITICS 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD GEORGE HARMAN 
 
 
 LONDON 
 
 EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 1920 
 
 [All rights retcrved] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In the preface to my translation of the Promeihetcs Bound 
 of Aeschylus, which is appearing concurrently with this 
 volume, I explained the purpose of the present volume, 
 which is to establish by a historical inquiry the truth of the 
 theory as to the meaning of that play which suggested itself 
 to me in the course of translating it, and to show that it 
 supphes the key to the meaning of the Birds of Aristophanes. 
 It is commonly supposed that the Prometheus Bound is 
 concerned with a metaphysical problem, and that the Birds 
 is a work of fancy meaning nothing in particular. But the 
 genius of the Greeks did not work in that way. In spiritual 
 development they were still primitive, and where, among 
 the moderns, imagination goes out to other worlds, with 
 them it sought its material in the actual world in which they 
 lived, and especially in that province of it which most 
 affected their daily lives, namely, the affairs of their city, 
 which for them was coterminous with the state. Hence 
 to seek a political meaning in these two great works of 
 imagination, far from being ' far-fetched,' as some may be 
 inchned to suppose, is the most natural course to take, and 
 the one most likely to lead to a right result. The reader 
 will, no doubt, find, as I did mj^elf, that this involves the 
 li dropping of some traditional ideas, but let him candidly 
 examine the evidence which I have endeavoured to place 
 before him, and I think he will find that, so far from pro- 
 ducing disillusionment, the result will provide him with a 
 greatly enhanced interest in the work of these two writers. 
 It is my humble opinion that literary criticism has been 
 
 437120 
 
VI 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 
 too much concerned with literature and not enough with 
 history ; whereas the one cannot be properly understood 
 except in the light of the other. It is for this reason that I 
 have supplied a historical sketch, from which the circum- 
 stances which led to the production of these two plays at 
 a given point of time may be realised and weighed in their 
 bearings on them. A great work of art does not take its 
 origin out of nothing. 
 
 The theory as to the meaning of the Prometheus Bound 
 which is developed in the companion volume is, briefly, 
 that the play, like all the other surviving works of Aeschylus, 
 is political in character and concerned with the author*s 
 own fortunes and his relations with the new democracy, to 
 which, like most of the leading men of Athens, he had become 
 obnoxious ; that under the ' Zeus ' of the play the tyrant 
 Demos is depicted, newly estabHshed in power, foolish, 
 capricious, passionate and irresistible ; that under the 
 character of Prometheus the author has portrayed himself, 
 probably with some reference to Aristides, the leader in 
 the state for whom he had the greatest admiration ; and 
 that to this allegory we owe the Birds, in which what I have 
 called the ' Zeus ' analogy again appears, and is, in my 
 opinion, the key to its meaning. 
 
 Among the works consulted I am more particularly in- 
 debted to the History of Greece by Professor J. B. Bury, 
 although I have frequently found myself in disagreement 
 with expressions of opinion in it ; to the English translation 
 of the German work of Adolf Holm {History of Greece, 
 vol. ii.) ; to the History of Greece by Grote ; to The 
 Tragic Drama of the Greeks by A. E. Haigh ; to the notes 
 by Dr. Sandys on the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens ; 
 and to various other writers and editors. The extracts 
 from Thucydides are taken from Jowett's translation ; those 
 from Plutarch from the translations by Dryden, revised by 
 
THE BIRDS 
 
 vu 
 
 Clough, or by Stewart and Long, but I have varied them 
 considerably in places with the object of a more literal 
 rendering. The quotations from Aristophanes follow mainly 
 the * Bohn ' translation, a literal prose rendering of that 
 author being, in my opinion, of more value than verse. 
 For the extracts from the * Athenian Constitution ' I have 
 followed the rendering, with one or two slight verbal altera- 
 tions, of Sir F. G. Kenyon. I have made use of English in 
 preference to the Greek for these quotations, because I am 
 in hope that this book wiU prove of some interest to the 
 general reader. 
 
 The references to the plays of Aristophanes are to the 
 text of Bergk. 
 
 E. G. H. 
 
 London, 1915.^ 
 
 ^ The publication of this book has been delayed on account of the 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Preface 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The * Birds' and the Sicilian Expedition. Historical 
 Survey : Solon, Pisistratus, Hippias, Cleisthenes, 
 The Ionic Revolt, Phrynicus, Aeschylus, Marathon 1 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 
 Historical Survey {continued) : Marathon and Salamis, 
 
 Themistocles, Aristides, Aeschylus . . .24 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 Historical Survey (continued) : Cimon, Pericles . 
 
 48 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Historical Survey (continued) : Cleon, Nicias, Alci 
 BiADEs. 'The Polity op the Athenians' 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The 'Birds' of Aristophanes and its Meaning. The 
 * Zeus' Analogy. .... 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 I 
 
 Other Plays of Aristophanes: 'Acharnians, 'Knights, 
 
 'Wasps' 'Peace' . . . . .105 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 The Theory applied to the History 
 
 124 
 
 INDEX 
 
 133 
 
 Tiii 
 
THE BIRDS OF ARISTOPHANES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Birds and the Sicilian Expedition. Historical Survey : Solon, Pisi- 
 stratus, Hippias, Cleisthenes, the Ionic Revolt, Phrynicus, Aeschylus, 
 Marathon. 
 
 The period of history with which this book is most directly 
 concerned is from the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War 
 to the Sicilian expedition. Pericles, who, when the war 
 broke out, had been the ruler of Athens for some thirty 
 years, the last fourteen without opposition, died in 429 B.C., 
 two and a half years after the commencement of hostilities, 
 and the year after the outbreak of the plague. Thucydides 
 tells us that during this period, * Athens, though still in 
 name a democracy, was in fact ruled by her greatest citizen. 
 But his successors were more on an equality with one another, 
 and each one struggHng to be first himself, they were ready 
 to sacrifice the whole conduct of affairs to the whims of the 
 people. Such weakness led to many errors, of which the 
 greatest was the Sicilian expedition ; not that the Athenians 
 miscalculated their enemy's power, but they themselves, 
 instead of consulting for the interests of the expedition 
 which they had sent out, were occupied in intriguing against 
 one another for the leadership of the democracy, and not 
 only hampered the operations of the army, but became 
 embroiled, for the first time, at home.' ^ 
 
 The Sicilian expedition was sent out in the summer of 
 415 B.C. In the autumn, Alcibiades, who was accused before 
 he started of sacrilege in connection with the affair of the 
 mutilation of the Hermae, was recalled, with certain others, 
 to stand his trial, and, escaping at Thurii on the way home, 
 
 * Thuc. ii. 65, tr. Jowett (and so throughout). 
 A 
 
THE BIRDS 
 
 he was condemned, with his companions, to death on their 
 non-appearance. Hearing of it, Alcibiades is reported to 
 have said, ' I will make them feel that I am alive.' ^ Now 
 an exile, he made his way over to Sparta, and put his 
 services at the disposal of the enemy. 
 
 The pohtical excitement at Athens during this period 
 had been great, and there were many arrests and executions. 
 Thucydides says that the Athenian people, recaUing the 
 traditions of the tyrants, * were suspicious and savage against 
 the supposed profaners of the mysteries ; the whole affair 
 seemed to them to indicate some conspiracy aiming at 
 oligarchy or tyranny. Inflamed by these suspicions they 
 had already imprisoned many men of high character. 
 There was no sign of returning quiet, but day by day the 
 movement became more furious and the number of arrests 
 increased. At last one of the prisoners, who was beheved 
 to be deeply implicated, was induced by a fellow-prisoner 
 to make a confession — ^whether true or false I cannot say ; 
 opinions are divided, and no one knew at the time, or to this 
 day knows, who the offenders were. . . . The Athenians 
 were delighted at finding out what they supposed to be the 
 truth ; they had been in despair at the thought that the 
 conspirators against the democracy would never be known, 
 and they immediately liberated the informer and all whom 
 he had not denounced. The accused they brought to trial, 
 and executed such of them as could be found. Those who 
 had fled they condemned to death, and promised a reward 
 to any one who would kill them. No one could say whether 
 the sufferers were justly punished ; but the beneficial effect 
 on the city at the time was undeniable.' ^ 
 
 It has been customary in modem histories to represent 
 this excitement as due to religious apprehension, but the 
 above, and other statements of Thucydides to the like 
 effect, show clearly that it was due to fear of a secret con- 
 spiracy to overturn the democracy. The paragraph also 
 indicates that the theory (apparently now generally accepted) 
 that the purpose of the Birds of Aristophanes was to allay 
 
 * Plutarch, Ale. « Thuc. vi. 60. 
 
THE BIRDS 3 
 
 and divert the excited feelings of the multitude has little 
 foundation in fact, that process having been already effected 
 by the proceedings described. 
 
 The Birds was performed in March of the following year 
 (414 B.C.) at the festival of the Great Dionysia, to which 
 foreigners as well as the citizens were admitted. There is 
 a tradition that it refers in some way to the Sicilian ex- 
 pedition,^ but, beyond that, nothing is known about it 
 except that it won the second prize. The title of the 
 successful play was The Comastae (' Revellers '), presumably 
 in allusion to the charges against Alcibiades and his friends. 
 Is it at all likely, after what the Athenians had gone through 
 since the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, and in view 
 of recent events, that Aristophanes could have supposed that 
 his fellow-citizens would be diverted from these preoccupa- 
 tions by an extravaganza, which, however imaginative and 
 well written, is, by itself, and apart from any political 
 purpose, of a rather childish character ? Moreover, such a 
 view of the play is probably an anachronism, because it is 
 of great length and most carefully written ; it was prob- 
 ably, therefore, begun, or at any rate the idea for it con- 
 ceived, before the expedition sailed. 
 
 Another view of the play is that the poet intended it as 
 
 a good-humoured satire on the sanguine and ambitious 
 
 projects of the Athenians. But, again, is it probable that 
 
 he would have chosen such a time to make fun of these 
 
 tendencies ? When the play was performed the anxiety 
 
 ^H about the Sicilian expedition must have been already 
 
 ^1 appreciable. In spite of preparations on an altogether 
 
 exceptional scale, it had accomplished nothing, and the 
 
 generals had already sent home for cavalry and more 
 
 ^^ money.2 Nicias had warned the Assembly that the Syra- 
 
 ^H cusans had a numerous cavalry, and to them more than 
 
 anything else was due the discomfiture, so far, of the 
 
 ^^ Athenian forces.^ The * wealth ' of the Egestaeans also, 
 
 ^B which had formed one of the inducements to take up their 
 
 Scholiast. « Thuc. vi. 74, 93. 
 
 Ibid., vi. 20. 63, 70, 71. 
 
THE BIRDS 
 
 cause, had turned out to be a fraud ; Alcibiades had already 
 done them damage by his intrigues in Sicily ; the Corinthians 
 had decided to send help to Syracuse ; and, worst of all, 
 Alcibiades was at Sparta, and had advised the Lacedae- 
 monians to fortify Decelea and send out a general to 
 Syracuse.^ Though there is no evidence that the Athenians 
 were unduly depressed by these events, it is reasonable to 
 conclude that the sanguine expectations with which the 
 expedition set out must have been somewhat dashed. 
 Even, therefore, if we suppose that Aristophanes originally 
 conceived the idea of the Birds in a spirit of raillery, it seems 
 unlikely, in the altered circumstances, that he would have 
 brought it forward at that time. 
 
 All the plays of Aristophanes are founded on contem- 
 porary life, and of the five surviving ones anterior to the 
 Birds four are political without any disguise, and the other, 
 which deals with the influence of the new teaching at 
 Athens, is * political ' in the ancient sense of the word, but 
 would now be called * social.' It is reasonable therefore to 
 expect that the Birds should be of a similar character, and 
 the method employed suggests that allegory has taken the 
 place of direct statement for reasons connected with the 
 circumstances of the time, or with the nature of the author's 
 intention. The times were full of danger, and it appears 
 that at some time shortly before a decree had been passed 
 by the Assembly curtaiHng the freedom of political attack 
 by the comic stage. This, in itself, would account, to some 
 extent, for the change of character in the work. But, as 
 I shall hope to show, there is another, and more cogent, 
 reason connected with the author's intention. 
 
 First, however, it is necessary to say something as to the 
 political development of Athens, for, without a general 
 knowledge of that, the reader will not be in a position to 
 form an opinion as to the interpretation which I shall seek 
 to give this play. The historical survey which I propose to 
 make will, at the same time, illustrate and support my 
 theory as to the meaning of the Prometheus Bound of 
 
 1 For these facts, in order, see Thuo. vi., chapters 46, 63. 74, 88. 89-93. 
 
THE BIRDS 6 
 
 Aeschylus, with which the Birds is, in my opinion, closely 
 connected.* 
 
 In the period after the death of Pericles the constitution 
 of Athens had reached that point in democratic develop- 
 ment which is defined by Aristotle as ' extreme ' {TeXevrala), 
 In form, and to some extent in substance, it took its lise 
 from the legislation of Solon at the beginning of the sixth 
 century, but to describe Solon as the ' founder ' of this 
 democracy, as is sometimes done, is to attribute to him 
 intentions which the surviving fragments of his writings, and 
 the account of him in Herodotus and Plutarch, show quite 
 clearly that he never entertained. It would be more correct 
 to say that his endeavour was to establish aristocratic 
 government on a juster and more stable basis. 
 
 The lately discovered treatise of Aristotle ^ on the Con- 
 stitution of Athens described a constitution of Draco in the 
 previous century, with a franchise on a military basis, but 
 some scholars, probably with good reason, regard this as 
 fabulous.^ We may therefore accept the view, which seems 
 
 * Se© remarks in the Preface and companion volume. 
 
 " Or some one of his school and time. 
 
 ' The question is fully dealt with by Dr. Sandys in his notes on ^Adrjv, Uo\. 
 The view that it is an ' interpolation ' seems to me to be too arbitrary, 
 owing to the consequential excisions from the text which it entails. It 
 appears to me also that it ignores the word /cat in the summary in ch. 41, 
 ' in which cUso,^ etc. It seems possible that the writer made imcritical use 
 of a political pamphlet drawn up in connection with the revolution of 
 410 B.C., or the reconstruction after the fall of Athens in 404 B.C., in 
 support of that particular form of constitution, which was in favour among 
 the moderate men, and which is reported upon as the best both by 
 Thucydidos and Xenophon. The times of Draco were so remote and so 
 primitive that it seems improbable that anything can have been known 
 about such details two, or three, hundred years after. Moreover they 
 point to a system which scoms irreconcilable with the account of the 
 social conditions prevailing at the time of Solon's archonship, wliich is 
 believed to have been only some thirty years after the laws were written 
 down by Draco. It is conceivable (though this is only speculation) that 
 this constitution, which resembles that of the ' Five Thousand ' (a war 
 oonatitution), was fathered on Draco as a device for obtaining for it more 
 ancient authority than for the more oligarchical constitution of the ' Four 
 Hundred,' which appears to have been modelled on what was supposed to 
 
6 THE BIRDS 
 
 to have been generally entertained among the Athenians, 
 that Solon was the father of the constitution, the word being 
 used not in the sense of a ' democracy ' as that word is now 
 commonly understood, but of a * pohty,' in which an 
 attempt was made, for the first time, to give the general 
 body of citizens a share in the government. This was done 
 by the creation of a Council of four hundred members elected 
 from the four tribes, to which was transferred political 
 business hitherto entirely in the hands of the * Areopagus,' a J 
 body composed of members of the landed aristocracy, known 
 as * Eupatrids,' who, since the abolition of the ancient 
 kingship, had constituted the government of the country. 
 There was also an * Assembly ' of citizens, presumably from 
 very ancient times, but it was probably only summoned on 
 special occasions and in connection with war. In any case 
 it evidently had no powers of initiation, any business which 
 may have been referred to it being prepared by the adminis- 
 trative Council, and its assent was in the nature of a vote 
 on a * referendum.' 
 
 The disturbed state of Attica which led to the appoint- 
 ment of Solon by consent as a mediator seems to have been 
 due to several causes. The soil of a large proportion of the 
 country was very poor, and the difficulty of living was a 
 constant source of trouble, and was a governing factor in 
 Athenian poHtics. When a man fell into poverty in the 
 ancient world, the only resource for himself and his family, 
 in the absence of any outlet, was to accept the lot of slavery. 
 
 be Solon's constitution, and is referred to, in the political catch-word of the 
 day, as rrjv TrdTptav iroXirelav, ' the constitution of our forefathers.' 
 Professor Bury takes the view that by this expression the oligarchy in- 
 tended the constitution of Draco, but both Dr. Sandys and Sir F. G. 
 Kenyon take the phrase, which occurs in 'A^t;;/. IIoX., to refer to Solon's con- 
 stitution, and it seems tho obvious meaning of the text. For example, 
 in ch. 29 it is stated that an amendment was proposed to the motion for 
 abolishing the democracy (411 B.C.) and setting up a Council of 400, ' to 
 investigate the ancient laws (rous irarplovs ydfiovs) drawn up by 
 Cleisthenes when he created the democracy . . . the suggestion being 
 that the constitution of Cleisthenes was not really democratical, but 
 closely akin to that oi Solon ' ; and, again, ch. 31 relates the setting up of 
 the Council of ' Four Hundred ' (composed of men of over thirty, without 
 pay), ' as in the ancient constitution ' (/cara rd irdrpia). 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 THE BIRDS 7 
 
 To this condition large numbers of the free inhabitants of 
 Attica had been reduced, working as slaves for the landed 
 proprietors where formerly they had paid rent or borrowed 
 money on mortgage to carry on. There were also incessant 
 feuds among the great families, and between different 
 locahties, and unenfranchised new wealth was pressing its 
 claims for recognition. Solon provided temporary relief 
 for the peasantry by a measure remitting their debts, 
 and as a check on oppression admitted the poorer class of 
 citizens (peasants and small craftsmen) to the Assembly. 
 He also distributed (or perhaps redistributed) the citizen 
 population into four classes according to their means, and 
 made the first class, irrespective of birth, eligible for the 
 archonship, which had before been confined to the members 
 of the Areopagus. Out of this class the nine archons were 
 appointed by lot, from a fixed number of candidates elected 
 by the tribes, and on the termination of office, which was 
 annual, they became life members of the Areopagus. The 
 Areopagus retained the higher judicial functions and the 
 guardianship of the laws, together with a general censorial 
 power over the magistrates and the lives of the citizens. 
 
 With a view to giving the populace an instrument of 
 protection against oppression,^ and probably also as a 
 check on peculation, to which Athenians were incorrigibly 
 prone, 2 Solon also instituted a system whereby members 
 of the popular Assembly, sitting as judges (known as 
 * hehasts ' or * dicasts '), could bring offending public 
 officials to account, probably on appeals or reference made 
 to them from the Council. Hitherto it appears that the 
 officers of the State had been only responsible to the 
 Areopagus, of which they themselves, if filUng the greater 
 offices, were members. This * accountabiUty ' to the 
 citizens, in some form, was regarded thereafter as of the " 
 essence of constitutional government, and . maiking the 
 
 * Solon is referred to in 'A 6t)v. Uo\. and in Plutarch as the first irpoaTd'n^, 
 viz, champion, or protector, of the people. The term came to mean in 
 the next century the ' leader ' in the Assembly. 
 
 * Cf. Plut. Ariet., and Xen. Anab. iv. 6. 16. 
 
8 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 difference between a * tyranny,' or narrow oligarchy, and a 
 free state. An interesting early reference to this occurs in 
 the Persae of Aeschylus (472 B.C.), where the mother of 
 Xerxes, in apprehension of his defeat, is made to say that 
 ' he cannot he called to account by the State, ^ and if he 
 escapes ahve, he is, in any event, the ruler of this land.* 
 
 But the peculiar system devised by Solon, whereby the 
 members of the popular Assembly sat as ' dicasts,' in which 
 a modern writer (Professor Bury) sees a * secret of demo- 
 cracy,' led to great abuses, and, in my belief, contributed 
 more than anything else to the fall of Athens, because it 
 made justice political.^ In the early days, however, these 
 developments were not foreseen. They were brought about 
 by the conversion of Athens, after the Persian invasion, 
 from an isolated city-state into one in possession of a 
 tributary empire, and by the system of payment introduced 
 later by Pericles. That enabled the poorer citizens to eke 
 out a livehhood by sitting in the courts, which thus became 
 dominated by lower-class opinion and interests.^ The 
 point of these remarks will appear more clearly when we 
 come to consider some of the plays of Aristophanes. 
 
 After the efforts of Solon things seem to have fallen 
 back into the old state of faction and disorder, and a remedy 
 came in the way frequent in Greece in the earHer period, 
 through a * tyranny/ The two principal parties were 
 known as the * Plain ' and the ' Shore,' the first representing 
 the landed aristocracy of the richer district and their 
 adherents (the country party), the second the mercantile 
 
 * oirx i)ireidvvos t6\€i (216). 
 
 * It is referred to by Aristotle as ' the measure by which it is agreed 
 that the democracy got its main power.' 
 
 ^ Cf. *A6r]v. Uo\. 27 : ' Pericles was also the first to institute pay for 
 service in the law courts, as a bid for popular favour to counterbalance the 
 wealth of Cimon. . . . Some persons accuse him of thereby causing a 
 deterioration in the character of the juries, since it was always the inferior 
 people who were anxious to submit themselves for selection as jurors rather 
 than men of better position.' It must be remembered that they were 
 judges as well as jurors, and without professional training, and there was 
 no appeal from their decision. They were empanelled from citizens of 
 over thirty. 
 
 m 
 
I 
 
 THE BIRDS 9 
 
 and coast -residing interest. There was a third party, 
 known as the * Hill,' representing the cultivators of the poor 
 hill-districts. Taking advantage of the quarrels between 
 the fii*st two, Pisistratus placed himself at the head of this 
 poorer class, and made himself master of the State. The 
 treatise of Aristotle thus describes the position : 
 
 * The parties at this time were three in number. First there 
 was the party of the Shore, whose Jeader was Megacles, the son 
 of Alcmeon, which was considered to aim at a moderate form 
 of government ; then there were the men of the Plain, who 
 desired an ohgarchy and were led by Lycurgus ; and thirdly 
 there were the men of the Highlands, at the head of whom was 
 Pisistratus, who was looked on as an extreme democrat.' ^ 
 
 These parties determined the form of pohtical life at Athens, 
 and their influence is seen throughout. I shall draw 
 attention to an allusion to them, hitherto I believe un- 
 recognised, in the Birds. 
 
 The simpUcity of the people in those days appears from 
 the fact that Pisistratus obtained the bodyguard, by which 
 he secured the Acropolis in the first instance, by wounding 
 himself, alleging that he had been attacked by his enemies ; 
 and after his expulsion on the first occasion by a com- 
 bination of the two leading parties, he got back again with 
 the help of Megacles (who had in the meantime broken with 
 Lycurgus) by driving into Athens in company with a hand- 
 some peasant woman dressed up as Athena, whom the 
 people are said to have received as the goddess. During a 
 period of thirty -three years he was tyrant, with two intervals, 
 for nineteen years, and was succeeded by his sons Hippias 
 and Hipparchus. The whole period of the tyranny covered 
 about fifty years, from 560 B.C. to 510 B.C. 
 
 Pisistratus was a great ruler. * His administration,' says 
 Aristotle, * was more like a constitutional government than 
 the rule of a tyrant.' His poHcy was to keep the people in 
 the country, and he dealt with the problem of poverty by 
 grants of land and loans on easy terms. He was enabled 
 
 » 'A^Tjv. HoX. 13. 
 
10 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 to do this without burdening the State with heavy taxation 
 by revenues which he drew from properties in Thrace, where 
 also he obtained mercenary troops. ' Hence the tyranny of 
 Pisistratus was often spoken of as the age of Cronus,' that 
 is, as a golden age.^ This phrase is to be noted in connec- 
 tion with what follows. 
 
 Abroad his power was respected, and he maintained 
 friendly relations with Sparta. The vast Doric Temple for 
 the Olympian Zeus, which he began but left uncompleted, 
 was perhaps connected with this policy and Pan-Hellenic 
 aspirations. 2 He added dignity to the public worship, 
 improved the city, founded the Great Dionysia which 
 became the occasion for the annual competitions in tragedy, 
 instituted Homeric recitations, and generally, by encourag- 
 ing the visits of foreign poets and artists, gave an impulse 
 to the gentler arts of life, which had hitherto been little 
 cultivated. His sons, especially Hipparchus, carried further 
 this latter movement, though perhaps not altogether with 
 the approval of the Attic world of the day, for he is described 
 in Aristotle's treatise as iraiBicoSrjf; koI iponTLKo^ koI 
 <J>l\6/jlov(to<;.^ In any case, to the court of Hippias resorted 
 Anacreon and Simonides, from the islands, and other 
 poets, and we read of Lasus of Hermione at this court, 
 a master of dithyrambic poetry, who instructed Pindar, 
 then a youth, who came to him for training from Thebes. 
 Whether Aeschylus learned from the same master we do 
 not know, but it is quite possible that he did, as the first 
 fifteen years of his life were passed under Hippias. Such 
 developments, at any rate in the early stages, depend on 
 cessation from civil strife. With the expulsion of Hippias 
 it was renewed, and the poets took their flight to other 
 
 » 'Advy. Uo\. 16. 
 
 * It may also have been connected with an effort to introduce a more 
 spiritual and monotheistic form of religion. The movement in this 
 direction, which had been begun by philosophic teachers of Ionia and 
 Grecian Italy, seems first to have reached Athens at this period. The 
 local worship of Pallas Athene had not been treated with great respect by 
 Pisistratus in the incident above mentioned. 
 
 • ' Youthful in disposition, amorous, and fond of letters.' 
 
I 
 
 THE BIRDS 11 
 
 courts.^ The inhabitants of Attica, hitherto primitive and 
 insignificant, emerged from this period of absolutism, some- 
 what as the English did from that of the Tudors, strengthened 
 as regards population and resources, intellectual as well as 
 material, to cope with their new destiny as an imperial 
 power. They had been fortunate in finding in the Pisis- 
 tratids rulei-s who did not commit the atrocities of which 
 we read in the case of some of the other tyrants. None the 
 less the system was repugnant to the idea of citizenship 
 among the Greeks. 
 
 Art was not the native bent of the Attic mind. They 
 produced great artists, as they produced great men in many 
 departments of human activity, but their genius was 
 combative and practical. They were famous for readiness 
 of wit and gift of speech ; enterprising and versatile rather 
 than persistent ; full of curiosity and subtle in mind, as is 
 indicated by the contention in argument which is such a 
 marked feature in the Athenian tragedy. They were above 
 all full of emulation and ambitious for reputation, and, on 
 the weak side of this quality, they were vain and bitterly 
 envious. The remark which Herodotus puts into the 
 mouth of the brother of Xerxes in a speech of advice to the 
 king as to ' the common temper of the Grecian people ' was 
 specially true of them : * they envy good fortune and hate 
 power greater than their own.' ^ Hence the intensity of 
 their political activities and of the struggle for pre-eminence. 
 For such activities practical sagacity and the power of 
 management by persuasion were essential, and we find in a 
 passage in Plutarch interesting evidence of their efforts in 
 this direction as far back as Solon : 
 
 ' Themistocles is said to have been an admirer of Mnesiphilus 
 of Phrearri, who was neither rhetorician nor natural philosopher, 
 
 * Theesaly and Sicily in particular. 
 
 ■ Herod, vii. 236. Compare Aesch. Agam., speech of the king ; also 
 Pericles, opening of the funereJ speech, Thuc. ii. 35. Envy of human 
 ambition and prosperity is the dominating quality which the Greeks frona 
 the o€urlieet times attributed to deity : <p6oP€pbv idv t6 deioy, Solon to 
 Croesus (Herod, i. 32, and of. vii. 10), and many other exampiee. 
 
12 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 
 but a professor of that which was then called wisdom, consisting 
 in a sort of pohtical shrewdness and practical sagacity ; and had 
 begun and continued, almost Hke a sect of philosophy, from 
 Solon ; but those who came afterwards, and mixed it with 
 forensic artifices, and transformed it from practical utiUty into 
 a mere art of speaking and an exercise of words, were called 
 sophists. Themistocles resorted to Mnesiphilus when he had 
 already embarked in poKtics/ ^ 
 
 The latter part of the passage alludes, of course, to the 
 foreign professors who visited Athens under Pericles and 
 afterwards, but the native tradition continued, as we can 
 see from the remarkable portrait drawn by Thucydides of 
 Antiphon, who, though he intrigued against the democracy 
 at a time when they were oppressing the class to which 
 he belonged, and lost his life thereby, ^ must have been a 
 great man. There seems to be a tradition that Thucydides 
 was his pupil. In any case he must have known him 
 intimately, as the description indicates : 
 
 * The mover of this proposal (to set up " the Four Hundred "), 
 and to outward appearance the most active partisan of the 
 revolution, was Peisander, but the real author and maturer of 
 the whole scheme, who had been longest interested in it, was 
 Antiphon, a man inferior in virtue to none of his contemporaries, 
 and possessed of remarkable powers of thought and gifts of speech. 
 He did not Uke to come forward in the assembly, or in any other 
 pubhc arena. To the multitude, who were suspicious of his great 
 abihties, he was an object of dishke ; but there was no man who 
 could do more for any who consulted him, whether their busi- 
 ness lay in the courts of justice or in the assembly. And when 
 the government of the Four Hundred was overthrown and 
 became exposed to the vengeance of the people, and he being 
 accused of taking part in the plot had to speak in his own case, 
 his defence was undoubtedly the best over made by any man 
 tried on a capital charge down to my time.' ^ 
 
 * Plut. Them. Mnesiphilus is said to have pointed out to Themistocles 
 the impolicy of withdrawing the fleet from Salamis, which had been 
 agreed upon by the Greek commanders before the battle. 
 
 * In connection with the revolution of 411 b.o. 
 » Thuc. viii. 68. 
 
THE BIRDS 13 
 
 The * tyranny ' of the Pisistratids was ended by the inter- 
 vention of Sparta. Thucydides explains this at length in 
 two passages, probably having grown tired, like Aristo- 
 phanes and others of their class, of hearing the popular tale 
 about Harmodius and Aristogeiton. But their rising 
 against Hippias and Hipparchus, though occasioned by a 
 private quarrel, was probably also due to growing insolence, 
 and to the stories which the Athenians had heard of the 
 cruelties of other tjnrants, in which case the popular view 
 that they were the liberators of Athens was not altogether 
 without justification ; for after the assassination of his 
 brother Hippias is said to have become embittered and 
 harsh in his treatment of the citizens, and this gave the 
 opportunity for the intrigue with Sparta by the exiled 
 Alcmaeonid family and their adherents to get rid of him. 
 It was effected by means characteristic of Athenians in 
 deahng with their more unsophisticated neighbours. They 
 restored the shrine of Delphi at great expense, and thus 
 prevailed on the priests to harass the Spartans with an 
 oracle, whenever they sent to inquire of the god, that * first 
 Athens must be freed.' In this way the Spartans were 
 induced to eject Hippias, and the Alcmaeonid party were 
 restored. 
 
 The old struggle between the Plain and the Shore was 
 now renewed, the rival leaders being Isagoras and the 
 Alcmaeonid Cleisthenes, the one as leader of the old Attic 
 party, the other of the wealthy middle class, who favoured 
 the timocratical constitution of Solon. Herodotus (who is 
 our authority) says that ' these two men strove together 
 for the mastery, and Cleisthenes, finding himself the weaker, 
 called to his aid the common people, whom he had before 
 disdained.' ^ Whatever his motives may have been, he 
 proved himself a statesman of capacity, and the constitu- 
 tion which he founded became the groundwork of all 
 subsequent modifications. It did not differ in principle 
 from that of Solon, but it was on a more extended franchise, 
 including foreign residents. The working body was the 
 
 » Herod, v. 66, 69. 
 
14 THE BIRDS 
 
 Council, which was a legislative, executive, and, to some 
 extent, judicial body, but its legislative proposals required 
 a vote of the Assembly (y^r)(f)i(TfjLa) before they became 
 law. The Assembly was summoned at regular intervals 
 (about ten times a year) for ordinary business, and it was 
 also convoked on extraordinary occasions, more especially 
 in connection with war and foreign policy. The archon- 
 ship was still confined to the higher class as before. In the 
 post-Periclean days, when the archonship had been thrown 
 open practically to all classes, when the Areopagus had 
 been deprived of its political and censorial powers, and 
 the Assembly was encroaching, by a system of * decrees,' 
 more and more on the authority of the Council, the con- 
 stitution as settled by Cleisthenes was regarded by com- 
 parison as an aristocratic constitution.^ The measure, 
 however, by which Cleisthenes was best known, and 
 perhaps by which he most secured his power, was the 
 breaking up of the old four tribes or clans. For these he 
 substituted ten tribes on a non-geographical basis. The 
 Council was increased in consequence from four hundred to 
 five hundred members, elected by the tribes from the first 
 three Solonian classes, the age for service being over thirty 
 with a test of citizenship and character {hoKifiaala). They 
 held office for one year. Ostracism ^ was also then insti- 
 tuted as a precaution against individuals converting their 
 power into a ' tjnranny.' In practice, as this institution 
 was used by the people after the Persian wars, almost 
 every public man of distinction fell a victim to it.^ ■ 
 
 There was probably also another reason for the view 
 expressed in later days that the constitution of Cleisthenes 
 was not really democratical, namely, that so long as the 
 Areopagus retained its power of revision, the sovereign 
 power could not be said to lie with the Assembly. No 
 
 1 'kdriv. IIoX. 29, and Plutarch, Cimon. 
 
 * Exile for ten years without loss of civil rights or confiscation of 
 property. 
 
 » Thus : Megacles (486) ; Xanthippus, father of Pericles (484) ; 
 Aristides (482) ; Themistocles (472) ; Cimon (461) ; Thucydides, the con- 
 servative leader under Pericles (442). 
 

 THE BIRDS 16 
 
 doubt the Assembly decided the question of war and 
 measures connected with it, and heard the speeches of 
 ambassadors, but this was a practical necessity, because the 
 citizen army could refuse to march or go on shipboard. 
 But a legislative decree of the Assembly did not become a 
 * law ' (vofioq) ^ until the Areopagus had allowed it as not 
 unconstitutional. Such a power, in conjunction with the 
 undefined censorial power, would obviously be a great one 
 in certain circumstances, and this would to some extent 
 explain the statement in the Aristotelian treatise on the 
 Constitution, that * after the Persian wars the Council of 
 the Areopagus once more developed strength and assumed 
 the control of the State,' and that ' this supremacy lasted for 
 about seventeen years, although gradually declining.' This 
 would involve no revolution, provided the people did not 
 object. The sovereign power therefore may be said to have 
 lain ultimately with the Areopagus, subject to the pressure 
 of the Assembly and the Council. It was not until the time 
 of Pericles, when the guardianship of the laws was trans- 
 ferred from the Areopagus to a legal board (vofioOirai), 
 and the general censorial power of that Council was also 
 taken away, that the Assembly can be said to have had full 
 sovereign authority. This was effected in 462 B.C. and 
 during some years after. The only power in the earlier 
 period which the people possessed absolutely seems to me 
 to have been the power of ostracism, and it was of course a 
 great one, in that it enabled them at intervals of five years 
 to get rid of a political leader to whom they objected. 
 
 The events connected with the ejection of the Pisistratids 
 by the Spartans and the founding of the new constitution 
 left a deep mark on Attic life. It was not a question of the 
 contention of parties under an established constitution, but 
 whether there should be a constitution at all. We know 
 nothing of these events beyond what Herodotus tells us, 
 
 * There was not much current legislation in ancient states. The laws 
 ere regarded as ' Gxod ' and having a certain sanctity. In Athens the 
 
 revisions generally took place in connection with a political crisis, e.g. 
 
 the reformn of Draco, Solon, Cleisthones, Ephialtos, etc. 
 
16 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 but that is enough to indicate that the period from the fall 
 of Hippias in 510 B.C. to the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. 
 was the most critical in the history of Athens as a rising 
 power. Sparta had not interfered in order to set up a 
 democracy, and the Spartan king Cleomenes now responded 
 to the appeal of Isagoras, who had been driven out. 
 Cleisthenes withdrew, and Cleomenes ' sent into banish- 
 ment seven hundred families pointed out to him by Isagoras. 
 Succeeding here, he next endeavoured to dissolve the 
 Council, and to put the government into the hands of three 
 hundred partisans of Isagoras.' ^ The Council and their 
 supporters, however, succeeded in driving Cleomenes and 
 his force into the citadel. Cleomenes got away with 
 Isagoras ; others were imprisoned and died in prison, and 
 Cleisthenes and the exiled families were restored. Fear of 
 war with Sparta then induced the Athenian government to 
 send envoys to Sardis to make an alliance with Persia, 
 and Artaphernes told them that they could have it if they 
 would send ' earth and water,' in token of submission to 
 Darius. So great was the fear of Sparta that the ambas- 
 sadors consented, but on return to Athens they * fell into 
 deep disgrace for their compliance.' ^ j| 
 
 To avenge his defeat at Athens, and put down the new ' 
 democratic constitution, Cleomenes then collected an army 
 in the Peloponnese and invaded Attica. The Thebans and 
 the forces of the great maritime town of Chalcis in Euboea 
 made an attack, concurrently, from the north. On the 
 way, however, Cleomenes revealed to the allies his scheme 
 for setting up Isagoras as * tyrant ' at Athens, and the 
 Corinthians, remembering what they had sujffered themselves 
 under their ' tyrants,' objected and withdrew. The other 
 Spartan king supported them, and the expedition was 
 broken up and returned home. Saved from this peril the 
 Athenians turned on the northern enemy and routed them 
 separately in two battles on the same day. The city of 
 Chalcis was taken, and settled with poor citizens from 
 Athens, and a great number of prisoners were held to ransom 
 1 Herod, vi. 72. » Ibid., 73. 
 
THE BIRDS 17 
 
 in chains at Athens. It was evidently one of the most 
 brilliant of the warlike efforts of Athens, and Herodotus 
 draws the conclusion from it 'that it is plain enough, not 
 from this instance only, but from many elsewhere, that 
 freedom is an excellent thing/ ^ 
 
 Fearing the growing strength of the republic the Spartans 
 made one more effort in the same direction. They sent 
 for Hippias, who had withdrawn with his family and 
 friends to the Asiatic side, and at an assembly tried to 
 persuade the Corinthians to join them in restoring him as 
 * tyrant ' at Athens. But they again revolted at the 
 proposal, and Hippias, returning to Asia, * did all that lay 
 in his power to bring Athens into subjection to himself and 
 Darius.' ^ The Athenians thereupon sent envoys to Sardis 
 to exhort the Persians * not to lend an ear to the Athenian 
 exiles,' but Artaphemes repHed * that if they wished to 
 remain safe they must receive back Hippias.' The 
 Athenians, says Herodotus, ' accordingly made up their 
 minds not to consent, and to be at open enmity with the 
 Persians.' 
 
 This brings us to the Ionic revolt, through which, and the 
 intrigues of Hippias and the exiles, Athens came into con- 
 flict with the Persian power. Miletus, a great and ancient 
 Kcity on the Asiatic coast, described by Herodotus as * the 
 ||ory of Ionia,' was the centre of disturbance. Aristagoras, 
 the virtual sovereign of it at that time, decided to revolt from 
 — ^the suzerainty of Darius and his viceroy Artaphernes,^ and 
 |ihe went to Sparta and put the case of the Asiatic Greeks 
 before them. Failing to persuade them to take up their 
 cause he went on to Athens, and represented to the Assembly 
 there that the Persians were indifferent soldiers, that 
 Miletus had a claim on their assistance being a colony of 
 Attica, and (in the words of Herodotus) * in the earnestness of 
 his entreaties he cared little what he promised, until, at 
 last, he persuaded and won them over.' * Won by these 
 persuasions they voted that twenty ships should be sent 
 
 » Herod, vi. 78. « Ibid., 96. 
 
 * Artaphemes, governor of Lydia and half-brother of Darius. 
 
 B 
 
18 THE BIRDS 
 
 to the aid of the lonians. These ships were the beginning 
 of mischief both to the Greeks and to the barbarians.' ^ 
 
 What follows gives rise to some interesting speculations. 
 The Athenian force, in conjunction with a force from Eretria 
 in the neighbouring island of Euboea, sailed to Miletus, and 
 an allied expedition went up country to Sardis, the seat of 
 government of Artaphernes. They took the town, and 
 were prevented from sacking it by a fire, which destroyed 
 the whole town, including * the temple of the native goddess 
 Cybele, which was the reason afterwards alleged by the 
 Persians for setting on fire the temples of the Greeks.* ^ 
 Professor Bury writes of this as if it was an accident, as of 
 course it may have been ; but Herodotus says the houses 
 were of reed, * and one of them was no sooner set fire to by 
 a soldier than the flames ran speedily from house to house,' 
 etc. Therefore it looks as if the act was dehberate, and it 
 was naturally so regarded by Artaphernes (who held out 
 in the citadel) and Darius.^ The same writer also discredits 
 the famous story about Darius, who, on hearing of the 
 burning of Sardis, inquired ' who the Athenians were ? ' 
 and, calling for his bow, ' shot an arrow into the sky, saying, 
 ** Grant me, Zeus, to revenge myself on the Athenians " ' ; 
 and he ordered a servant ' to repeat three times every day 
 when dinner was spread, " Master, remember the 
 Athenians." ' * I see, however, little reason for doubting 
 the story. It is entirely characteristic of an oriental 
 monarch, and the symbolical act would be reported through- 
 out his dominions, and strike terror, as he would suppose, 
 into the hearts of the upstart people. It has a parallel in 
 other stories, such as that told by Herodotus about Croesus, 
 who sent a message to some tribes, who were refractory, that 
 
 1 Herod, v. 97. * Ibid., 102. 
 
 * The deniinciation of the sacrilegious acts of the Persians by Aeschylus 
 is no evidence that the Greeks did not, on occasions, commit similar acts, 
 because the practice of the poet is always to use such material as examples 
 for warning. The theme, for instance, of the Peraae is far less the glorifica- 
 tion of Athens than the precariousness of human greatness, as exemplified 
 in Darius, with a view to enforcing the wisdom of moderation and self- 
 control. 
 
 * Herod, v. 106. 
 
THE BIRDS 19 
 
 if they did not do as he told them, * he would destroy them 
 like a fir.' Pondering on what a ' fir ' might mean, they 
 reflected that a fir, when cut down, did not sprout again. 
 In days when there were no newspapers, and few people 
 could read, figurative acts and speeches must have been 
 part of the art of government in large territories. More- 
 over, the first part of the story is confirmed by the con- 
 temporary evidence of Aeschylus, who puts into the mouth 
 of Atossa a similar question.^ 
 
 The forces of Miletus and their alHes then withdrew 
 towards the coast, but were overtaken at Ephesus by a 
 Lydian army, reinforced by Persians from the interior. 
 ' A fight ensued in which the Greeks had very greatly the 
 worse. Vast numbers were slain by the Persians . . . 
 such as made their escape from the battle dispersed among 
 the several cities.' The narrative proceeds : ' So ended the 
 encounter. Afterwards the Athenians quite forsook the 
 lonians, and, though Aristagoras besought them much by 
 his ambassadors, refused to give them any further help. 
 Still the lonians, notwithstanding this desertion, continued 
 unceasingly their preparations to carry on war against 
 the Persian king, which their late conduct to him rendered 
 unavoidable.' ^ Later we read that Miletus was captured 
 (494 B.C.), and those of the population who were not killed 
 were enslaved by the Persians, some also being taken down 
 to Susa, where, according to Herodotus, they were weU 
 treated by Darius and given lands to cultivate.* He adds 
 that the Athenians ' were beyond measure afflicted at the 
 faU of Miletus,' and that when the tragic poet Phrjaiicus 
 ' brought upon the stage his " Capture of Miletus," the whole 
 theatre burst into tears, and the people sentenced him to pay 
 a fine of a thousand drachmas for recalling to them their own 
 misfortunes (oUi^a KaKo) ' ; also that a law was passed that 
 no one was ever to exhibit the play again.* The words in 
 
 * ToO t4$ *ke-f)va^ <f)aalv ISpvadai x^o"^^ i {Peraae, 233.) 
 
 « Herod, v. 102, 103. > Ibid., vi. 18-20. 
 
 • Ibid., 21. The fine and prohibition were probably at the instanoe of 
 the generals, or people highest in authority, as a precaution against unduly 
 lilanuiug or depressing the people. Similar measures were taken against 
 
20 THE BIRDS 
 
 italics liave been regarded as something of a puzzle, and they 
 are generally taken as referring to the strong sympathy 
 which the Athenians felt for a people of their own stock, 
 who were supposed originally to have been a colony from 
 Attica. But this hardly accounts for the heavy fine. It 
 seems to me more probable that the Athenians were pain- 
 fully reminded of their desertion of them after the defeat 
 sustained at Ephesus, and of the losses among their own 
 people on that occasion. It was the first foreign adventure 
 on a considerable scale which they had undertaken, and, 
 from the account, we are justified in inferring that few had 
 returned home. They would recall their losses, and be 
 filled with apprehension for their own fate ; and they had 
 good reason, for within a few years the city of the Eretrians 
 in the adjacent island of Euboea, who had joined them in 
 the ill-fated expedition to Sardis, had been wiped out, and 
 the inhabitants reduced to slavery .^ 
 
 In the zeal of a certain school of writers for the claims of 
 democracy, a constant tendency is noticeable to modify 
 or suppress anything which may seem to detract from the 
 virtue and glory of Athens under the new constitution. It 
 is difiicult to see what instruction or advantage are derived 
 from this. Herodotus wrote with an eye on the favour of 
 the Athenians, and this, in itself, would account for the 
 reserve of this narrative. It seems probable that they had 
 received a staggering blow, and that just as Solon used his 
 verses to encourage them to attack Salamis, and Teitaeus 
 by his war songs put heart into the Spartans in their long 
 struggle with the Messenians, so Phrynicus used the drama 
 to rouse the Athenians to resist the Persian danger. It is 
 the first recorded instance of the ' political ' drama, ^ and 
 the heavy fine which was imposed shows the risks of it. 
 
 playwrights in Elizabethan times (though autocratically), as, for example, 
 in the play Sir Thomas More, where the actors were ordered by the Master 
 of the Revels to ' leaue out ye insurrection wholy and the cause thereof! 
 . . . att your own perrilles.' 
 
 ^ By the Persians, before they landed at Marathon, 490 B.C. 
 
 * Phrynicus is said to have been the first to make plays from the 
 mythology and history of his own country. 
 
THE BIRDS 21 
 
 The story throws light on the method of Aeschylus, by 
 whom this form of drama was carried on, till it reached its 
 culmination in his latest work. If we believe, as we surely 
 must, that an imaginative writer uses his experience and 
 the impressions derived from it for his work, we may be 
 certain that these events largely determined the character 
 of the plays of Aeschylus. It was not the battle of Marathon, 
 or that of Salamis ten years later, which alone, or in a para- 
 mount degree, inspired his poetry, for at the time of the first 
 he was already thirty-five years old. Far more it reflects 
 the story of the preceding years, and of the vicissitudes 
 through which Athens had passed from the time of his 
 boyhood. It is this, hardly less than his genius, which 
 gives to his plays their peculiar life and reality, and, in bear- 
 ing in mind these events, we are enabled to feel why it is 
 that his verse is charged with an intensity of moral feeling 
 and political effort hardly to be found to a like extent in 
 the work of any other poet. 
 
 Athens was spared the fate which overtook the neighbour- 
 ing city. Crossing from Euboea the Persians, under Datis 
 and Artaphernes, landed at Marathon, bringing with them 
 Hippias, whom Darius intended to re-establish in his own 
 interest as * tyrant.* They were repelled by the hoplites 
 of Attica under Miltiades, assisted by a small force from 
 Plataea, and Athens was freed from the peril of invasion 
 for ten years. ^ 
 
 Herodotus tells a story of the flashing of a bright shield 
 from a hill above to the retiring Persian fleet. His remarks 
 on the incident are very interesting : 
 
 * But it fills me with wonderment, and I can in no wise believe 
 c report, that the Alcmaeonidae had an understanding with 
 e Persians, and held them up a shield as a signal, wishing 
 Athens to be brought under the yoke of the barbarians and 
 Hippias. . . . 
 
 ' But perhaps they were offended with the people of Athens ; 
 and therefore betrayed their country. Nay but on the con- 
 trary, there were none of the Athenians who were held in such 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
22 "iS^Br THE BIRDS 1 
 
 general esteem, or who were so laden with honours. So that it 
 is not even reasonable to suppose that a shield was held up by 
 them on this account. A shield was shown, no doubt ; that 
 cannot be gainsaid ; but who it was that showed it I cannot .. _ 
 any further determine.' (vi. 121, 124.) ||l 
 
 In reading this it must be remembered that Pericles was 
 an Alcmaeonid, on his mother's side ; and it is therefore 
 not improbable that Herodotus, being unable to deny the 
 truth of a well-attested incident, was glad to take the 
 opportunity to discredit the explanation, or at least was 
 anxious — ^with his usual tact — ^not to give offence to the 
 ruler at Athens on whose favour he depended during his 
 visit there. Cleisthenes is no longer heard of in history at 
 this time, and there is a tradition that he was, at some 
 period, ostracised. It is possible, therefore, that by this 
 time the Alcmaeonid party had again been ousted. In|fl 
 the struggle for political power the Greeks, as their history 
 shows, were capable of almost anything. The consequences 
 of political defeat were so crushing — frequently exile, con- 
 fiscation of property, and loss of city — ^that we can under- 
 stand how it was that feelings of patriotism were often 
 subordinated to the desire for reinstatement and revenge. 
 The Alcmaeonids were more than ordinarily ambitious,^ 
 and it may be that they had by that time lost ground, and 
 that a reaction had set in in favour of the old Attic party. 
 It would be in accordance with general experience that 
 under the pressure of danger there should be a conservative 
 reaction. The reappearance at Athens of Miltiades, who 
 had for some time been living as ' tyrant ' in the Thracian 
 Chersonese, and his election as a general, also suggest this. 
 Though, therefore, there is no certain knowledge, it is not 
 beyond the bounds of possibility that the Alcmaeonid 
 party were at that time in communication with Hippias, 
 in the hope of making use of him against their political 
 opponents. In that case the victory of Marathon must 
 
 * Compare the case of Alcibiades, another member of this famous family, 
 on the mother's side. See also the remarks of Herodotus above as to the 
 bid made for popular support by Cleisthenes. 
 
THE BIRDS 
 
 23 
 
 have had a strengthening effect on the constitution. The 
 denunciation of treachery which Aeschylus puts into the 
 mouth of the chorus of women in their last speech in the 
 Prometheiis Bound, which has been regarded (quite reason- 
 ably, in my opinion) as a political allusion, is more likely 
 to be reminiscent of this than of any other subsequent 
 event. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Gstorical Survey {continued) : Marathon and Salamis, 
 Themistocles, Aristides, Aeschylus. 
 
 The battle of Marathon, which was fought in 490 b.c, is a 
 landmark in Athenian history. It was the culminating 
 point of the archaic age, when Attica was, in practice, still 
 ruled by its aristocracy, and the defence of the State depended 
 on the army, under hereditary territorial leaders. In later 
 times, when an urban democracy had grown up, which 
 depended not only for its safety, but largely for subsistence, 
 on the fleet, Marathon, not Salamis, was the achievement 
 which was dwelt upon and idealised by those who had 
 suffered poHtically by the change. Aristophanes, for 
 instance, describes the old men who form the chorus of the 
 Acharnians as ' old Marathon men, tough as maple,' and 
 pleads for the old broken-down warrior, who is bulhed by 
 young men in the law courts, as a ' Marathon man.' In the 
 Knights the sausage -seller, in the competition with Cleon 
 for the favour of * Demos,' offers him a soft cushion, * that 
 you may not gall that which fought at Salamis ' ; but 
 when he has reformed ' Demos ' by ' boiling him down,' he 
 announces him as ' conspicuous in the olden garb, wearing 
 the cicada,' such as * when he used to mess with Aristides 
 and Miltiades in olden time,' and he is hailed by the chorus 
 as * King of the Grecians . . . faring in a manner worthy of 
 the cities and of the trophy at Marathon.' So also in the 
 CloudSy when the * Unjust Cause ' derides the principles 
 of the ' Just Cause ' as ' antediluvian and full of grass- 
 hoppers,' 1 the latter repHes, * Yet these are the principles 
 by which my system of education nurtured the men who 
 fought at Marathon.' ^ 
 
 * Explained on the next page. 
 
 « Cf. also Frogs, 1296, ' VThat of this ' phlattothrat ? ' is it from 
 Marathon ? ' — of the lyrics of Aeschylus. 
 24 
 
THE BIEDS 26 
 
 A similar feeling is to be noticed in the mind of Thucydides. 
 In the famous review of antiquity with which his History 
 opens, he says, * The Athenians were the first who laid 
 aside arms [in daily intercourse] and adopted an easier and 
 more luxurious way of life. Quite recently the old-fashioned 
 refinement of dress still lingered among the elder men of 
 the richer class, who wore under-garments of linen, and 
 bound back their hair in a knot with golden clasps, in the 
 form of grasshoppers. ... On the other hand, the simple 
 dress which is now common was first worn at Sparta ; and 
 there, more than anywhere else, the life of the rich was 
 assimilated to that of the people.' As this was written in 
 the latter part of the century, after 432 B.C. and perhaps in 
 431 B.C., it indicates that manners at the time of the battle 
 of Marathon were still archaic and aristocratic. Thucydides 
 shows in many places that the backbone of the new demo- 
 cracy was the fleet, and he refers to the inhabitants of the 
 Piraeus, by whom it was largely manned, as ' the maritime 
 crowd ' {vavTtKo^ 0^^X09). In contrast, he draws a picture 
 of the Spartan line advancing to the battle at Mantinea in 
 the old-time array, in which all his sympathy goes out to 
 the disciplined order of that form of warfare, with regretful 
 contempt for the inferiority in it which had come over the 
 Athenians. Not that they were ever a match for the 
 • Dorian spear,' but in old days, before they * became 
 seamen,' through the second Persian invasion,^ and the 
 war with Aegina which preceded it, they would have given 
 ■fta better account of themselves as hopfites. They were 
 dragged into that campaign by Alcibiades in connection 
 with proceedings following a shameful trick perpetrated by 
 him on the Spartan ambassadors before the Assembly, and 
 the Athenians perhaps had little heart in the business ; but, 
 even so, the account of Thucydides, in which he takes no 
 pains to conceal his admiration for the Spartan discipline, 
 in contrast with the more spasmodic and less effective 
 energies of the other side, is significant. This came to be 
 the normal upper-class point of view. Athens was by 
 
 » Thuc. i. 18, and cf. vii. 21. 
 
26 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 I 
 
 situation an inland city, and its polity had subsisted through 
 countless generations on a military basis. The Athenians 
 were not by tradition or inclination a sea power any more 
 than were the Lacedaemonians ; * they had been made 
 sailors from necessity by the Persian invasion ' : ^ and the 
 change, when accompanied by the acquisition of a tributary 
 empire, entirely altered the balance of political power. 
 The territorial leader had to give place to the * pilot,' a 
 sharp fellow from the Piraeus. The change, of course, was 
 not perceived at first, but as the Athenians began to depend 
 more and more on the fleet, the prestige of the army, 
 together with its confidence and discipHne, began to decline. 
 The heavy defeat by the Boeotians which they sustained at 
 DeUum in 424 B.C., was regarded apparently as the turning 
 point .2 It was followed by the rout of the hoplites under 
 Cleon at AmphipoHs in the same year, and the Sicilian 
 disaster in 413 B.C. must have had a still more demoralising 
 effect. These consequences were dreaded by the elder 
 generation at the beginning of the century, as we can see 
 from the opposition offered by Aristides to the naval policy 
 of Themistocles, and in the Septem of Aeschylus, where the 
 poet puts out his whole strength to glorify and stimu- 
 late hoplitic valour .3 Closely connected with this feefing 
 was the admiration of Lacedaemonian institutions — ^the 
 ' Laconizing ' tendency — of the upper class, of which Cimon 
 and his friends were accused, and which by degrees became 
 a catchword of party suspicion. Later it was adopted 
 into the political theory of the philosophers, as can be 
 seen in the writings of Xenophon, and in such a passage as 
 the following from Plato : 
 
 Athenian Stranger [speaking of the * cruel tribute ' to 
 Minos, when the Athenians had no ships of war to repel the 
 enemy] . ' Better for them to have lost many times over the seven 
 youths, than that heavy armed and stationary troops should 
 
 * Thuc. vii. 21. ' See Xen. Mem., iii. 6. 
 
 * Cf. Aristoph. Frogs, 1021, where Aeschylus is made to say he gave 
 them a drama * stuffed with war ' ("Apews fxecrbv). 
 
THE BIRDS 27 
 
 have been turned into sailors, and accustomed to leap quickly 
 on shore, and again to hurry back to their ships ; or should have 
 fancied that there was no disgrace in not awaiting the attack of 
 an enemy and dying boldly ; and that there were good reasons, 
 and plenty of them, for a man throwing away his arms, and 
 betaking himself to flight ; which is affirmed upon occasion not 
 to be dishonourable. This is the language of naval warfare, and 
 is anything but worthy of extraordinary praise. . . . 
 
 * . . . Moreover naval powers, which owe their safety to ships, 
 do not honour that sort of warlike excellence which is most 
 deserving of honour. For he who owes his safety to the pilot 
 and the captain and the oarsman, and all sorts of rather good- 
 for-nothing persons, cannot rightly give honour to whom honour 
 is due. But how can a state be in a right condition which cannot 
 duly award honour ? ' 
 
 Cleinias. * It is hardly possible, I admit ; and yet. Stranger, 
 we Cretans are in the habit of saying that the battle of Salamis 
 was the salvation of Hellas.* 
 
 Athenian. * Why, yes ; and that is the opinion which prevails 
 widely among Hellenes and barbarians. But Megillus and I say, 
 rather, that the battle of Marathon was the beginning, and the 
 battle of Plataea the completion of the great deUverance, and 
 that these battles made the Hellenes better ; whereas the sea- 
 fights of Salamis and Artemisium, for I may as well put them 
 both together, made them no better, if I may say this without 
 offence about the battles which helped to save us. And in 
 estimating the goodness of a state, we regard both the situation 
 of a country and the order of the laws, considering that the mere 
 preservation and continuance of life is not the most honourable 
 thing for men, as the vulgar think, but the continuance of the 
 best life, while we live.* * 
 
 No doubt there is some prejudice, as well as idealism, 
 in this view ; but it has this practical justification, that 
 the battle of Salamis was so far from being decisive, that if 
 Mardonius had won at Plataea in the following year, 
 nothing could have saved Athens. The Thebans had 
 already submitted, the Argives were ready to go over 
 owing to hatred of Sparta (for which they had good cause), 
 and the Spartans and their Peloponnesian allies would have 
 > Plato, Lawe, iv. 706, 707 (tr. Jowett). 
 
28 THE BIRDS 
 
 at once retreated beyond the isthmus, which they had 
 fortified. The Athenians would have been left to their 
 fate, and must have either perished in battle, their wives 
 and children being sold as slaves, or have sailed en masse, 
 so far as that was possible, to Italy. They had refused the 
 terms which Mardonius offered them before he marched on 
 Athens, and even if he had offered them again, they could 
 not have accepted them, as the condition would have been 
 to march with the Persians against their late friends and 
 allies. For them, therefore, everything depended on the 
 battle of Plataea, and, for reasons connected with the 
 manoeuvres, and long hesitation on both sides to engage, 
 the battle was decided by the Spartan and Tegean hoplites 
 without the support of the Athenians. It is not surprising, 
 therefore, that the Spartans in later years took somewhat 
 coolly the claims made by the Athenians to have been 
 the liberators of Hellas. They certainly followed up the 
 victories of 480-479 with great energy and success, but 
 this was entirely to their own advantage. Of course it may 
 be said that if it had not been for the victory at Salamis, 
 the Peloponnese as well as Attica would have been subdued 
 by Persia, but this was evidently not the view of Sparta, 
 as can be seen from Herodotus. The Spartans had arrived 
 too late for the battle of Marathon, but had seen and 
 praised the results of Athenian valour, and what the 
 Athenians, who were lonians, had done in the way of 
 repelling a landing, we may be sure that the Dorian Spartans 
 felt absolute confidence they could do, and much more 
 besides.^ Moreover, the performance of Leonidas and the 
 three hundred Spartan hoplites at Thermopylae justified 
 them in the opinion that, with their allies, they were a 
 match on land for any force which Persia could bring 
 against them. Hence, as we see by the account of 
 Herodotus,^ the forward position which the defence of 
 Attica entailed was only accepted by them with reluctance ; 
 and though their final decision may have been taken mainly 
 
 ^ Cf. Thuc. vii. 5 (speech of Gylippus). 
 « Herod, ix. 6-9. 
 
THE BIRDS 29 
 
 on strategic grounds, it seems probable that they were also 
 influenced to some extent by Hellenic feeling. In any case 
 they were mainly instrumental on that occasion in saving 
 the Athenians, which in after years the latter were not 
 very anxious to remember. In the Persae of Aeschylus, 
 however, the * Dorian Spear ' is mentioned as the instrument 
 of the victory.^ 
 
 To those who, like Professor Bury, profess to see nothing 
 but chance and human inteUigence in the order of human 
 affairs, the appearance on the stage at certain moments of 
 time of the ' man of destiny ' must be very difficult to 
 account for. Such a man was Themistocles the Athenian. 
 It is no use to say that he was the product of * democracy ' ; 
 there was no such thing at Athens, as that word is generally 
 understood, in his early life. There was a constitution, but 
 the mass of the people were not actively engaged in poHtics. 
 For one thing they were very ignorant, for another they 
 had not yet learned their strength, and evidently did not 
 begin to do so until some years after the second Persian 
 invasion. It was then that Aristides, who was something 
 of an opportunist, brought them in from the country in 
 large numbers to serve the needs of the growing tributary 
 empire in paid positions. But at the time of which we are 
 speaking, the mass of the citizens were bound, through 
 necessity, to the soil, or engaged at sea and in manual 
 avocations. Themistocles simply appeared, and without 
 the support of family connections, in isolation from the 
 general body of citizens, whom he persuaded or cajoled, in 
 the face of powerful prejudice, deeply rooted not only in 
 the history but in the religious ideas of the race, he con- 
 verted Athens into a sea state. And when he had done it 
 his power waned — the people ' grew weary ' of him, and he 
 was ostracised. 
 
 * ' So great shall be the mass of clotted gore in the Plataean^s land 
 beneath the Dorian spear ' (speech of the ghost of Darius). The Spartans 
 on this occasion put 5000 Spartan hophtes into the field, each attended by 
 seven Helots ; also 5000 Periaeci, 'all picked men,' each with an attendant 
 — a total force of 50,000. The whole united Groek force in the field was 
 about 110,000. Herod, ix. 28-30. 
 
I 
 
 30 THE BIRDS 
 
 That Athens should have emerged from the normal 
 isolation of a Greek inland state, and become the centre of 
 a maritime empire, is in itself no great matter, for its life 
 as an imperial power lasted only some seventy -four years. 
 Nor were its political struggles of any immediate value to 
 the world, because they were not essentially different from 
 those of many other Greek states of which we know less, 
 and, unlike those of Rome, they left little direct impress 
 on succeeding ages. Regarded indeed from a material 
 standpoint the history of Athens in the fifth century is a 
 record of abortive effort. It seems reasonable therefore 
 to beheve that the end and object of this pecuhar combina- 
 tion in human life, for which there is no parallel in recorded 
 history, was a spiritual one, and that this shortlived 
 empire, with all its restless activities, was a necessary 
 medium for the production and effective propagation of 
 certain ideas. 
 
 The instrument of this sudden and surprising evolution 
 was, beyond all other men, Themistocles. Through him 
 the way was prepared and the opportunity given to the 
 Attic character to find itself in effort and that variety 
 of life which can only be produced by material resources ; I 
 and a common centre for intellectual ideas was estabUshed 
 for a long and fruitful period. The far-reaching designs of « 
 Themistocles were brought about chiefly by two measures, f 
 the construction of a fleet and the fortification of the 
 Piraeus. We read that he persuaded the populace in 
 Assembly to forgo a distribution of money which they 
 expected from a windfall to the public treasury from the 
 silver mines of Laurion, and to entrust it to him as a loan 
 to the hundred richest men in Athens, one talent each, for 
 a purpose to be subsequently approved, or the money to be 
 restored to the State. * On these terms he received the 
 money, and with it he had a hundred triremes built, each 
 of the hundred individuals building one ; and it was with 
 these ships they fought the battle of Salamis against the 
 barbarians.' ^ Similarly, he persuaded the citizens to fortify 
 
 * 'kdTiv. HoX. 22. 
 
V 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
 THE BIRDS ai 
 
 the Piraeus, the last thing they would have done of them- 
 selves, for reasons already indicated, to which may be added 
 the apprehensions of rehgious feeling, and the lack of fore- 
 sight depending on imagination, a quahty at all times 
 possessed by comparatively few, and the nearer to nature 
 the less in evidence. That this was no ordinary feat, the 
 words of Thucydides sufficiently indicate : ' He first dared 
 to say that they must make the sea their domain, and he 
 lost no time in laying the foundations of their empire ' ; and 
 we read further : ' The Piraeus appeared to him to be of 
 more real consequence than the upper city. He was fond 
 of telling the Athenians that if ever they were hard pressed 
 on land, they should go down to the Piraeus and fight the 
 world at sea.' ^ Such ideas were entirely foreign to Athenian 
 tradition, yet Themistocles prevailed in the face of opposition 
 from the regular leaders, including Aristides, who, according 
 to Plutarch, ' held the second place [after Miltiades] both 
 for reputation and power ' at Marathon. It is supposed, 
 and with reason, that the ostracism of Aristides in 582 B.C. 
 was connected with this struggle. 
 
 Two passages from Plutarch, which throw further light 
 on the significance of this revolution, and the political 
 feelings which it excited, may be quoted. The first is 
 from the account of the visit of the Cretan Epimenides to 
 Athens in the time of Solon, who is said to have advised 
 him as to his legislation, and who evidently disguised 
 statesmanship under the sanctity of the seer : 
 
 * It is reported that looking upon Munychia, and considering a 
 long while, he said to those that stood by, " How blind is man in 
 future things ! for did the Athenians foresee what mischief this 
 would do their city, the}' would even eat it with their own teeth 
 to be rid of it." ' 
 
 The second passage is from the Life of Themistocles : 
 
 * After this he took order for the construction of Piraeus, per- 
 ceiving the excellence of its harbours, and being desirous to 
 
 * Thuc. i. 93 ; an account of the fortification of the Piraeus after the 
 final defeat of the Persians, of which Themistocles ' had made a beginning 
 in hia year of office as archon,' at an earlier date. 
 
32 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 adapt the whole city to the sea. In this he pursued, in a 
 manner, a policy the opposite to that of the ancient kings of 
 Attica ; for they are said to have endeavoured to keep their 
 subjects away from the sea, and to accustom them to till the 
 ground instead of going on board ships, quoting a legend that 
 Athene and Poseidon had a contest for the possession of the 
 land, and that she defeated him by displajdng to the dicasts the 
 sacred ohve. Themistocles, on the other hand, did not so much 
 " plaster Piraeus on to Athens," as Aristophanes the comic poet 
 says, as fasten the city dependent to Piraeus, and the land to the 
 sea. By this means he increased the power and confidence of 
 the people against the nobility ; the authority coming into the 
 hands of sailors and boatswains and pilots. Thus it was one of 
 the orders of the thirty tyrants, that the Bema, or tribune, in the 
 Assembly should be turned round towards the land ; implying 
 their opinion that the empire by sea had been the origin of the 
 democracy, and that an ohgarchy had less to apprehend from 
 men who cultivated the land.' 
 
 Our knowledge of the period which follows the final 
 defeat of the Persian host at Plataea (and concurrently on 
 the Asiatic side of the Aegean at Mycale) in 479, down to 
 the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431, known, in 
 round figures, as the ' Fifty years,' is very meagre, as the 
 history of Herodotus ends with the beginning of this period, 
 and that of Thucydides begins at the end of it. As it was 
 the period of the growth and climax of the Athenian empire, 
 the absence of contemporary historical records leaves us 
 in much doubt on many points of interest. Thucydides 
 gives a brief summary of the principal events in explanation 
 of ' how the Athenian empire grew up,' which is our leading 
 authority, and, for the rest, we are dependent mainly on 
 the Lives of Plutarch, and, since 1891, on the recovered 
 Aristotelian treatise of the next century. We have also 
 the seven surviving plays of Aeschylus, which, being con- 
 temporary, are in some particulars, as I shall hope to show, 
 of much greater historical value than has hitherto been 
 recognised. Thucydides apologises for his brief digression 
 on the ground that the only writer who had treated of the 
 period (' Hellanicus ') was * very brief and inaccurate in his 
 
THE BIRDS 33 
 
 chronology.* ^ But he himself could hardly have been 
 briefer, interesting as his remarks are as far as they go. 
 
 Next to Themistocles, and in opposition to him, the 
 leading personahty at Athens during the years between the 
 first and the second Persian invasions, and the ten years, 
 or thereabouts, following the final victories, was Aristides. 
 It is the fashion now to describe him as a * democrat,' ^ on 
 evidence in the lately discovered AristoteHan treatise. 
 But the description is entirely misleading, and ignores the 
 evidence of Plutarch, who says : 
 
 Aristides, ' being the friend and supporter of that Cleisthenes, 
 who settled the government after the expulsion of the tyrants, 
 and emulating and admiring Lycurgus the Lacedaemonian above 
 all politicians, adhered to the aristocratical principles of govern- 
 ment ; and had Themistocles, son of Neocles, his adversary on 
 the side of the populace.' ' 
 
 The defence against the Persian invasion (which com- 
 prised the two sea fights of Artemisium and Salamis, and 
 the three land battles of Thermopylae, Plataea, and Mycale *) 
 had been conducted under the headship of Sparta. Her 
 half-hearted support, however, in the measures for clearing 
 the Aegean and Hellespont which followed, and the insolent 
 and intemperate conduct of Pausanias, one of the two 
 Spartan kings, who still commanded the aUied fleets, resulted 
 in the allegiance of the allies being transferred to the 
 Athenian commanders, Xanthippus (father of Pericles) and 
 Aristides . This movement was the beginning of the Athenian 
 maritime ascendency, and it was consohdated with great 
 diplomatic skill by Aristides by the confederacy of Delos, 
 under which a number of island and seaboard states agreed 
 to join Athens in a league against the Persian power in the 
 Aegean, and to accept his assessment of the respective 
 quotas to be contributed by each in ships or money. In 
 
 » Thuc. i. 97. * Adolf Holm, Bury. 
 
 * Pint. Arist. Plutarch regarded the constitution of Cleisthenes as 
 * aristocratic' See Life of Cimon, who is described as * anxious to restore 
 the old aristocracy of the time of Cleisthenes.' 
 
 * Myoale, nominally an engeigement of fleets, was fought on land. 
 
 C 
 
34 THE BIRDS 
 
 these proceedings Aristides associated with himself Cimon 
 the son of Miltiades, then a young man of noble appear- 
 ance, and much beloved by the common people, who proved 
 himself a commander of exceptional genius, and who, more 
 than any one else, built up the Athenian empire in war. 
 
 The combination of these two men evidently also proved 
 effective against the supremacy of Themistocles, whose 
 briUiant quahties, united with a corrupt and unscrupulous 
 character, were becoming a danger to the State. He 
 belonged, in fact, to the order of exceptional men for 
 whom the bounds of a Greek city-state were too narrow. 
 In Athens such men invariably appealed to the populace 
 against the upper and middle classes, and moved in the 
 direction of a tyranny. Thus Pisistratus, who is referred 
 to as a * democrat ' ; Themistocles, who is described by 
 Plutarch, in connection with the combination against him 
 of Cimon and Aristides, as * advancing the authority of the 
 people beyond its just limits ' ; Pericles, who established 
 his power, as against Gmon, in the first instance by the 
 lavish use of pubHc money ; Alcibiades, who * cared no 
 more for ohgarchy than he did for democracy,' ^ and 
 who, on his return to Athens after his victories, * won so 
 upon the lower and meaner sort of people, that they passion- 
 ately desired to have him tyrant over them ' ; ^ and per- 
 haps to this list we might add, speculatively, Cleisthenes, 
 though the end of his career is lost to us. In Sparta, where 
 the constitution was more stable, and guarded by a rigid 
 discipline, the only opening for such men was in foreign 
 adventure, where their nature, unaccustomed to freedom, 
 not seldom broke away in insolence and oppression. Such 
 a man was Pausanias ; yet evidently a great man in gifts 
 of nature, for Thucydides ranges him with Themistocles 
 in his account of their respective tragedies : * Such was the 
 end of Pausanias the Lacedaemonian, and Themistocles the 
 Athenian, the two most famous Hellenes of their day.' ^ 
 
 Aristides is a not too common example among the pubUc 
 men of Athens of a man who was truly disinterested in his 
 
 » Thuc. vui. 48. * Plut. Ale. 34. » Thuc. i. 138. 
 
THE BIRDS 35 
 
 service to the State as a whole ; and such was his sense 
 of justice and integrity that his contemporaries seem to 
 have rather chafed under it as a reflection on themselves. 
 He was evidently also a great warrior, and furnished in his 
 personality the material for a representative idealisation of 
 the archaic age, then in process of passing away. Of the 
 same order, and a product of the same forces and culture, 
 was Aeschylus, who, there is every reason to think, was his 
 friend, certainly his devoted admirer. 
 
 The character of Aristides forbids us to infer that the 
 conflict between him and Themistocles was merely the 
 result of the usual clash of personal or party rivalry. The 
 two men represented forces which were permanent, and 
 brought into active operation by the problems of empire, 
 and the struggle between them may be said to have deter- 
 mined the lines of political conflict at Athens throughout 
 the century. The aim of Themistocles was to throw off the 
 Spartan hegemony, which depended on the character and 
 mihtary training of her citizens, and to render Athens 
 supreme in Greece. This, he foresaw, could be done by 
 sea -power, and turning Athens, by artificial means, as 
 nearly as possible into an island. He did not live to see the 
 completion of his scheme, and it was not until 457-456 B.C. 
 that it was carried out, when at the instigation of Pericles, 
 who took up the pohcy of Themistocles which had been in 
 abeyance under the rule of Cimon, the Long Walls, which 
 joined Athens to the Piraeus, were built. Themistocles 
 also perceived that this policy, which coincided with his 
 own vast ambitions, could only be effected in rehance on 
 the mass of the people, and it lent itself, in the hands of 
 unscrupulous men, to the lower rather than the higher 
 appeal. The people were ignorant, superstitious, and in- 
 experienced, but they loved glory and power, and soon 
 I realised that a tributary empire provided a means of sub- 
 mstence without labour for themselves. It also greatly 
 increased their political strength as against the wealthier 
 classes. It is easy to understand therefore that, in such a 
 scheme, appeals to ancient Pan-Hellenic sentiment, and for 
 
36 THE BIRDS 
 
 good relations with Sparta, and justice to the allies, fell, 
 among the great majority, on indifferent ears. 
 
 Aristides, on the other hand, who represented the old 
 order on the constitutional side, evidently looked with the 
 utmost apprehension on the new departure. He probably 
 saw in it a prospect, which was reaUsed later, of fratricidal war 
 among the Greeks, of growing insolence among the people, 
 to the destruction of the social order, and of the substitution, 
 as regards the alhed states, of a rule of unscrupulous dicta- 
 tion for dealings in harmony with traditional Greek feehng 
 as to the sovereign rights of the city-state. His poHcy, 
 therefore, which was followed by Cimon, and became that 
 of the conservative, or * constitutional ' party throughout, 
 was to direct their warlike efforts against non-Greeks, and, 
 in the Greek world, to cultivate good relations (so far as 
 that was possible in the altered circumstances) with Sparta, 
 and a reasonable forbearance towards the alHes, with whom 
 in many cases the wealthier classes were closely connected 
 by family and business relations. He was wise enough, 
 however, to see that, after the Persian wars, the time had 
 gone by when the restraints of the old order could still be 
 imposed on the mass of the citizens by the will of an aristo- 
 cracy, and that, unless wise concessions were made, Themis - 
 tocles, or others who might succeed him, would carry all 
 before them, perhaps through the violence of revolution 
 (<7Tao-i9), and one of those sanguinary pages which darken 
 the annals of the Greek city-states be opened in Athens. 
 He also must have seen, after the part played by the fleet 
 against the Persians, that the time for opposing the naval 
 policy of Themistocles was past, and he no doubt became 
 convinced by his own experience in organising the Con- 
 federacy of Delos that the future of Athens, for better or 
 worse, was bound up in that policy. Such a poHcy required 
 large numbers of trained men for the ships, and to guard 
 the outpostsfof a growing dominion. Accordingly, we find 
 him passing into law a great * democratic ' measure, which 
 not only provided for this, but at the same time offered an 
 outlet for that considerable body of the population which 
 
THE BIRDS 37 
 
 in Attica was always under the pressure of poverty, and even 
 on the brink of starvation, and was in consequence a source 
 of trouble in the State. ^ Plutarch describes this, but before 
 coming to his evidence I quote from the Aristotelian treatise, 
 which was evidently his main source . The passage describes , 
 in general terms, the poHtical situation at Athens from 
 the battle of Salamis in 480 to the overthrow of the Council 
 of the Areopagus, as a political body, in, or about, 462 B.C. : 
 
 23. 'Up to this point had the city progressed by this time in 
 gradual growth, the democracy giowing with it ; but after the 
 Persian wars the Council of the Areopagus once more developed 
 strength and assumed the control of the state. It did not 
 acquire this supremacy by virtue of any formal decree, but 
 because it had been the cause of the battle of Salamis being 
 fought. When the generals were utterly at a loss how to meet the 
 crisis and made proclamation that every one must see to his own 
 safety, the Areopagus provided a donation of money, distributing 
 eight drachmas to each member of the ships' crew, and so pre- 
 vailed on them to go on board. On these grounds it obtained a 
 great advance in pubHc estimation ; and during this period 
 Athens was well administered. At this time they devoted 
 themselves to the prosecution of the war and were in high 
 repute among the Greeks, and the command of the sea was con- 
 ferred upon them, in spite of the opposition of the Lacedae- 
 monians. The leaders of the people ^ during this period were 
 Aristides and Themistocles ' [the latter conducting business 
 connected with war, while the former] ' had a reputation of being 
 a clever statesman and the most upright man of his time. 
 Accordingly the one was usually employed as general, the other 
 as a poHtical adviser.' [Politically they were opponents.] 
 
 24. 'After this, seeing the state growing in wealth and con- 
 fidence, and much wealth accumulated, he [Aristides] advised 
 the people to lay hold of the leadership of the League, and to quit 
 the country districts and settle in the city. He pointed out to 
 
 * Compare the proceedings of Solon and Pisistratue referred to above. 
 
 • irpoardTrji, originally used to describe a citizen chosen by common 
 consent of the people (the ' demos ') to protect, or champion their cause — 
 as Solon was. Later, as the democracy became the ruling power, the term 
 was used to describe the chief political loader on either side, that of the 
 people and of the wealthier class respectively. 
 
38 THE BIRDS 
 
 them that all would be able to gain a living there, some by service 
 in the army, others in the garrisons, others by taking part in 
 pubhc affairs ; and in this way they would secure the leadership. 
 This advice was taken ; and when the people had assumed the 
 supreme control they proceeded to treat their aUies in a more 
 imperious fashion. ... 
 
 ' They also secured an ample maintenance for the mass of the 
 population in the way which Aristides pointed out to them. 
 Out of the proceeds of the tributes and the taxes and the con- 
 tributions of the alHes more than twenty thousand persons were 
 maintained.' [The passage proceeds to specify the services, e.g. 
 knights, bowmen, guards, hopHtes, crews for the ships, both 
 fighting and collecting the tribute, magistrates, members of the 
 Council and jurymen (' dicasts '), the last item, and perhaps 
 some others, being evidently put in by anticipation, as pa3maent 
 of the dicasts was not made until after the close of the period to 
 which these extracts relate — by Pericles (see below, p. 55) .] 
 
 25. ' In this way the people earned their HveUhood. The 
 supremacy of the Areopagus lasted, however, for about seventeen 
 years after the Persian wars, although gradually dechning. But 
 after the strength of the masses increased, Ephialtes, a man with 
 a reputation for incorruptibihty and possessing a high pubhc 
 character, who had become the leader of the people, made an 
 attack upon that Council. First of all he caused the destruction 
 of many of its members by bringing actions against them with 
 reference to their administration. Then, in the archonship of 
 Conon [462 B.C.], he stripped the Council of all the acquired 
 prorogative from which it derived its guardianship of the Con- 
 stitution, and assigned some of them to the Council of Five 
 Hundred, and others to the Assembly and the Law Courts.' 
 
 We may glance now at the evidence of Plutarch, though^ 
 in doing so, we must bear in mind that, in writing the 
 * Lives of famous persons,' the object which he had primarily 
 in view was to provide examples for emulation.^ In his 
 sketch of Aristides, in whom he sees an ideal type of antiquity, 
 he evidently found the lines for his portrait somewhat dis- 
 turbed by certain aberrations, as he would regard them, 
 in the career of his model from the ideal standard, as, for 
 instance, in his compromise with the growing democratic 
 1 Cf . Life oj PerieUs^ introductory remarks. 
 
THE BIRDS 3^ 
 
 movement, and he seeks to palliate them by describing 
 Aristides — no doubt correctly — as a man apart : ' He 
 walked, so to say, alone on his own path in poHtics ' ; and 
 further : * In his own private affairs, and those of his feUow 
 citizens, he was rigorously just, but in public matters he 
 acted often in accordance with his country's poHcy, which 
 demanded sometimes not a little injustice.' He says that 
 * Aristides perceived that the Athenians, after their return 
 into the city [after Plataea], were eager for democracy ; and 
 deeming the people to deserve consideration on account 
 of their vahant behaviour, as also that it was a matter of 
 difl&culty, they being well armed, powerful, and full of 
 spirit with their victories, to oppose them by force, he 
 brought forward a decree that every one might share in the 
 government, and the archons be chosen out of the whole 
 body of the Athenians.' [The third class were not, in fact, 
 admitted to the archonship until the time of Pericles, 
 c. 458 B.C.] Plutarch also tells us that peculation was rife 
 at Athens, that Aristides brought unpopularity on himself 
 in his endeavours to control it, and was at last impeached 
 and condemned for ' robbing the public ' himself at the 
 instance of Themistocles and his associates, whose mal- 
 practices he had exposed ; but that the sentence was 
 revoked owing to the indignant intervention of ' the best 
 and chief est men of the city.' Lastly, it may reasonably be 
 inferred that, like other eminent men at Athens, he fell on 
 evil days, either through the caprice and jealousy of the 
 people, or as the result of party intrigue. Nepos ^ accepts 
 the story, and gives it as a proof of his ' integrity,' that * he 
 
 Idled in such poverty that he scarcely left money to defray 
 Bthe charges of his funeral.' Plutarch, however, gives the 
 following account : 
 
 I 
 
 * Some say Aristides died in Pontus, on a voyage there on state 
 business, some that he died of old age at Athens, honoured and 
 admired by the citizens. Craterus of Macedon gives the follow- 
 ing account of his end. After the banishment of Themistocles, 
 
 ^ Lives : * Aristides.' 
 
40 THE BIRDS 
 
 he says that the common people, growing insolent, produced a 
 numerous brood of informers, who were constantly accusing the 
 better and most influential men in the state, with a view to 
 subjecting them to the envy of the multitude, whom their pros- 
 perity and power had filled with self-conceit. One of these, 
 Diophantus of Amphi trope, obtained a verdict against Aristides 
 on a charge of taking bribes, namely, that when he was setthng 
 the assessments for the tribute, he received money from the 
 lonians [to tax them more lightly], and as he was unable to pay 
 the fine of fifty minae which was imposed on him, he left Athens 
 and died somewhere in Ionia. But Craterus offers no documentary 
 evidence of this, . . . though he generally does so in such 
 matters. And almost all others who have spoken of the ill- 
 treatment of their generals by the people mention the banishment 
 of Themistocles, the bonds of Miltiades, the fine of Pericles, the 
 suicide of Paches in court before the dicasts when judgment was 
 given against him, and many other similar examples which they 
 collect and discuss ; but although they speak of the ostracism of 
 Aristides, they nowhere mention the trial and sentence.' (26.) 
 
 Plutarch thus seeks to discredit the account of Craterus, 
 evidently because it seemed to reflect on the character of 
 his hero ; still it is not only circumstantial, but in accordance 
 with other experience. Moreover a public man at Athens 
 seldom survived loss of popularity, and admiration of past 
 services was not a quality of which the history of the 
 Athenians affords much evidence. It is the first part of 
 the account therefore, not the story of Craterus, which seems 
 to me to be the more improbable.^ 
 
 This view is strongly supported by the allusions by 
 Aeschylus to Aristides under the description of the warrior 
 prophet in the Seven against Thebes. I am aware that some 
 critics refuse to accept the lines as referring to him, but 
 they advance no arguments against the strong internal 
 evidence to the contrary. Even if Plutarch had not 
 mentioned the tradition that the lines were taken by the 
 audience at the time to refer to Aristides, they could not 
 fail, even at this date, to suggest the identification. Read 
 
 * It would not necessarily follow that Aristides was guilty of peculation, 
 as such prosecutions were a regular means of bringing down a public man. 
 
THE BIRDS 41 
 
 with what we gather from other sources the passage shows 
 that Aristides was at that time in poHtical trouble. The 
 play is said to have been acted in 467 B.C. and, according to 
 Nepos, Aristides died * about four years after Themistocles 
 was banished from Athens,' which might be in 467 B.C., or 
 possibly a year or two after. ^ 
 
 The poHtical purpose which Aeschylus seems to have 
 had in view in composing this drama was partly to correct, 
 by a noble picture of hopUtic warfare, the tendency which 
 was already beginning to show itself to neglect miHtary 
 training and discipUne under the influences of the new 
 naval poHcy, partly to warn his contemporaries, by example, 
 against insolence, more particularly in their deaUngs with 
 the new aUies ; that being the prevailing vice among the 
 Greeks, and among none of them more than the Athenians. 
 Their tendency was to become unbearable in prosperity,^ 
 the more so as the ancient restraints of authority became 
 relaxed under democratic developments. Athens, which 
 was unfortified from the time of Pisistratus to the Persian 
 invasion, had been twice abandoned to the enemy, but the 
 walls had now been rebuilt, and the poet, in picturing the 
 terrible fate from which they had narrowly escaped, appeals 
 to the patriotism of the citizens to keep up their military 
 training and discipline. In the wonderful description, 
 placed in the mouth of the chorus of women, of the sack 
 of an ancient city and the enslavement of the women and 
 children, there is evidently also an appeal against such 
 practices perpetrated by Greeks on Greeks, more especially 
 when united in a confederacy hallowed by common reUgious 
 
 ,^ rites. 
 
 IP A few passages may be cited in illustration of these 
 remarks. First the patriotic appeal by Eteocles : 
 
 tv/xas St )(^pij vvv^ Ktti Tov iWeiirovT €tl 
 ^Py]s aK/xaias, Kal toi/ €^r]/3ov XP^^V 
 » • After 467,' Adolf Holm, History of Greece, English translation, 1899, 
 ii. 122. 
 
 • Cf. Aesch. Prom. Vinct. 1000, Hermes to Prometheus, elrjs <f>oprp^b% ovk Slv, 
 el Tpdaaois KokCJs. 
 
42 THE BIRDS 
 
 ^curTYffAov dkSaivovra artofiaros ttoAuv, 
 &pav t' €)(ov$' CKao-Tov, &(rr€ crv/iTrpeircs, 
 TToAei t' dpT^yeiv Kal diiov kyyjuiploiv 
 /3(o/>iot(ri, Tt/Aots /A^ '^akiLKJiOrjvai. Trore, 
 
 T6KV04S T€, Fy T€ fJitJTpij (fnXrOLTy T/DO^O), 
 
 •^ yap v€ovs epirovTas evpevel ireSipj 
 
 diravTa iravSoKovaa TraiSeias otAov, 
 
 idpkxpar' oiKKTTTJpas dcnrL8r](f>6pov'S 
 
 TTio-Tovs, oTTcos yevotcT^c 7r/)b5 X/^^^^' ToSe.* (10-20.) 
 
 Then the following, also spoken by Eteocles : 
 
 (5 Zev T€ Kal Trj Kal iro Xi(ra-ovxoi' dtoC, 
 
 'Apd t' 'E/31VVS TTOTpos 1^ fiiyacrdcv'qSy 
 
 firj fioi TToXiv ye irpvfjLVoOev Travuikedpov 
 
 iKdafxvLcrrjre SydXiorov, 'EAAaSos 
 
 <f)d6yyov x^ovo-av, Kal Sofxovs e<f>€(TTiovs' 
 
 Ikevdepav Se y^v T€ Kal KaSfiov ttoXlv 
 
 ^vyoicri SovXeioia-L fi-qirore (rxtdttv. 
 
 ykvetrde 8' (xAkt^* ^vva 8' cAtti^o) Aeyeti/* 
 
 iroAts yap cS 7r/9a(r<rova-a Salpovas tUi.^ (69-77.) 
 
 And the description by the chorus of the sack of a city, 
 of which the following are the opening Unes : 
 
 olKTpov yap TToAtv £8' b}yvyiav At5^ irpoidxfiat Sopo^ 
 dypav 
 SovAtav, \fa<f>apJL (nroBiS 
 vir' dvSpos 'Axo-toi^ deodev 
 mpOofxkvav art/AWS" 
 
 * * You now it behoves — both him that yet falls short of manhood' t 
 prime, and him that is past it but yet retains vigour of body, and each 
 one of the age of military service, as is only right — to succour his city and 
 altars of the ancestral gods, so that their worship be not ever put an end 
 to, and his children, and the earth his mother kindliest nurse. For she, 
 when they were yet yoimg things crawling on her kindly plain, took upon 
 herself all the trouble of their nurture, and reared them as her inhabitants, 
 a shield-bearing and trusty people, that ye might prove yourselves such 
 at the present need.' 
 
 * ' O Zeus, and Earth, and gods who guard our city, and thou Curse, 
 the mighty Erinys of my father, eictirpate not root and branch, I pray, 
 in utter ruin of capture by an enemy, our city which utters the speech of 
 Hellas, with our hearths and homes ! May none ever restrain a free land 
 and Cadmus' city in the yoke of slavery ; but be our protection. And 
 herein I am confident that I voice the common interest ; for a city which 
 prospers pays worship to her gods. ' 
 
I 
 
 THE BIRDS 43 
 
 Tflts St Kt)(€Lp<t)fJMvas ayco-^o* 
 irjf vcas T€ Kal TraAaias 
 linrrjBov ttAokci/xcui', 
 ir€pippr]yvvfX€ViJi}V <^apk(av, 
 
 J3o^ Sk Kol K€VOV/X€Va TToAlS, 
 
 XatSos oAAv/xci/as 
 
 fii^odpoov (iapiia^ 
 
 TOk Tv\CL^ TTporapPio} (311-322.) 
 
 That Aeschylus made use of the character of the seer 
 Amphiaraus for a political allusion to Aristides, seems to 
 me quite clear from the language used. The furious warrior 
 Tydeus is spoken of as taunting him with ' lack of spirit ' 
 (378), and in the lament over his coming fate he is referred 
 to by Eteocles with special emphasis under the title of 
 * just,' by which Aristides was known. The speech indicates 
 that Aristides was then in political difficulties and that his 
 fall was imminent. Thus : 
 
 ' Alas for the luck which in mortal affairs associates the just 
 man with the impious ! In every undertaking nothing is worse 
 than evil company. . . . Indeed a righteous man, embarked on 
 a ship as Eissociate of reckless sailors and some viUainy, has ere 
 now perished with the heaven-detested crew. Or again, a just 
 man associated with stranger-hating ^ citizens, who forget the 
 gods, falling himself into the same snare with them, has ere 
 now been laid low by the scourge of heaven which visits all 
 ahke. Even so the seer, I mean the son of Oecles, a man modest 
 and just and brave and righteous,^ a prophet of renown, through 
 his association with impious men of unbridled tongues, who are 
 going a long march in despite of reason, shall, by the wiU of Zeus, 
 be dragged down with them to reach that far-off city.' 
 
 * ' 'Tis a piteous thii^g to send to destruction a city of ancient fame, a 
 prey of the spear, reduced to slavery, shamefully ruined in cnmibling dust 
 by the hand of an Achaean through the will of the gods ; and that these 
 women should be dragged away as captives, young and old — ah me ! — 
 by the hair, like horses by their manes, with tearing of their robes about 
 them. The city groans aloud being made desolate, as the captives of 
 mingled speech are carried away. I anticipate with dread a grievous 
 fate.' (Trans, based on that by C. E. S. Headlam, M.A-, * Bell's Classical 
 Translations.') 
 
 • ' Churlish ' — C. E. S. Hecuilam, whose translation is here followed. 
 
44 THE BIRDS 
 
 Plutarch*s story about the lines in the previous speech 
 containing the description of the shield is as follows : 
 
 * In all the vicissitudes of public affairs the constancy he 
 [Aristides] showed was admirable, not being elated with honours, 
 and demeaning himseK tranquilly and sedately in adversity, 
 holding the opinion that he ought to offer himself to the service 
 of his country without mercenary views. . . . Hence it came, 
 probably, that at the recital of these verses of Aeschylus in the 
 theatre, relating to Amphiaraus, 
 
 For not as seeming just, but being so 
 
 He aims ; and from his depth of soil below, 
 
 Harvests of wise and prudent counsels grow,^ 
 
 the eyes of all the spectators were turned on Aristides as if this 
 virtue, in an especial manner, belonged to him.' 
 
 I have collected thus particularly the evidence about 
 Aristides, because I consider that Aeschylus was his admirer 
 and supported his views, which coincided with his own, 
 on the stage ; and that the character of Prometheus in the 
 Prometheits Bound, through which, in my opinion, the poet 
 expresses himself, is built up, in part, out of the career an^ 
 character of Aristides. It is very probable that the fall or 
 unpopularity of Aristides would involve the poet in a similar 
 experience. We know that in the case of Pericles the attack 
 made on him was begun by prosecutions in the popular 
 courts of his intellectual friends, notably Phidias, and this 
 was done in order to test pubHc feeling with a view to an 
 impeachment of Pericles himself. Certain it is, on the 
 evidence of a passage in Aristophanes, that Aeschylus ' did 
 not get on with the Athenians,' ^ and there- is a story that 
 
 * The passage in the original is as follows : 
 
 ^7W7C /ieV 8rj rijvde iriavw x^^^^t 
 fioLPTis KCKevdCoi iroXe/xias virb x^oj/^s. 
 fiax(jOfJied\ ovK Arifiov Att^^w fjudpov. 
 TOiaOd' 6 fidvTiSy dairid' cCkvkXov vifnov 
 irA.yxp.\Kov, r}65a. (XTJfia 5' ovk iwTJp KiJ/cXy 
 ov yap SokcTp dpiaros, dXX' eluai d^Xeiy 
 ^adetav AXokol did. (ppevbs Kap7ro6fievos, 
 i^ ^s r4 Kedvd ^Xaardvei ^ovXeOfxara. 
 TotjT({) (TotpoCs T€ Kd/yadoit^ dvTTjp^Tas 
 T^fiireip iiraifu. deivbs 6s deoiis ai^ei. (583-590). 
 ■ Frogs, 807, o6t€ yiip 'AdTivaioun <rvv4^aw klffx^^Xos. 
 
THE BIRDS 45 
 
 he was tried before the Areopagus on a charge of reveahng 
 the mysteries ^ in one of his plays, and that he was only 
 saved by an appeal to the valour which he had displayed at 
 Marathon. The proceedings appear to have been instituted 
 in connection with an outbreak of popular feeUng in the 
 theatre, in which the poet is said to have narrowly escaped 
 with his Hfe by taking refuge at the altar of the god. There 
 is an ironical line in the Prometheics which, as I said in my 
 other volume, may conceivably contain an allusion to this 
 incident. That play has all the appearance of having been 
 written in Sicily, and my conclusion is that it was written 
 about this time, namely, in 467 B.C. or shortly after. 
 
 This view is further confirmed by another story in 
 Plutarch about Aeschylus, which some critics have shown 
 a disincUnation to accept. But read with what we know of 
 the history of the times, it appears to me to bear the stamp 
 of truth. The story is told in illustration of the popularity 
 of Cimon and is as follows : 
 
 * This act [the bringing back of the bones of Theseus] made him 
 very popular with the people of Athens, evidence of which is to 
 be found in his being asked on one occasion to decide the tragic 
 prize. When Sophocles produced his first play, being then a 
 young man, the archon, seeing that there was strong rivalry and 
 opposition among the spectators {(f)iXov€LKias ovcrrjs Kal irapa- 
 Ta^€ws rCiiv BiarOiv) would not cast lots for the judges of the 
 contest, but when Cimon with the other generals, his 
 colleagues, entered to make the usual Hbation to the god, he 
 refused to allow them to depart, but put them on their oath 
 and made them sit down and give sentence, they being ten in 
 number, one for each of the ten tribes. The excitement of the 
 contest was much increased by the high position of the judges. 
 The prize was adjudged to Sophocles, and it is said that Aeschylus 
 was so vexed, and took it so heavily, that he did not remain in 
 Athens much longer, but went in anger to Sicily, where also he 
 died and was buried near Gela.' 
 
 * The charge would be for iai^cia (impiety), which, however used on 
 that occasion, was a recognised means of political attack, as it gave a wide 
 scope for prejudice, and the penalties were^cnishing. 
 
 » Plut. Cimon, 8. 
 
46 THE BIRDS 
 
 This event occurred in 468 B.C., and my impression is 
 that the ' excitement ' referred to in the passage was 
 pohtical rather than artistic .^ The archon probably antici- 
 pated a riot. The surviving plays of Aeschylus are aU 
 * pohtical,' that is to say he used his powers in order to 
 influence the citizens in the interests of what he beheved 
 to be sound government and of self-restraint. The art of 
 Sophocles, on the other hand, is more ideal, and in conse- 
 quence his plays were much less Hkely to provoke controversy 
 or give offence. He was rocked in the cradle of Pericles, 
 and had probably to accept its limitations as regards 
 refraining from overt pohtical allusion. 
 
 With the advance of democracy the times grew more 
 dangerous for those who undertook to address the pubhc 
 seriously. The pohtics of Aeschylus, which were those of 
 the * moderates,' who beheved in the ' constitution,' but 
 not in unrestrained democracy, inevitably brought him 
 into conflict with the popular party, who by this time were 
 in the ascendent at home, and his ideas in other respects were 
 ceasing to appeal to the rising generation. No doubt to be 
 beaten by a young aspirant was hard for a man of an 
 irritable and sohtary temperament,^ who had devoted his 
 life and splendid powers to the service of the State in the 
 highest sense ; but the sting of defeat evidently lay in the 
 fact that the award had been made by those whom Aeschylus 
 
 * The ancient Athenians are generally spoken of as an artistic people — 
 certainly they produced some great artists ; but their main preoccupation 
 was politics and war. In any case I believe that many false ideas have 
 been propagated in modern life through the habit of unduly idealising 
 them, and attributing to them motives and feelings which belong to later 
 and more highly developed ages. In his edition of Aristotle's Poetics, 
 the late Dr. Ingram Bywater has a very judicious note which bears on 
 this. Discussing the question how far Aristotle had a ' theory ' of art, he 
 writes, ' the parts are Aristotle's, but the synthesis is always to some extent 
 our work, not his,' and he expresses a suspicion that Aristotle ' would be 
 surprised to find how large a meaning we are able to read into some of his 
 more incidental utterances.' He adds, ' We must not forget, too, that the 
 very idea of a Theory of Art is modem, and that our present use of the 
 term " Art " does not go further back than the age of Winckelmann and 
 Goethe.' 
 
 * Compare the presentation of Aeschylus by Aristophanes in the Frogs. 
 
THE BIRDS 
 
 47 
 
 would regard as the first men in the city,^ and he probably 
 felt that his influence was waning and that the cause for 
 which he had laboured was lost. 
 
 We may proceed now with the further historical material 
 which leads up to the consideration of the play of Aristo- 
 phanes which is more particularly the subject of this book. 
 
 * The Board of Generals were the chief executive authority in all mattecs 
 relating to war and foreign policy. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Historical Survey {continued) : Cimon, Pericles. 
 
 In the period which follows we come to the age of Cimon. 
 Aristides organised the naval league, but it was under the 
 leadership of Cimon the son of Miltiades that the Athenian 
 empire was built up. Our knowledge of him is mainly 
 derived from Plutarch. As he was the last representative, 
 in a supreme position on the conservative side, of the old 
 aristocracy of Attica, and came into conflict with Pericles 
 and the popular party, it is necessary to say something 
 about him, the more so as he has been unduly disparaged, 
 in contrast with Pericles, by writers of a certain school. 
 Professor Bury, for example, whose history seems to be 
 now largely accepted for educational purposes, disposes of 
 him as follows : 
 
 * The son of Miltiades had been at first regarded as a youth of 
 little promise. His grandfather was nicknamed " Simpleton " ; 
 and he was supposed to have inherited a wit poorer than that 
 of the ordinary Athenian. Fond of the wine-cup and leading a 
 disorderly hfe, he was not a man of Hberal education ; and a 
 writer of memoirs, who knew him, described him as Pelopon- 
 nesian rather than Athenian — uncultivated but honest and 
 downright. He hved with his step-sister Elpinice, and they both 
 affected Lacedaemonian manners. Aristides seems to have 
 discerned his military ability and to have introduced him to 
 public life. His simplicity, geniality, and lavish hospitaHty 
 rendered him popular ; his mihtary successes confirmed his 
 influence.* 
 
 This, however, is Plutarch's account : 
 
 * Stesimbrotus of Thasos, who Hved about the same time as 
 Gmon, says that he was never taught music (/xovo-tKrji/) or any 
 other of the hberal studies usual among the Greek upper classes, 
 and that he was altogether without Attic smartness and facifity 
 of speech, but that he was of a noble and candid disposition, and 
 
 48 
 
THE BIRDS 49 
 
 his character in general was more Uke that of a Peloponnesian 
 [than an Athenian] : 
 
 <f>avkoVj aKOfJL\f/ov, to. /xeyicrr' tiyaOov^ 
 " rough, unrefined, for great things able," 
 
 as Euripides says of Hercules, which may well apply to Cimon 
 according to the account given of him by Stesimbrotus.' 
 
 As to the Elpinice story, Plutarch gives two accounts, 
 that he lived with her in early life, or ' according to some 
 historians that she was openly married to him and lived as 
 his wife, being too poor to obtain a husband in her own 
 rank of life.' The Roman Nepos throws further light on the 
 story by explaining, both in his preface to his Lives and in 
 his account of Cimon, that among the Greeks marriage 
 between a brother and half-sister on the father's side (i.e. 
 not a uterine sister) was lawful. Also it appears that Cimon 
 was imprisoned for inability to pay the fine inflicted on his 
 father, that Elpinice kept him company, and secured his 
 liberation by accepting marriage with a rich man on con- 
 dition of his discharging the debt. Plutarch also says 
 that the irregularities in Cimon's life were most pronounced 
 in his untried youth, and he notes that they were raked 
 up against him for political purposes in later life, but he 
 appraises him, as a public man, in the following terms : 
 
 * He was not less brave than Miltiades, or less inteUigent than 
 Themistocles, and he was acknowledged to be more honest than 
 either. Nor was he inferior to them in mihtary skill, while he 
 far surpassed them in conduct as a citizen.' 
 
 Even allowing for some partiality in the writer, he leaves us 
 the impression, which is confirmed by the events, of a very 
 remarkable man. In fact, if we are to compare Cimon with 
 Pericles, it is difficult to deny that, though he evidently was 
 not so intellectual as the latter, he was the more capable of 
 the two. 
 
 The power of Cimon evidently lay in his personality and 
 great natural gifts, developed by long experience, such as 
 an excellent judgment, freedom from passion and prejudice, 
 and exceptional ability in dealing with men. But such gifts 
 
 P 
 
60 THE BIRDS 
 
 were employed mainly, and of necessity, in the foreign and 
 military sphere, not in that of domestic politics. His 
 popularity at Athens after his successes against the Persians 
 and the acquisition of new fields for colonisation and trade 
 has been already noticed. But it did not survive the test 
 of inactivity and closer contact with the citizens at home. 
 We read that he began to be disliked for the preference 
 which he showed for the Lacedaemonian character and 
 institutions, that he was charged with taking a bribe from 
 the Macedonian king (Pericles being his most active accuser, 
 though at the last he did not press the charge), and when an 
 expedition which he took to the Peloponnese to assist the , 
 Spartans, who were in difl&culties,^ was treated by them with | 
 distrust and sent away, the irritation at Athens was such 
 that they vented it on Cimon and ostracised him (461 B.C.). 
 This proceeding was also closely connected with the popular 
 movement led by Ephialtes and Pericles against the authority 
 of the upper classes. So long as Cimon remained in Athens 
 he had been able to control it. * He continued,' says 
 Plutarch, * to oppose the encroachments of the people, who 
 would have trampled on the aristocracy {dpCaToc^) and 
 were endeavouring to get into their own hands all sovereignty 
 and power.' Plutarch continues : mM 
 
 *When, however, he again started on foreign service, the 
 populace finally succeeded in overthrowing the estabfished order 
 of the poHty, and the ancestral institutions which they had used 
 before, and under the leadership of Ephialtes took away from 
 the Areopagus jurisdiction in all causes except a few, and making 
 themselves masters of the courts of justice, turned the city into 
 an undiluted democracy, Pericles also by this time being on the 
 way to power and taking the side of the many. Cimon, on his 
 return, was disgusted at the degradation of the ancient Senate, 
 and tried to recall the suits to its jurisdiction, and to restore the 
 aristocratic government of the time of Cleisthenes. Whereupon 
 the conspirators raised an outcry against him and exasperated 
 the people against him. . . .' (15.) 
 
 * Owing to the revolt of the Helots and Measenians after the great 
 earthquake in 464 b.c. 
 
THE BIRDS 51 
 
 After the ostracism of Cimon Pericles became supreme 
 with the Assembly/ an alHance was entered into with 
 Argos, Megara, and Thessaly against Sparta and her allies, 
 and a period of war with Corinth and Aegina, in which the 
 Athenians won great successes, was entered upon. Their 
 military energy was never greater than at this time ; the 
 campaigns of Cimon had evidently brought them to a high 
 pitch of training and produced generals of gieat capacity, 
 notably Myronides. Not content, however, with the 
 efforts they were making near home, they sent out an 
 expedition, comparable in scale to the later Sicilian adven- 
 ture, to Egypt in support of a local prince against the 
 Persians, and occupied Memphis (459 B.C.). It was the 
 first foretaste of disaster, for the invading force was com- 
 pletely destroyed, with the ships, by the Persians and 
 Phoenicians five years later. 
 
 A serious check to their successes also occurred at 
 Tanagra in 457 B.C., where the real weakness of the Athenian 
 power was revealed, namely, in their inability to face the 
 Spartan army. The Spartans were on an expedition in the 
 Dorian interest in Boeotia, and Thucydides relates that 
 * about that time the Athenians began to build their Long 
 Walls extending to the sea, one to the harbour of Phalerum, 
 and the other to the Piraeus,' and that the delay of the 
 Spartans in returning home from this expedition was due 
 to the fact that the Athenians were posted by land and sea 
 with a view to intercepting them, but also to another motive, 
 which he proceeds to relate : 
 
 ' Certain Athenians were privately making overtures to them, 
 in the hope that they would put an end to the democracy and the 
 building of the Long Walls. But the Athenians were aware of 
 their embarrassment, and they also suspected their designs against 
 the democracy. So they went out to meet them with their 
 whole force, together with a thousand Argives and contingents 
 from the other aUies. . . . The battle was fought at Tanagra in 
 Boeotia, and the Lacedaemonians and their aUies, after great 
 slaughter on both sides, gained the victory. They then marched 
 
 *■ Ephialtee had been assaseinated in 461 B.C. 
 
62 THE BIRDS 
 
 into the Megarian territory, and, cutting down the fruit-trees, 
 returned home by way of Greraneia and the Isthmus.' ^ 
 
 This account is completed by Plutarch, whose remarks 
 throw further light on the poHtics of Athens at this time. 
 He relates that at this crisis the exiled Cimon presented 
 himself before the Athenian army and offered his services 
 in the battle, but that the Council, fearing that his design 
 was to bring in the Lacedaemonians, forbade him to join 
 them ; whereupon * he retired, after desiring Euthippus and 
 the rest of his friends, who were most censured as partisans 
 of Sparta, to exert themselves gloriously against the enemy, 
 and by their behaviour to wipe out the aspersion. And 
 they, taking his panoply and placing it in their midst, took 
 their stand together, being a hundred in number, and fought 
 till they fell, leaving behind them much regret and repent- 
 ance among the Athenians for the unjust censure they had 
 put upon them.' ^ 
 
 Even if this noble story is a picturesque fiction — ^though 
 there is no reason for thinking that it is of that character — 
 the conclusion remains that the battle of Tanagra, more 
 than any other single event, marks the close of the old regime 
 at Athens. Cimon was the last great leader from the 
 Attic aristocracy who were trained as hopHtes and held 
 to the ancient conception of Attica as a land power, and we 
 may be sure that the devoted hundred who fell in this 
 battle comprised, for the most part, the representatives of 
 that tradition. Henceforward Athens became more entirely 
 a sea power, and her social and political life underwent 
 modifications which were determined largely by the altered 
 conditions. 
 
 The significance of the battle of Tanagra is also shown by 
 the recall of Cimon which followed it. Plutarch says that 
 after their defeat the Athenians * expected another army 
 would come against them from the Peloponnese the next 
 spring. Hence it was that they recalled Cimon from exile, 
 and it was Pericles who proposed the decree.' They were 
 
 » Thuo. L 107. • Plut. Cimon, 
 
V" 
 
 THE BIRDS 53 
 
 saved from this by the good offices of Cimon, who * reconciled 
 the two cities.* ^ 
 
 The Athenians now completed their Long Walls ^ 
 (456-455 B.C.) in pursuance of the policy inaugurated by 
 Themistocles and now prosecuted by Pericles, under which 
 they secured comparative independence from the effects 
 of invasion by land,^ and were enabled to harass their 
 enemies by sea. They also, for a brief period (457- 
 447 B.C.), became masters of most of Boeotia, partly by a 
 daring and successful raid under Myronides, partly through 
 the compHcity of faction in the several cities. During the 
 same period they subdued Aegina, which surrendered its 
 fleet and became tributary, and obtained control over 
 several cities in the north of the Peloponnese. From these 
 energies, which embroiled them with Sparta and the other 
 Greeks, Gmon temporarily diverted them by taking out 
 an expedition to Cyprus, where he died (449 B.C.). This 
 was the last considerable effort against Persia and her 
 Phoenician allies. Pericles henceforward concentrated all 
 his attention on Athens and her naval empire, and probably 
 did not regard with much regret the loss of Boeotia * and 
 the Peloponnesian cities which shortly followed. The 
 
 volt of Euboea, however, on which Athens largely de- 
 pended for her cattle supply and pasturage, accompanied 
 as it was by the revolt and loss of Megara and the threat 
 of a Peloponnesian invasion of Attica, was a more serious 
 matter. It is said that Pericles bought off the Spartan king, 
 who withdrew his forces, and thus was enabled to subdue 
 the Euboean revolt. Thereupon he concluded a peace 
 with Sparta for thirty years on the basis of the surrender of 
 all Athenian possessions in continental Greece (445 B.C.). 
 The Athenian empire was now exclusively maritime and 
 tributary, and comprised most of the islands of the Aegean 
 
 » Plut. Cimon. * Thuc. i. 108. 
 
 ' They were enabled to depend on sea borne trade and they imported 
 com from the Euxine. 
 
 * At Coronea, where the Athenians were surprised and completely 
 routed by Boeotian exiles who were adherents of the ejected oligarchical 
 governments. 
 
64 THE BIRDS 
 
 n 
 
 Sea, the cities on the Asiatic coast, on the northern shores 
 
 of the Aegean, and on the Hellespont and Bosporus opening 
 
 into the Euxine Sea. 
 
 It is tolerably clear that Pericles, even at some sacrifice 
 
 of national prestige, had now arrived at the haven which 
 
 he desired — a period of peace in which, while maintaining 
 
 and fostering the maritime empire, he could do something 
 
 for the intellectual life of Athens, and at the same time 
 
 enjoy the society of his friends. The main obstacle to this 
 
 lay, as it always has done in the history of the world, in 
 
 the ambition of individuals and the difficulty of ruHng the 
 
 masses. Pericles is an eminent example of that class of 
 
 politician, who, born and educated in the upper class, make 
 
 use of the jealousy of it always to be found among the 
 
 poorer classes in order to estabHsh their own personal 
 
 ascendency. Somewhat unsavoury in its beginnings, the 
 
 process may be productive of a great, and even beneficent 
 
 career, though it may also be the prelude to catastrophic jgi 
 
 changes, with disaster for those immediately concerned.™! 
 
 Qmon had the advantage of the disposal of wealth which 
 
 fell to him from the spoils of war, and he made royal use of 
 
 it in improvements to the city and charitable gifts among 
 
 the citizens.^ Pericles, finding himself at a disadvantage in 
 
 this respect, had recourse to grants from the public treasury. 
 
 The writer of the Aristotelian treatise gives the following 
 
 summary of his position and policy at this time, namely, after 
 
 the ostracism of Cimon and the assassination of Ephialtes 
 
 in 461 B.C. : 
 
 J 
 'After this Pericles assumed the position of popular leader, 
 
 having first distinguished himself while still a young man by 
 
 prosecuting Cimon on the audit of his official accounts as general. 
 
 Under his auspices the constitution became still more democratic. 
 
 He took away some of the privileges of the Areopagus, and, 
 
 * Cimon's improvements seem to have been mainly of a practical char- 
 acter. Plutarch says, ' Cimon first embellished the city with those fine 
 and elegant places of exercise and resort which they afterwards so much 
 delighted in. He set the market-place with plane trees, and the Academy, 
 which was before a bare, dry and dirty spot, he converted into a well- 
 watered grove, with open spaces for races, and shady avenues to walk in.* 
 
THE BIRDS 55 
 
 above all, he turned the policy of the state m the direction of 
 naval dominion, which caused the masses to acquire confidence 
 in themselves, and consequently to take the conduct of affairs 
 more and more into their own hands. . . . Pericles was also the 
 first to institute pay for service in the law-courts, as a bid for 
 popular favour to counterbalance the wealth of Cimon. In 
 this he took the advice of Damonides of Oia ^ (who was commonly 
 supposed to be the person who prompted him in most of his 
 measures, and was therefore subsequently ostracised), which was 
 that since he was worsted in the competition in the matter of 
 private possessions, he should give the people what was their 
 own, and accordingly he instituted pay for the members of the 
 juries (dicasts). Some persons accuse him of thereby causing a 
 deterioration in the character of the juries, since it was always 
 the inferior people who were anxious to submit themselves for 
 selection as jurors rather than men of better position. . . . (27.) 
 So long, however, as Pericles was leader of the people, things 
 went tolerably well with the state ; but when he was dead there 
 was a great change for the worse. Then for the first time did the 
 people choose a leader who was of no reputation among men of 
 good standing. . . .' (28.) 
 
 In addition to the payment for service in the popular 
 courts, Plutarch mentions other grants of a popular char- 
 acter, such as allowances for attendance at the dramatic 
 contests, for sacrificial victims at religious festivals on a 
 larger scale and on more frequent occasions, the meat of 
 which was distributed among the people, and so forth. 
 A good deal has been written about these grants, particu- 
 larly with a view to disputing the opinions of antiquity that 
 they were demoralising. But though these opinions may 
 contain some prejudice, they are not easily set aside.* 
 
 1 The relations of Damon with Pericles may be compfiwed with those 
 of Mnesiphilus with Themistocles (see p. 11 above). It is significant of 
 the dangers of pubUc life at Athens that Damon was supposed to be 
 engaged by Pericles as a teacher of music, but the Athenians ' smoked * 
 him for ' a man with long views and a lover of absolutism ' (Plut. Per. 4). 
 
 * As, for example, the opinion of Plato, alluded to by Plutarch in the 
 rem€U"k that under the influence of the public measures of Pericles the 
 Athenian people * were changed from a sober thrifty people, who main- 
 tained themselves by their own labours, to lovers of expense, intemperance, 
 and licence ' (Plut. Per.), And see further, below, in the illustrations given 
 from Aristophanes and from the writer of * The Polity of the Athenians.* 
 
56 THE BIRDS 
 
 On the other hand, in comparing ancient with modern life, 
 we must not lose sight of the essential difference in the 
 conditions. Every Greek city, says Plato, was practically 
 two cities, rich and poor, and there was incessant political 
 conflict, sometimes passing into reprisals of an atrocious 
 character,^ between them. At the same time the funda- 
 mental theory of the Greek city-state was the political 
 equality of those who had the rights of citizenship, some- 
 what on the lines of a modern club. The ' demos ' or 
 ' people ' of Attica were not, as in a modern state, coter- 
 minous with the proletariate, but were a privileged class, 
 which, in relation to the much larger number of unen- 
 franchised human beings, might be described as a vulgar 
 aristocracy. The adult male citizens of Attica in the 
 time of Pericles at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War 
 have been estimated at about 30,000 or 35,000 (with their 
 families, say, 100,000), but the whole population at about a 
 quarter of a million, of whom perhaps 100,000 or more 
 may have been slaves, and there may also have been some 
 10,000 (with their families 30,000) metics, namely, residents 
 for purposes of trade, belonging to other states and countries. 
 The material value attached to citizenship under the con- 
 ditions prevailing in the time of Pericles is shown by the 
 fact, reported by Plutarch, that after his measures came 
 into effect, a law was passed limiting it to those who were 
 Athenians bom on both sides, a law which would have 
 excluded both Themistocles and Cimon. Plutarch says 
 that this measure was proposed by Pericles, and that ' when 
 the king of Egypt sent a present of forty thousand medimni 
 of wheat to the Athenian " demos," and it came to be dis- 
 tributed among them, many vexatious lawsuits arose about 
 the citizenship of individuals, with the result that, under this 
 law, nearly five thousand were condemned to loss of citizen- 
 ship and sold for slaves.' This would mean that, being 
 rendered ineligible for grants or paid positions, they would 
 
 * Compare, for instance, the account by Thucydides of the revolution 
 (ardais) in Corcyra, which he gives aa an example of the political passions 
 generated by the Peloponnesian War. 
 
THE BIRDS 57 
 
 have to sell themselves to masters (as we read they did in 
 pre-Solonian times) through having no other means of 
 support. Paid work, especially manual work, was in 
 antiquity regarded as placing the stigma of a lower status 
 on a man. Perhaps the majority of Athenian citizens 
 drew their livelihood from the farms, but in the town there 
 was an increasing free population, and to be a citizen with 
 a grant, however small, was to be in a better position than 
 if working for a living as an artisan. Trade was probably 
 largely in the hands of foreigners ; in any case it would 
 employ more slaves than citizens. Slave labour was, of 
 course, employed by all who could afford it, and the position 
 of wealth and comfort in which some of the slaves who 
 brought in * slave rents ' lived indicates their value. In 
 fact, not only the rough work, but most of the intellectual 
 work of an ancient community was probably done by 
 slaves, 1 for that is a form of labour — being the most arduous 
 — which a man who reaches a position of independence is 
 inclined to drop as soon as he can afford to do so. Hence 
 the citizens — ^and this is a point too little noticed — ^were not 
 submitted to the training and discipline which modem in- 
 dustrial life automatically affords. Living in comparative 
 idleness in peace, they became conceited, combative and 
 turbulent, and war and its labours were to some extent a 
 moral astringent. In any case war was the normal con- 
 dition under which the world lived, and the arts of peace 
 were enjoyed on sufferance. In providing pay for the courts 
 it is very possible that Pericles had such considerations, to 
 some extent, in mind. Certainly the Athenian citizens took 
 very kindly to the new opportunities for employment and 
 interest thrown open to them, as the plays of Aristophanes 
 show. Other differences in ancient as compared with 
 present-day communities might be noted, as, for example, 
 in the habits of thought produced under the influences of 
 
 * See, for example, the account in Plutarch of the work done by the 
 confidential slave of Pericles, whom he had educated for the purpose, 
 and, more interesting still, of the educated slave of Nicias, who seems to 
 have stood between him and the public. 
 
58 THE BIRDS 
 
 religion and superstition, in the relations between men and 
 women and between master and servant, in the means of 
 communication and the dissemination of ideas, in the 
 standards of average attainment and the relation thereto 
 of eminent personalities, and in the differences of physical 
 and mental constitution produced by the different conditions 
 of life as, for instance, by the prevalence in antiquity of 
 war, and the absence, comparatively speaking, of doctors 
 and sanitation, which would result in a high infant mortality, 
 and a consequently more vigorous standard of adult health 
 and endurance.^ But it seems unnecessary to labour 
 these points, which will occur to any one whose reading is 
 accompanied by observation. 
 
 The payment for service in the popular courts (dicasteries) 
 may perhaps be regarded as a corollary of the measure for 
 the abolition of the jurisdiction of the Areopagus, and in 
 that case it is of interest to inquire what could have been 
 the inducement in the minds of Pericles and Ephialtes for so 
 hazardous an experiment. The conclusion to which I have 
 come is that they must have been influenced by the con- 
 sideration that the change of jurisdiction would place the 
 opponents of the democratic movement at the mercy of the 
 democratic leaders, especially of the Trpoo-raTT;?, or popular 
 leader of the Assembly. In other words the change placed 
 in the hands of the popular courts, which were in effect the 
 popular Assembly (with an age limit of thirty) sitting in 
 sections for judicial purposes without appeal, the juris- 
 diction in cases through which a man could be most easily 
 ruined. I refer especially to such a charge as that for 
 acre ^€ La (impiety), up tiU then heard before the Areopagus, 
 where there was unlimited scope for exciting popular anger 
 
 * The astonishing resiliencse of Athens after the great plague might be 
 given as an illustration of this. And, in the specialised intellectual sphere, 
 examples are seen in the concentration of thought which Greek philosophy 
 indicates, in the production of the three great tragic dramatists, which, in 
 each case, continued with unimpaired vigour into old age, and in the 
 administrative labours of Pericles — and Nicias may be added — of which 
 Plutarch's accounts give some indication ; comparable to those of our own 
 Burghley, except that the latter never went into the field. 
 
THE BIRDS 59 
 
 or apprehension, and where the penalties were crushing.^ 
 The lower the intellectual and social standard of the court, 
 the more the members of it would be influenced by rhetoric, 
 and the less chance of a fair trial would there be for a person 
 who was pohtically obnoxious. We have evidence that this 
 is what actually occurred. These courts, being subject 
 to the same influence as the Assembly, were always formid- 
 able to the public men, but, after the change in question, 
 they became more partisan and of the nature of a despotism 
 of the people. 2 
 
 The special character of these courts gave rise to a system 
 of informations which must have been the bane of social 
 life in Athens , at least for the upper classes . The * sycophant ' 
 was a recognised institution, and his activities probably 
 more than anything else led to the transformation of the 
 * clubs ' into centres for mutual protection in the courts, 
 and later of continuous political intrigue against the demo- 
 cracy. There are many allusions to these informers, and 
 it is evident that they increased under the system of paid 
 service in the courts. As payment was by the day, they 
 
 I were regarded with favour as providing the dicasts with 
 B work, and also as serviceable instruments in fleecing the 
 rich and keeping an eye on anti -democratic intrigue, not 
 only at home, but among the subject alHes. Of course the 
 system leant itself readily to blackmail, and it is not sur- 
 IK prising to find the putting down of the sycophants among 
 ■"^ the reforms attempted by the Four Hundred and later by the 
 Thirty.^ However, they must have continued to flourish, 
 
 '^" * Pericles himself was attacked and almost brought down in this way, 
 through the charges for impiety brought against his friends. Compare the 
 account in Tliucydides of the civil war in Corcjrra, which arose out of an 
 action on a charge of the nature of do-^/Scta (cutting poles for vines in a 
 scusred precinct), having a political object (Thuc. iii. 70). 
 
 • For illustrations see the passages cited from Aristophanes in the 
 subsequent chapters ; also from the anonymous ' Polity of the Athenians * 
 (ctrc. 415), e.g. tovs fx^y roO S-^/jlov adb^ovai, rovs 5' ivavrlovi avoXKiL>ov<Tiv iv rots 
 bLKacn-nploi.% — ' In the courts they protect those of the popular party, but 
 they destroy those of the opposite peu-ty.' 
 
 ' After the fall of Athens in 404 B.C. Xenophon says that the Thirty 
 were chosen to compile a code for the future constitution, and that, among 
 
60 THE BIRDS 
 
 as there is an allusion to them in Xenophon (Mem. u. ix.), 
 where Crito is made to say that * life at Athens was no easy 
 matter for a man who wished to mind his own business, 
 as, for instance, at this moment (Ci'ito proceeded) he was 
 threatened by a set of fellows with lawsuits, not for any 
 alleged misdemeanour, but under the conviction that he 
 would sooner pay a sum of money than be troubled further/ 
 No doubt no community of men is exempt from such 
 practices, but the peculiar constitution of the Athenian 
 courts evidently encouraged them on a large scale .^ Their 
 origin is traced by Plutarch, who quotes an authority, to 
 the period when Aristides (as I have suggested) fell into 
 disfavour : * After the banishment of Themistocles ^ he 
 [Craterus the Macedonian] says, the common people, grow- 
 ing insolent, produced a numerous brood of informers, who 
 were constantly accusing the better and most influential 
 men in the State, with a view to subjecting them to the envy 
 of the multitude, whom their prosperity and power had 
 filled with self -conceit.' ^ 
 
 The relation of these courts to the subject allies must 
 now be considered, as the point has an important bearing 
 on the argument of this book. In his brief summary of 
 the origin and growth of the Athenian maritime empire 
 Thucydides mentions the reduction of Carystus in Euboea 
 and the revolt and reduction of Naros, which occurred in 
 466 B.C., and he remarks, with regard to the latter, that 
 * this was the first of the alHed states which was enslaved 
 contrary to Hellenic right,* the turn of the others came later.* 
 He adds : * The causes which led to the defection of the 
 allies were of different kinds, the principal being the neglect 
 to pay the tribute or to furnish ships, and, in some cases, 
 
 other reforms, they destroyed the professional informers, who, under 
 the democracy, were * thorns in the sides of all respectable people ' 
 {Hellen. ii. 3). 
 
 * For the evidence from Aristophanes see subsequent chapters. 
 « Circ. 471 B.C. » Plut. Ariat. 
 
 * They were compelled to surrender their fleet, pull down their walls, 
 and pay a fine and money tribute. So far as we know it was not till after 
 the death of Pericles that the practice of killing the men and selling the 
 women and children into slavery was resorted to. 
 
THE BIRDS 61 
 
 failure of military service. For the Athenians were exacting 
 and oppressive, using coercive measures towards men 
 who were neither willing nor accustomed to work hard. 
 And for various reasons they soon began to prove less 
 agreeable leaders than at first. They no longer fought on 
 an equality with the rest of the confederates, and they 
 had no difficulty in reducing them when they revolted. The 
 allies brought this upon themselves, for the majority of 
 them disliked mUitary service and absence from home, so 
 they agreed to contribute their share of the expense instead 
 of ships.' ^ Plutarch says that Cimon originated this plan 
 of deaUng with the aUies, and that while ' the other generals 
 took every method to compel them to make good their 
 quota, and by prosecutions and fines rendered the Athenian 
 government oppressive and invidious,' Cimon was always 
 ready to accept money from them instead of ships, whereby 
 he rendered them un warlike, with the result that from 
 allies they became subjects. As, under his victories, the 
 fear of Persia became more remote, they began to chafe under 
 these contributions, and when the treasury of the league 
 was removed to Athens by Pericles, and the money spent 
 on Athenian expeditions, and especially on the adornment 
 of the city, the feehng grew stronger and became a party 
 question at Athens. One reason for this, no doubt, was 
 that the aUies had to resort to the courts at Athens in cases of 
 a pohtical character, and presumably in all cases connected 
 with the tribute and others of which we have no exact 
 information. The bias of these courts against the rich 
 extended to the richer classes in the islands, and many 
 Athenians having, no doubt, family connections with these 
 visitors, and being similarly circumstanced poHtically, would 
 make common cause with them. The majority who com- 
 posed the popular courts, on the other hand, had no such 
 sympathies, and they depended for their power, and in 
 many cases for their UveUhood, on the tribute of which they 
 were the rigorous and exacting guardians. We find evi- 
 
 ^ dence of this situation in the speech in Thucydides of the 
 
 H ^ Thuo. i. 99. 
 
 I 
 
62 THE BIRDS 
 
 Mytilenaean envoys to Sparta, preparatory to their revolt in 
 428 B.C. : * The revenues of the Athenians are derived from 
 their allies,' ^ and further on the writer says, ' The Athenians, 
 being in want of money to carry on the siege, raised among 
 themselves for the first time a property tax of two hundred 
 talents.' ^ The tenacity shown by the ' demos ' in carrying 
 on the Peloponnesian War is not attributable, in my view, to 
 any special belUcosity in democracies, but to the fact that 
 the livehhood of so many people depended on the tribute, 
 and not only that, but the many privileges and oppor- 
 tunities which it enabled them to enjoy .^ They reahsed 
 that with a victory for Sparta and her aUies all this came to 
 an end. As time went on an increasing number of people 
 in Athens wished it to come to an end, because they were 
 oppressed by the courts, which were the mainstay of the 
 system. 
 
 A word must be said about the agitation against the 
 pubhc buildings and statues of Phidias, which was made a 
 party question, and resulted in the ostracism of Thucydides,* 
 the leader of the upper-class party. No doubt there were 
 poHtical motives, and the upper-class feehng for the allies, 
 to which I have alluded, was involved in connection with 
 the objections, justifiable on principle, which were raised 
 against the use by Pericles of funds belonging to the League 
 for this purpose. But there can be little doubt that there 
 was also a genuine feehng of apprehension about such a 
 display of power, which was ingrained in every thoughtful 
 Greek, as likely to provoke the ' envy ' of divinities. Fear 
 of deities lay at the root of pagan reHgion, and the safety 
 
 * Thuc. iii. 13. 
 
 * Ibid. 19. There were of course other sources of revenue, including the 
 customary ' liturgies ' which were expected from the rich. 
 
 * For instance, Pericles arranged cruises of sixty triremes every year 
 * in which many of the citizens served for pay for eight months ' (Plut. 
 Per. ii.). Citizens of every class were in this way given an opportunity of 
 visiting the cities of the League, in connection with financial and other 
 business, and as they were the men who composed the courts before whom 
 the allies had to appear, it is easy to imagine with what respect and 
 homage they would be received. 
 
 * Not the historian. 
 
THE BIRDS e3 
 
 of the city was involved in their physical presence, which 
 was conceived of as beiag retained through temple - 
 dwellings, statues, sacrificial victims, and adulatory 
 addresses.^ The prosecutions which we meet with at 
 Athens for * bringing in strange divinities ' were based on 
 the appi'ehension that the old ones would take offence and 
 withdraw to some other city. This explains the intense 
 conservatism of the Athenians in matters of rehgion. These 
 new temples and sculptmes were not generally regarded, 
 as we are incHned to regard them, from the aloof standpoint 
 of art, but from that of rehgion and the safety of the city, 
 and from that standpoint the old wooden image of Athena, 
 which tradition said had fallen from heaven, was the ' real 
 thing ' far more than any modern representation, however 
 beautiful in conception and execution. ^ Pericles however 
 handled the matter by an appeal to emulation and glory, 
 by which he had no difficulty in winning the popular 
 Assembly and discomfiting his opponents.^ From this 
 time (442 B.C.) until his death in 429 B.C., his power was 
 practically absolute, though he had troubles towards the 
 close to which we shall presently allude. 
 
 Great as the authority of Pericles was, he was never 
 wholly free from danger. The Athenian people were 
 capricious and difficult to govern, and, when moved by a 
 wave of feeling, Uable to acts of cruelty and oppression. 
 The facihties which the constitution provided for gratifying 
 such impulses may partly account for the frequency of these 
 outbursts. Plutarch says that in his youth Pericles was 
 afraid of the people, and that as he was supposed to have a 
 personal resemblance to Pisistratus, and was rich, of noble 
 
 * Compare the expressions of feeling on this subject by the Chorus 
 of women in the Septem of Aeschylus. 
 
 * The ' Aeacids,' ancient wooden images with a tradition, which were 
 sent for from Aegina and put on board ship before the battle of Salamis, 
 •re another example. 
 
 * Plutarch, who gives an excellent account of these great works, the 
 number of people they employed, and so forth, sayB that Pericles offered 
 to pay for them himself if the people would allow him to put his name on 
 the votive statues. ' At which they shouted with one accord to spend 
 on them what he pleased.' (14.) 
 
64 THE BIRDS 
 
 % 
 
 birth, and had powerful friends, he feared that he might be 
 ostracised, and consequently at first held aloof from politics, 
 but proved himseK a brave soldier in the wars. But after 
 the death of Aristides and the banishment of Themistocles, 
 he took to the popular side, ' that of the poor and many 
 against that of the rich and few, quite contrary to his own 
 feelings which were entirely aristocratic,' partly in order to 
 get a party against Cimon, partly for securing his own safety. 
 He immediately altered his mode of life, and lived in retire- 
 ment. After the ostracism of Thucydides, Plutarch says 
 that he became a different man ; that he no longer gave 
 way to the people or watched the breath of popular favour, 
 but turned his ' demagogy ' into an ' aristocratic, or rather 
 a monarchical form of government,' which he exercised with 
 great abihty for the benefit of the State. This account is 
 not inconsistent with the higher authority of Thucydides, 
 because the unquaHfied eulogy by the latter is, perhaps 
 with intention, explicitly confined to the later period of his 
 life. Also the words of Thucydides are : * During the peace 
 while he was at the head of affairs he ruled with moderation 
 and kept the city safe, and in his time it reached its greatest 
 power.' * During the peace ' was from 446 to 431 B.C. 
 Thucydides disregards the earlier period, perhaps partly 
 because he was not writing the history of it, but more, as 
 I should suppose, for political reasons. He does not, for 
 instance, even mention the aboHtion of the powers of the 
 Areopagus.^ Spealdng of the difference between Pericles 
 and his successors, Thucydides says that Pericles, * deriving 
 his authority from his capacity and acknowledged worth, 
 being also a man of transparent integrity, was able to control 
 the multitude in a free spirit, and led them rather than was 
 led by them.' ^ These quaHties, however, did not save 
 him from the unpopularity which sooner or later overtook 
 most Athenian public men. In a passage deahng with the 
 
 * The words to which I allude are iy rrj elprjvrj, ii. 65. Thucydides was 
 an exile, and probably wrote in fear of the democracy. The arm of the 
 courts was a long one, and a man had to think of his friends and family 
 as well as himself. 
 
 » Thuc. ii. 65. 
 
THE BIRDS 65 
 
 origin of the Pelopormesian War, Plutarch describes, from 
 sources at his disposal, what occurred : 
 
 * How the dispute originated it is hard to say, but all 
 writers agree in throwing on Pericles the blame of refusing 
 to reverse the decree [the decree of Pericles prohibiting 
 Megarian goods coming into the markets of the Athenian 
 empire]. Some attribute his firmness to a wise calculation 
 . . . while others say he treated the Lacedaemonians so 
 cavaHerly through pride and a desire to show his own 
 strength. But the worst motive of all, and that to which 
 most men attribute his conduct, was as follows.' And he 
 proceeds to relate the affair of Phidias, that in order to 
 experiment on the temper of the people towards Pericles, 
 Menon, a workman of Phidias, was bribed to accuse him of 
 embezzlement. * The people took this man under their 
 protection, and Phidias was prosecuted before the Assembly * 
 {iv rfj ifCK\r]aLa), but not convicted on the charge. But 
 he was subject to envy for the reputation he had obtained 
 through his works, ^ especially for having introduced a 
 portrait of himself and of Pericles in some scenes of his 
 sculptures. * So Phidias was carried off to the prison, where 
 e fell sick and died, or, as some say, was poisoned by 
 enemies of Pericles in order to cast suspicion on him. 
 At the instance of Glycon the people voted to Menon, the 
 informer, immunity from pubUc burdens, and ordered the 
 generals to provide for the fellow's safety.' 
 
 About the same time (Plutarch continues) Aspasia was 
 prosecuted for impiety {aaePeia^), and for procuration of 
 free-bom women for Pericles. Also a decree was carried 
 that prosecutions should be instituted against all persons 
 * who neglected rehgious observances and taught theories 
 of their own about heavenly bodies (Trepl rSyv fierapa-icDv), 
 This was aimed at Pericles through the philosopher 
 Anaxagoras.' The passage continues : 
 
 *As the people adopted this decree and readily Hstened to 
 these slanderous charges (Sia^oAas), another decree was carried 
 
 ^ 4) S^ 86^a Twv fpyuv iwle^e <f>e6vv rhp ^€i5lar (31). 
 B 
 
66 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 by Dracontides, that Pericles should lay the accounts of his 
 deaUngs with the pubHc revenue before the Prytanes, and that 
 the dicasts should take their voting-pebbles from the altar on the 
 AcropoHs and decide the case there. On the motion of Hagnon 
 this part of the decree was reversed, and another was carried 
 that the case should be heard before fifteen hundred dicasts on 
 an indictment which one might call either one for embezzle- 
 ment, taking bribes, or pubhc wrongdoing {dSiKiov). Pericles 
 obtained the acquittal of Aspasia, quite contrary to justice 
 according to Aeschines, by shedding tears and making a personal 
 appeal to the dicasts on her behalf ; but for fear about Anaxa- 
 goras he sent him out of the city. And now, as he had stumbled 
 against the people, in fear of the dicastery, he blew the war, 
 which was smouldering, into a flame, hoping thereby to disperse 
 these accusations, and to allay the envy which had arisen, in 
 great and dangerous affairs in which the city would have to rely 
 for guidance on himself alone. These are the causes which are 
 assigned for his refusal to allow the people to make any conces- 
 sion to the Lacedaemonians, but the truth of the matter is 
 obscure.* 
 
 I have given this account at length, by means of a more 
 literal translation than will be found in the existing versions, 
 because it throws a strong light on Athenian life at this 
 time, and especially on the close connection between the 
 Assembly and the popular courts ; also because it bears on 
 the evidence of Aristophanes to be given later. Grote 
 relates the story, but in such a way as to minimise the 
 responsibility of the sovereign people and throw the odium 
 on the opponents of Pericles, the reader being left with the 
 impression that they were of the aristocratic party — a typical 
 instance of the way in which Greek history has been manipu- 
 lated in modern times in the interest of political theory. 
 It is one thing to express views on the value of an ancient 
 author, but another to report him in terms which give a 
 different colour to his story.^ 
 
 We see then that the * people ' under the fully developed 
 democracy at Athens were extremely formidable, and if 
 
 * These remarks are not made in general disparagement of Grote's 
 work, but of a particular tendency in it for which perhaps there was more 
 excuse then than there is now. 
 
 il 
 
THE BIRDS 67 
 
 they could bring to his knees such a man as Pericles we may 
 expect to find a growing sense and fear of their displeasure 
 among his successors. We do, in fact, find this, and it 
 was, in my belief, one of the main causes of the fall of the 
 Athenian empire. The failure, for instance, of Nicias to 
 draw off the army from Syracuse while he still could, was 
 due to this fear, not, as is often said — ^without, so far as I 
 can see, any justification from the narrative of Thucydides — 
 from incapacity. He was for years, by popular consent, in 
 general control of affairs, and he was admittedly the most 
 successful general of his time, and the fact that the Athenians 
 refused to relieve him in Sicily, even when they knew he 
 was very ill, proves that that was the general opinion. But 
 he was afraid of the people, and he had good reason, for 
 there can be little doubt that they would have put him to 
 death had he returned.^ According to Plutarch the man 
 who brought the first news of the disaster was put on the 
 wheel. The proceedings after the battle of Arginusae 
 furnish another illustration. 
 
 After these prosecutions Pericles appears to have regained 
 his influence, but the sufferings caused by the plague, and 
 the exasperation of the citizens at seeing their lands ravaged, 
 caused a fierce outburst against him, accompanied by 
 threats and scurrilous gibes. On this occasion Cleon is said 
 to have been the leader, or one of the leaders, of the attack. 
 The people were not appeased until * they had taken the 
 pebbles in their hands against him and condemned him to be 
 general no more, and to pay a fine, which is stated at the 
 lowest estimate to have been fifteen talents, and at the 
 highest fifty.' ^ Whereupon they re-elected him to the 
 
 preme command .^ But he did not long survive . Quarrels 
 
 * Soe Thuc. vii. 48 and iv. 65 ; also Plutarch's Nicias. 
 
 * Plut. Per. 35. 
 
 ' Compare Thuc. ii. 65 : * The popular indignation was not pacified 
 until they had fined Pericles ; but soon afterwards, with the usual fickle- 
 ness of the multitude, they eloctod him general and committed all their 
 affairs to his charge. Their private sorrows were beginning to be less 
 acutely felt, and for a time of public need they thought that there was no 
 one like him.* 
 
68 THE BIRDS 
 
 with his eldest son, losses of relatives and friends by the 
 plague, including both his legitimate sons, at last broke his 
 spirit, and he withdrew from public life ; ^ but only to be 
 persuaded to come forward again at the urgent invitation 
 of the people. But he shortly afterwards sickened of the 
 plague, and died two years and six months after the out- 
 break of the war. 2 
 
 ^ Plutarch's account of this is well known — ^how he ' lost his sister and 
 most of his relations and friends, and those too who were most serviceable 
 to him in his public work. Yet he would not yield nor abate his firmness 
 and greatness of spirit through these aflSlictions, but was not observed to 
 weep or mourn, or attend the fimeral of any of his relations, until he lost 
 Paralus, the last of his legitimate offspring. Crushed by this blow he still 
 tried to preserve his high manner and pride of spirit, but when carrying a 
 garland to lay on the corpse he was overpowered by his feelings at the 
 sight of it, so that he burst into wailing and shed copious tears, having 
 never been known to do such a thing before in his life.' 
 
 * I take this opportunity to raise a question about the last words of 
 Pericles, as reported by Plutarch. He says that as he was on his death- 
 bed those of his friends and the leading citizens {rdv ttoKltCjv ol ^iXTtaroi) 
 who were sitting round him were speaking of his nobleness and power 
 (t^s dperiis Kal tt}s dvvdfxeus) and going over his victories in war, thinking 
 he was no longer conscious. He, however, had been following them, and, 
 suddenly interrupting, said that he was ' surprised at their remember- 
 ing and praising such things in him, which were common according to 
 fortune, and had occurred before to many generals, while they did not 
 mention the fairest and greatest thing. " For," said he, " no one of 
 those who are Athenians has ever put on black through me " ' — OuSeis 
 yitp, ^(pr}, 5i' ifi^ t<2v 6vtwp 'Adrjvaliou /x^Xav Ifxdriov Trepte^dXero. This is 
 commonly translated, ' No Athenian ever wore black through any act 
 of mine,' and understood as being a claim by Pericles to having been 
 sparing of the lives of the citizens in war, and expressive of his humanity. 
 There are several objections to this interpretation. First, it is not 
 sustained by the context, the speaker deprecating mention of success in 
 war, as depending on fortune. Moreover, it could not have been true, 
 in that sense, in fact. Secondly, there is no evidence that Pericles, though 
 exercising power with enlightened moderation and forbearance, was much 
 in advance of his age in point of general humanity. His driving out of 
 the Hestiaeans in Euboea may perhaps have been justifiable according to 
 the code of the day (see Plut. Per. 23) ; but the similar treatment of the 
 Aeginetans at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War {Ibid. 34 and Thuc. 
 ii. 27) was an act of power comparable to the massacre of a remnant of 
 these people — who helped largely to win the battle of Salarais — by the 
 Athenians later, as Thucydides says, ' in satisfaction of their long- 
 standing hatred ' (iv. 57). Of course they had the support of Sparta, and 
 the act may be regarded as one of war and policy, but, even so, it seems 
 to have been a very pitiless one. The fact is that it is dangerous to 
 
ttll 
 
 i 
 
 THE BIRDS 69 
 
 Pericles may be said to have been the last of the old 
 Attic leaders — of that succession from Pisistratus within 
 whose ambit the Athenian empire, as a growing power, is 
 enclosed. As we read the history, and see his figure pass 
 from view, we feel a sense of loss, and that we are left 
 among smaller men. But this perhaps is an illusion pro- 
 duced by all exceptional personahties, especially when 
 viewed at a distance and through the medium of art. 
 The period which follows is of greater human interest, 
 because it is more self-conscious, and it not only has 
 Thucydides for its historian, but it is illuminated by the 
 genius of Aristophanes. 
 
 Before, however, we come to his work it is necessary to 
 say something of the intervening period, which includes the 
 rise to power of Cleon. 
 
 attribute ' humanity,' in the general sense in which that word is now used, 
 to any one in antiquity. Thirdly, what is the point of the participle 
 dfTwv, which, if the phrase simply means ' no Athenian,' seems to be 
 redundant ? I cannot undertake to answer this question, but I thiiik 
 that the point of the remark is this — that the rule of Pericles was spoken 
 of by his adversaries as that of a ' tjTant ' (Plut. Per. 39), that he was 
 ewldressing men who were of the ^^Xtkxtoi, with whom he was really in 
 sympathy, and among whom he had been born and brought up, that 
 * tyrannies ' had always been oppressive to them but indulgent to the 
 poorer classes, and that on his death-bed Pericles was able to say to them, 
 in eSect, ' Whatever you may have said about my rule being a tyranny, 
 you cannot say that I compassed the death of any of you, as the real 
 tyrants — even Pisistratus — did.' The tradition in Greece against tyrants 
 was not instituted originally by the people so much as by the rival families 
 whom they oppressed. Thus, according to Herodotus, a leading Corinthian 
 envoy said to the Spartan king Cleomenes, when he was seeking to 
 restore the tyranny at Athens : ' There is nothing in the whole world so 
 unjust, nothing so bloody, as a tyranny ' — reminiscent of the Cypselides. If 
 6vTU)v is emphatic, it might conceivably allude to the old Eupatrid feeling 
 that only a class were retJly Athenian, avrdx^ove^. But even without 
 this, the remark sooms to me, in the particular context, to be an expression 
 f satisfaction in the speaker as to the character of his rule, as a set-off 
 ainst the charge that he had thrown over his class and broken up the 
 nstitution. The writer of the article in Ency. Brit.^ imder ' Pericles,* 
 apparently takes a similar view, that the remark ' perhaps refers to his 
 forbearance towards his political rivals, whom he refused to ruin by 
 prosecution.' 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Historical Survey (continued) : Cleon, Nicias, Alcibiades. 
 * The Polity of the Athenians.* 
 
 There is a tendency among modern writers to represent 
 that the later attacks on Pericles were organised by the 
 upper-class party. But such evidence as there is indicates 
 that, in their most acute form, they proceeded from the 
 rival politicians on the popular side. Thus Plutarch gives 
 us a quotation from a contemporary comic dramatist, 
 Hermippus, which names Cleon as the thorn in the side of 
 Pericles, when he was refusing to lead out the army against 
 the Lacedaemonians. 1 It is idle to discount such passages 
 by saying, as some do, that the comic stage was under the 
 influence of the ' oligarchs.' To attack a reigning politician, 
 if possible through the popular courts, was a recognised 
 method by which a new aspirant brought himself forward. 
 Pericles himself did this.^ And why should the upper-class 
 party have been more anxious than the other party to 
 attack Pericles in his latter phase, when his fall would only 
 make way for such men as Cleon ? Unless, indeed, it was 
 thought that, in the general disorder which might follow, 
 the democracy would come to grief, which is possible in the 
 ease of some of the extremists, though not, I think, as yet, 
 as regards any considerable body of citizens. The writers 
 to whom I allude might sometimes almost be thinking of 
 democracy at Athens at this time as a movement for the 
 
 * /SatriXeD <raTi5/)wi», ri tot' ovk idiXeu 
 d6pv jSatrrdfeiJ', dXXd \6yovs fikv 
 vepl ToO TToKifiov deivovs irap^xv* 
 
 ypvxhf S^ TiXrjTos vir^ffTrji ; 
 Kayx^ipidlov 5' dK6vr] CKKnipq. 
 irapadTjyofi^vov /S/)i/xets KovldaSf 
 
 drjxdeU atduvi KUuvi. {Per. 33.) 
 
 * See p. 50, above. 
 7« 
 
THE BIRDS 71 
 
 political freedom of the masses on the analogy of the politics 
 of Europe since the French Revolution, whereas the position 
 was entirely different. The Athenian democracy had 
 obtained absolute control of all the powers of the State, 
 and could exercise them, if they wished, without any con- 
 stitutional restraints. In considering the character of 
 Cleon, and the democratic leaders who followed him, this 
 fact must be kept in mind. 
 
 Cleon was a manufacturer — ^apparently a master tanner — 
 who had pushed his way to the front through the popular 
 Assembly, by means probably of attacks on individuals of 
 the upper class. They, in their turn, despised him, partly 
 because of his origin and occupation, partly, and with 
 reason, because of the crudity and violence of his opinions. 
 That he had ability, however, there can be no question, for 
 Thucydides refers to him twice as the man who at that time 
 * had the greatest influence over the people.' ^ But he 
 also says that he was ' the most violent of the citizens,' and 
 his proceedings, as related by the historian, evidently justify 
 the description. At the same time he may be given credit 
 for strong, if narrow, patriotism, and great energy in 
 promoting the interests, as he regarded them, of the 
 majority of the citizens, of whom he considered himself the 
 champion against upper-class intrigue and the dishonesty 
 IB of ofi&ce -holders. Hostility to Sparta and strong measures 
 with the subject allies ^ were the keynotes of his poHcy. 
 So far as we know he was the first Athenian statesman who 
 carried decrees in the Assembly for the punishment by 
 
 )■ extermination of cities which revolted. Both Thucydides 
 " and Aristophanes accuse him of peculation and taking 
 bribes, but there may, of course, be some prejudice in this, 
 and these charges were common at Athens. The words of 
 Thucydides are : ' Brasidas and Cleon, who had been the 
 two greatest enemies of peace — ^the one because the war 
 IB brought him success and reputation, and the other because 
 
 ^ &v jcol is ri &\\a /StatAraTos rwv TroXtTuJi* ry re 5'^fKfi irapd woXd iv rip rbm 
 viBavunaros {\n. 36; cf. iv. 21). 
 
 * He gave effect in an extreme form to the policy of Pericles, ' to keep 
 the allies well in hand.' 
 
72 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 he fancied that in quiet times his rogueries would be more 
 transparent, and his slanders less credible.' ^ 
 
 It is customary to describe Cleon as ' coarse ' and 
 * brutal,' but the single speech in which Thucydides repre- 
 sents him does not give colour to that view.^ It suggests, 
 rather, vulgarity of feeling and a domineering self-confidence. 
 But the argument is well sustained, and the speech has 
 nothing about it of the ' claptrap ' of modern mob oratory.^ 
 The standard of inteUigence, though perhaps not of educa- 
 tion,* of the Athenian Assembly was evidently high. Cleon 
 reproves them for being too ' clever,' and for failing, in 
 consequence, in practical judgment. He begins by boldly 
 criticising them : wM 
 
 ' I have remarked again and again that a democracy cannot 
 manage an empire, but never more than now, when I see you 
 regretting your condemnation of the Mytilenaeans. . . . You 
 should remember that your empire is a despotism exercised over 
 unwilling subjects who are always conspiring against you ; they 
 do not obey in return for any kindness which you do them to 
 your own injury, but in so far as you are their masters ; they 
 have no love of you, but they are held down by force. Besides 
 what can be more detestable than to be perpetually changing 
 our minds ? ' J 
 
 He suggests that the advocates on the other side have 
 been well paid for their speeches, and says that the Assembly 
 is to blame for listening to them as though they were 
 
 * V. 16. I 
 
 * Speech against the reversal of the decree condemning the Mytilenaeans 
 to death (Thuc. iii. 37). 
 
 * I do not suggest that political oratory at Athens was free from ' clap- 
 trap.' We know, in fact, from Aristophanes that it was not. 
 
 * A suggestion has been made (Adolf Holm, Eng. trans., ii. 390, 610) 
 that Athenian citizens were all equally educated, by means of the theatre. 
 But, apart from the fact that there is direct evidence to the contrary, 
 no one ever heard of people becoming ' educated ' by going to the play, 
 where no effort on the part of the beholder is required. Moreover, the 
 tragic contests only took place twice a year, and the fact that the mass of 
 the citizens, apparently from the time of Pericles, were paid to attend 
 them appears to indicate that the taste for them among the democracy 
 when it had become free to express itself, was not universal. There is 
 further evidence for this view, to be noted later. 
 
I 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 THE BIRDS 73 
 
 * spectators attending a performance of sophists, but very 
 unlike counsellors of a state.' Let them put aside such 
 trifling and punish the offenders as they deserve. * And do 
 not absolve the people while you throw the blame upon the 
 nobles. For they were all of one mind when we were to be 
 attacked.' He concludes : 
 
 * Do not then hold out a hope, which eloquence can secure or 
 money buy, that they are to be excused, and that their error is 
 to be deemed human and venial. Their attack was not unpre- 
 meditated ; that might have been an excuse for them ; but they 
 knew what they were doing. This was my original contention, 
 and I stiU maintain that you should abide by your former 
 decision and not be misled either by pity, or by the charm of 
 words, or by a too forgiving temper. There are no three things 
 more prejudicial to your power. . . . For if they were right in 
 revolting, you must be wrong in maintaining your empire. 
 But if, right or wrong, you are resolved to rule, then rightly 
 or wrongly they must be chastised for your good. Other- 
 wise you must give up your empire, and, when virtue is no 
 longer dangerous, you may be as virtuous as you please. . . . 
 Chastise them as they deserve, and prove by an example to your 
 other allies that rebellion will be punished with death. If this 
 is made quite clear to them, your attention will no longer be 
 diverted from your enemies by wars against your own aUies.' 
 
 Diodorus, in his speech on the other side, deprecates the 
 advocacy which, having a bad cause, seeks to terrify oppo- 
 nents by the audacity of its calumnies. ' Worst of all are 
 those who, besides other topics of abuse, declare that their 
 opponents are hired to make an eloquent speech. . . . And so 
 the city suffers, for she is robbed of her counsellors by fear.' 
 
 The impression of Cleon which we get from these two 
 
 speeches is that of a man of great force, but narrow outlook, 
 
 on easy terms with the people, morally not above them, and 
 
 encouraging them in the suspicions to which they were 
 
 naturally prone. We find further from Plutarch that he 
 
 entertained them with bold jests, ^ and the Aristotelian 
 
 * * Neither had he [Nioias] the dexterity of Cleon or his powers of 
 ribaldry by which he used to manage the Athenians by amusing them ' 
 (Piut. Nicitu, 3). 
 
74 THE BIRDS 
 
 treatise says that ' he was the first to shout and make use 
 of abuse on the Bema, and to harangue the people with 
 his cloak girt up short, whereas his predecessors had spoken 
 with decorum ' (eV Koafim).^ Plutarch also speaks of his 
 * avarice, audacity and presumption,' and of his * levity and 
 extravagant conduct,' which the Athenians 'were accus- 
 tomed to bear with in him as affording them sport, not 
 unpleasantly.' 
 
 As leader of the Assembly Cleon, of course, had great 
 influence over affairs by means of the system of popular 
 decrees, which was encroaching more and more on the 
 executive authority of the Council. Especially would 
 this be so in finance, and we find that, at Cleon's instigation, 
 the tribute from the aUies was doubled, and the pay of 
 the dicasts was raised from one to three obols. 
 
 But for the more critical business of military adminis- 
 tration and foreign affairs the man to whom the Athenians 
 looked, after the death of Pericles, was Nicias. Though a 
 wealthy man, and coming forward as the representative of 
 upper-class interests against the attacks of Cleon, he never- 
 theless seems to have had the entire confidence of the 
 democracy from the begimiing to the end of his career. 
 I have already alluded to his fear of the people. He was 
 evidently constitutionally a timid man, but in action he 
 showed hardihood and vigour. He was a great miHtary 
 expert and famous as a miHtary engineer .^ His super- 
 stitious regard for deities and recourse to divination have 
 been regarded as the cause of his failure to withdraw the 
 army from Syracuse while he still could, but this was 
 probably a pretext, the augur being on such occasions sub- 
 servient to the views of the general.^ Fear of the people 
 
 * Plutarch's account of this is as follows : ' Among other things he 
 destroyed all the decorum of public speaking ; he was the first who broke 
 out into exclamations, flung open his dress, smote his thigh, and ran up 
 and down when he was speaking ' {Nidas, 8). 
 
 « Thuc. iii. 61 ; Aristoph. Birds, 363. 
 
 » Otherwise the augur would have taken the responsibiUty for military 
 movements. Compare the account in Herodotus of Pausanias at the 
 battle of Plataea, where fear of the issue rather than the auguries must 
 have been the motive for the long delay. 
 
THE BIRDS 75 
 
 at Athens was, as Thucydides tells us, the dominating 
 motive, as well as hope of ultimate success through the 
 party with which he was in correspondence within the city.^ 
 There are, moreover, indications in Plutarch that Nicias 
 made use of religious devotion, to some extent, as a method 
 of self -protection. Like Pericles, he withdrew from social 
 intercourse : ' So cautious was he of informers, and so 
 reserved, that he never would dine out with any citizen, 
 nor allowed himself to indulge in talk and conversation with 
 his friends, nor gave himself any leisure for such amusements. 
 He would excuse himself on the plea of state business, and 
 he kept a slave, one Hiero, whom he had educated in his 
 own family and instructed in letters and music,' who stood 
 between him and the public, * giving out to the people 
 what a toilsome and miserable life he led for the sake of the 
 commonwealth.' This man, apparently, also organised the 
 dramatic exhibitions, games, and other public shows, with 
 which Nicias courted the people on a more sumptuous 
 scale than had hitherto ever been known. Plutarch also 
 has the following : 
 
 ' He observed that the people, in the case of men of eloquence 
 or eminent parts, made use of their talents upon occasion, but 
 were always jealous of their abiHties, and held a watchful eye 
 upon them, taking all opportunities to humble their pride and 
 abate their reputation, as was manifest in their condemnation of 
 Pericles, their banishment of Damon, their distrust of Antiphon 
 the Rhamnusian, but especially in the case of Paches, who took 
 Lesbos, who having to give an account of his conduct in the 
 command, in the very court of justice (tw SiKao-riypty) drew his 
 sword and slew himself. Upon such considerations Nicias tried 
 to decline all difficult and lengthy enterprises ; if he took a 
 command he was for doing what was safe ; and if, as thus was 
 Ukely, he had for the most part success, he did not attribute it 
 to any wisdom, conduct, or courage of his own, but, to avoid 
 envy, he attributed it to fortune and took refuge in the 
 divinity.' (6.) 
 
 The Lacedaemonians had confidence in Nicias, and he 
 was the means of bringing about the peace which went 
 
 ^ Thuo. vii. 48, 49. 
 
76 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 under his name (421 B.C.). Plutarch says that this was 
 * as on account of his general character for moderation and 
 equity, so also because of the kindness and care he had 
 shown to the prisoners taken at Pylos and kept in confine- 
 ment, making their misfortune the more easy for them.' 
 The writer of the Aristotelian treatise on the Constitution 
 says of him : ' The best of the statesmen of Athens, after 
 those of early times, seem to have been Nicias, Thucydides 
 [the opponent of Pericles], and Theramenes. As to -Nicias 
 and Thucydides, nearly every one agrees that they were 
 not merely men of birth and character, but also statesmen, 
 and that they were paternally disposed towards the city as 
 a whole.' ^ 
 
 The peace of Nicias, with which the first phase of the 
 Peloponnesian War concludes, was brought about, on the 
 Spartan side, mainly through the capture by the Athenians 
 at Pylos of a considerable force of Spartan citizens, who 
 were kept in captivity at Athens. This coup was followed 
 by the seizure of Cythera, from which place, as well as from 
 Pylos, raids were made, and the Spartans unused to pre- 
 datory warfare, in which the Athenians excelled, began to 
 lose confidence in themselves. Indeed, before the capture 
 of the Spartan force, when they were cut off on the island 
 of Sphacteria, the Spartans had sent to Athens to negotiate 
 for a peace. With the simpHcity which characterised them, 
 they announced that they had come ' to negotiate for the 
 recovery of our countrymen on the island, in the hope 
 that you may be induced to grant us terms such as wiU be 
 at once advantageous to you and not inglorious to us in our 
 present misfortune. . . . The Lacedaemonians invite you 
 to make terms with them and finish the war. They offer 
 peace and alliance and a general friendly and happy relation, 
 and they ask in return their countrymen who are cut off 
 in the island. . . . While the contest is still undecided, 
 while you may acquire reputation and our friendship, and 
 while our disaster can be repaired on tolerable terms, and 
 
 ' Kal Tji 7r6\ei irdaTj Trarpt/cvs xp^t^^^^^'^* 28. The emphasis seems to 
 be on iraari, the whole city, not a party only. 
 
THE BIRDS 77 
 
 disgrace averted, let us be reconciled, and choosing peace 
 instead of war ourselves, let us give relief and rest to all the 
 Hellenes.' ^ Cleon, however, persuaded the Assembly to 
 stand out for impossible terms, and on the Lacedaemonians 
 offering to discuss the matter privately with commissioners, 
 their proposal * was assailed by Cleon in unmeasured 
 language. He had always known, he said, that they meant 
 no good, and now their designs were unveiled ; for they were 
 unwilhng to speak a word before the people, but wanted 
 to be closeted with a select few ; if they had any honesty 
 in them, let them say what they wanted to the whole city.* 
 The Lacedaemonian ambassadors, realising that the 
 Athenians * would not grant what was asked of them on 
 any tolerable terms,' thereupon returned home.^ 
 
 The overweening confidence induced in the Athenians 
 by their successes at this time is further illustrated by their 
 treatment of the generals who had taken out an expedition 
 to Sicily in support of the Leontines against Syracuse. 
 At the instance of Hermocrates the Sicilian cities agreed 
 to make peace among themselves, with a view to checking 
 the designs of the Athenians, and the cities in aUiance with 
 Athens informed the Athenian generals that they intended 
 to join in the treaty ; * and so the Athenian ships sailed away 
 from Sicily.' Thucydides then relates : 
 
 ' When the generals returned the Athenians punished two of 
 them, Pythodorus and Sophocles, with exile, and imposed a fine 
 on the third, Eurymedon, believing that they might have con- 
 quered Sicily but had been bribed to go away. For in their 
 present prosperity they were indignant at the idea of a reverse ; 
 they expected to accomplish everything, possible or impossible, 
 with any force, great or smaU. The truth was that they were 
 elated by the unexpected success of most of their enterprises, 
 which inspired them with the Hveliest hope.' ' 
 
 The tide, however, very soon turned. An attack on 
 Boeotia failed disastrously in the defeat of the Athenian 
 
 ^ Thuc. iv. 17-20. * Ibid. 21. 22. » Ibid. 65. 
 
78 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 forces at Delium, and Brasidas, who had passed with a 
 picked force through Thessaly into Chalcidice, was detach- 
 ing city after city from the Athenian alHance. Here it was 
 that Thucydides, the historian, came to grief, having 
 to go into exile for faihng to save AmphipoHs. A further 
 index of the spirit prevaihng at Athens is seen in the decree 
 against one of the revolted cities. * They instantly carried 
 a resolution, moved by Cleon, to destroy Scione and put 
 the citizens to the sword.' ^ Cleon himseK then sailed with 
 a large force to the Chalcidian cities, and was killed, with 
 the loss of many Athenian hoplites, in a fight with Brasidas, 
 who won a complete victory (though falHng himself) before 
 Amphipolis. Both sides were then disposed towards peace, 
 and the peace, known as that of Nicias, was accordingly 
 effected (421 B.C.). 
 
 Alcibiades now comes upon the scene, and with his 
 career the destiny of Athens, to its fall, was inseparably 
 linked. An Alcmaeonid on his mother's side, on his father's 
 he was of the family of the Aeacidae, who claimed descent 
 from Ajax. Through the death of his father at the battle 
 of Cononaea he became a ward of Pericles, and an amusing 
 and significant conversation between him as a youth and 
 the great statesman is given by Xenophon : 
 
 * Thus the story is told of Alcibiades — ^how before the age of 
 twenty he engaged his own guardian Pericles, at that time first 
 minister of the state, in a discussion concerning laws : 
 
 Alc. Please, Pericles, can you teach me what a law is ? 
 
 Per. To be sure I can. 
 
 Alc. I should be so much obliged if you would do so. On^ 
 so often hears the epithet " law-abiding " applied in a com- 
 plimentary sense ; yet, it strikes me, one hardly deserves the 
 compKment, if one does not know what a law is. 
 
 Per. Fortunately there is a ready answer to your difficulties. 
 You wish to know what a law is ? Well, those are laws which 
 the majority, being met together in conclave, approve and enact 
 as to what is right to do, and what it is right to abstain 
 from doing. 
 
 1 Thuc. iv. 122. 
 
THE BIRDS 79 
 
 AiiC. Enact on the hypothesis that it is right to do what is 
 good ? or to do what is bad ? 
 
 Per. What is good, to be sure, young sir, not what is bad. 
 
 Alc. Supposing it is not the majority, but, as in the case of 
 an oligarchy, the minority, who meet and enact the rules of con- 
 duct, what are these ? 
 
 Per. Whatever the ruhng power of the state after dehberation 
 enacts as our duty to do, goes by the name of law. 
 
 Alc. Then if a t3n'ant, holding the chief power in the state, 
 enacts rules of conduct for the citizens, are these enactments 
 law? 
 
 Per. Yes, anything which a tyrant as head of the state enacts, 
 also goes by the name of law. 
 
 Alc. But, Pericles, violence and lawlessness — ^how do we define 
 them ? Is it not when a stronger man forces a weaker to do 
 what seems right to him — not by persuasion but by compulsion ? 
 
 Per. I should say so. 
 
 Alc. It would seem to follow that if a tyrant, without per- 
 suading the citizens, drives them by enactment to do certain 
 things — that is lawlessness ? 
 
 Per. You are right ; and I retract the statement that measures 
 passed by a tyrant without persuasion of the citizens are law. 
 
 Alc. And what of measures passed by a minority, not by 
 persuasion of the majority, but in the exercise of its power 
 only ? Are we, or are we not, to apply the term violence to 
 these ? 
 
 Per. I think that anything which any one forces another to 
 do without persuasion, whether by enactment or not, is violence 
 rather than law. 
 
 Alc. It would seem that everything which the majority, in 
 the exercise of its power over the possessors of wealth, and 
 without persuading them, chooses to enact, is of the nature of 
 violence rather than of law. 
 
 * To be sure (answered Pericles), adding : At your age we were 
 clever hands at such quibbles ourselves. It was just such 
 subtleties which we used to practise our wits upon ; as you do 
 now, if I mistake not. 
 
 To which Alcibiades repUed : Ah, Pericles, I do wish we could 
 have met in those days when you were at your cleverest in 
 matters.' * 
 
 » Xen. Mem. i. 2, 39 sq. (trana. Dakyns). 
 
80 THE BIRDS 
 
 Alcibiades represented the new generation, for many of 
 whom the old beliefs had been shattered by the discourses 
 of the sophists, and who had found nothing to take their 
 place. By his splendid physique, personal magnetism, 
 high descent, and display of wealth,^ he had gained great 
 influence among the people, and on the death of Cleon he 
 aspired to lead the democracy. To this end he set himself 
 against the poHcy of Nicias, and organised a confederation 
 with Argos, Mantinea, and Elis against Sparta. By a 
 shameful trick on the Spartan envoys, by which he persuaded 
 them to deny in the Assembly the powers which they had 
 acknowledged in the Council, in return for a promise on 
 his part that he would get Pylos restored to them, he so 
 excited the people against them that they concluded the 
 new alliance. But it brought them no good, for the con- 
 federates were utterly routed by the Spartan forces at 
 Mantinea. The account of this engagement by Thucydides 
 is so vivid as to have led to the suggestion, for which there 
 seems to be good ground, that he was an eye-witness .^ * The 
 pursuit,' he adds, ' was not fierce nor the flight protracted, 
 for the Lacedaemonians fight long and refuse to move until 
 they have put an enemy to flight, but, having once defeated 
 him, they do not follow him far or long.' ^ ' Thus, by a 
 single action, they wiped out the charge of cowardice, which 
 was due to their misfortunes at Sphacteria, and of general 
 stupidity and sluggishness, then current against them in 
 Hellas. They were now thought to have been hardly used 
 by fortune, but in character to be the same as ever.' * 
 
 So long, however, as Sparta remained a land power she 
 was powerless to strike a mortal blow at Athens, and in 
 recommending the expedition against Sicily three years later 
 
 * He had competed at Olympia with seven chariots, and gained the 
 first, second, and fourth prizes. 
 
 * E.g. ' The Lacedaemonians moved slowly and to the music of many 
 flute-players, who were stationed in their ranks, and played, not as an act 
 of religion, but in order that the army might march evenly and in true 
 measure, and that the line might not break, as often happens in great 
 armies when they go into battle ' (Thuc. v. 70, and cf. 60). 
 
 » Ibid. 73. * Ibid. 76. 
 
I 
 
 THE BIRDS 81 
 
 it was open to Alcibiades to say with some show of truth : 
 * Never were the Peloponnesians more hopeless of success 
 than at the present moment ; and let them be ever so 
 confident, they will only invade us by land, which they 
 can equally do whether we go to Sicily or not. But on the 
 sea they cannot hurt us, for we shall leave behind us a 
 navy equal to theirs.' ^ Moreover, the Spartans had no 
 money, whereas Athens had the sinews of war from the 
 tribute. After the SiciHan disaster necessity compelled 
 them to become a naval power, ^ and with the help of Persian 
 gold they were thus enabled to overcome Athens. 
 
 At the time, however, of which we are speaking, the 
 sovereign democracy of Athens sat secure, with its long 
 walls to the Piraeus, its impregnable harbour, its ships 
 bringing corn from the Euxine, and its navies unchallenged 
 throughout the Aegean and Ionian seas. Perhaps it was by 
 way of illustrating this position of unbridled power to which 
 the democracy had attained that Thucydides selects the 
 incident of the unprovoked attack on the island of Melos 
 which took place at this time. It was an offence to them 
 that, being islanders, the MeHans were independent,' and 
 after summoning them to pay tribute as subject allies, 
 and receiving a refusal, they reduced them by blockade, 
 and put to death all the men who were of military age and 
 made slaves of the women and children.* Plutarch says 
 that Alcibiades was the principal cause of the slaughter, 
 
 * having spoken in favour of the decree.' And indeed the 
 extreme cynicism of the arguments put by Thucydides into 
 the mouth of the Athenian representatives at the conference 
 suggests this. The doctrine of the ' will to power ' — ^not so 
 very new after all — is asserted there in a manner which 
 seems somewhat foreign to the traditional Athenian spirit : 
 
 * For of the gods we beheve, and of men we know, that by a 
 w of their nature wherever they can rule they will.' 
 
 » Thuc. vi. 17. » Ibid. viii. 2. 
 
 • * The Melians are colonists of the Lacedaemonians who would not 
 
 [brait to Athens Uke the other islanders * (Thuc. v. 84). 
 
 « Ibid. 116. 
 
 F 
 
8^ THE BIRDS 
 
 Then followed the Sicilian expedition : * During the same 
 winter the Athenians conceived a desire of sending another 
 expedition to Sicily, larger than those commanded by 
 Laches and Eurymedon. They hoped to conquer the 
 island. Of its great size and numerous population, 
 barbarian as well as Hellenic, most of them knew nothing, 
 and they never reflected that they were entering on a 
 struggle almost as arduous as the Peloponnesian War.' ^ 
 But the dreams of Alcibiades and his friends were on a still 
 vaster scale, and in his speech to the Spartan assembly, 
 after he had gone over to them, he is represented by 
 Thucydides as disclosing them : 
 
 ' We sailed to Sicily hoping in the first place to conquer the 
 SiciUan cities ; then to proceed against the Hellenes of Italy ; 
 and lastly to make an attempt on the Carthaginian dominions, 
 and on Carthage itself. If all or most of these enterprises suc- 
 ceeded, we meant finally to attack Peloponnesus, bringing with 
 us the whole Hellenic power which we had gained abroad, be- 
 sides many barbarians whom we intended to hire. . . . Thus we 
 hoped to crush you easily, and to rule over the Hellenic world.* * 
 
 Though Thucydides is silent on the domestic affairs of 
 Athens, we have preserved to us, among the works attributed 
 to Xenophon, a document belonging to this time, or a few 
 years earHer, which throws light on them from the point of 
 view of a member of the upper class. The paper is called 
 * The PoHty of the Athenians,' and was apparently written 
 for some Lacedaemonian friend. It is a defence of the 
 democracy from its own standpoint, and, though written 
 in a tone of insidious irony, it is nevertheless a serious 
 production and of contemporary value. Wherever demo- 
 cratic government prevailed in the Greek city-states there 
 was oppression of the richer class, and there were always 
 exiles whose property was confiscated. That this was so at 
 Athens is proved by the fact that one of the stipulations of 
 the Lacedaemonians at the fall of Athens was the return 
 
 » Thuo. vi. 1. • Ibid. 90. 
 
 
THE BIRDS 83 
 
 of the exiles. To this class the writer of the paper in 
 question evidently belonged. Evidence of its activity at 
 this time appears in the remark of Nicias in his speech dis- 
 suading the Athenians from the Sicilian expedition : * If 
 we are wise we shall not trouble ourselves about the bar- 
 barous Egestaeans in Sicily ; the real question is how we 
 can make ourselves secure against the designs of an insidious 
 oligarchy.' ^ The writer of the paper, however, adopts an 
 attitude of good-humoured resignation rather than of 
 active opposition. I will give a few extracts from it, and 
 with them conclude this historical survey. 
 
 * The Polity of the Athenians ' 
 
 I. 1-5. ' As concerning the Polity of the Athenians, and the 
 type or manner of constitution which they have chosen, 
 I praise it not, in so far as the very choice involves the 
 welfare of the baser folk as opposed to that of the better 
 class . . . but given the fact that this is the type agreed 
 upon, I propose to show that they set about its preserva- 
 tion in the right way. 
 
 ' In the first place, I maintain, it is only just that the 
 poorer classes and the demos should be better off than the 
 men of birth and wealth, seeing that it is the people who 
 man the fleet, and put round the city her girdle of power. 
 The steersman, the boatswain, the pentecontarch, the 
 look-out-man, the shipwright — these are the people who 
 engird the city with power rather than the hophtes and 
 the men of birth and quaUty. This being the case, it 
 seems only just that offices of state should be thrown 
 open to every one. . . . Then there are many of these 
 offices which, according as they are in good or bad hands, 
 are a source of safety or of danger to the people, and in 
 these the people prudently abstain from sharing ; as, for 
 instance, it does not think it incumbent on itself to share 
 in the functions of the general or of the commander of 
 cavalry. ... It is only those departments of government 
 which bring emolument and assist the private purse that 
 the people care to keep in its own hands. 
 
 * Thue. vi 11. The meaning apparently is, 'against Lacedaemonia, 
 IS an oligarohioal power, in league with the oligarchical party.' 
 
84 THE BIRDS 
 
 ' In the next place, in regard to what some people are 
 puzzled to explain — the fact that everywhere they show 
 greater consideration to the base, to poor people and to 
 common folk than to persons of good quaUty — so far from 
 being a matter of surprise, this, as can be shown, is the 
 keystone of the preservation of the democracy. . . . All 
 the world over the better element is opposed to the demo- 
 cracy. For among the better classes there is the smallest 
 amount of intemperance and injustice, together with the 
 greatest amount of scrupulousness in the pursuit of a high 
 standard, but within the ranks of the people the greatest 
 amount of ignorance, disorderliness and rascahty.' 
 
 8. ' A state founded on such institutions will not be the best 
 state, but, given a democracy, its preservation will be so 
 best secured. 
 
 ' For the people does not want a well-governed city and 
 itself to serve, but to be free and rule ; as to bad legisla- 
 tion it cares Uttle about that. In fact what you beheve 
 to be bad legislation from this the demos gets strong and 
 is free.' 
 
 9. ' But if you seek for good legislation, in the first place you 
 will see the ablest legislating for the rest. And in the next 
 place the better class will curb and punish the lower 
 orders ; the better class will deUberate for the state, and 
 not suffer crack-brained fellows to sit in the Council, or to 
 address the Assembly. No doubt ; but by such blessings 
 the people will in a very short time be reduced to slavery.' 
 
 13. ' Citizens devoting their time to gymnastics and music 
 are not to be found at Athens ; the sovereign people has 
 disestabhshed them, thinking this unsuitable, upon con- 
 sideration that the cultivation of these things is beyond 
 its own power. On the same principle it is the rich man 
 who trains the choruses and is trierarch or gymnasiarch, 
 and the people that gains the benefit. In fact what the 
 people looks upon as its right is to pocket the money, 
 whether singing, running, dancing, or saihng, in order that 
 it may be the gainer, while the rich are made poorer. 
 And so in the courts of justice, justice is not more an 
 object of concern to the dicasts than their own interests.' 
 
 14. ' To speak of the alfies, and in reference to the point 
 that emissaries from Athens come out and, according to 
 
THE BIRDS 85 
 
 common opinion, blackmail (crvKo4>avTov(Tiv) and vent 
 their hatred upon the better sort of people, they do so as 
 recognising the fact that the ruler is sure to be hated by 
 the ruled, but that if the rich and powerful are to wield 
 power in the subject cities, the rule of the demos at Athens 
 shall be for a very short time {oXLyLo-rov xpovov 17 apx^) carai 
 Tov S7J/X0V ToO 'AOrjVDcn). This explains why the better 
 sort of people are punished with loss of civil rights, robbed 
 of their goods, driven from their homes, and put to death, 
 while the baser sort are promoted to honour (Si a ravra 
 oZv Tovs fxkv xpjyo-TOVs drifiovai Kal \prifxa.ra d<f}aipovvrai koI 
 c^eAavvovo-i Kal diroKTcivovcri, tov5 8c Trovr)pov<i ai^ov<Tiv). 
 
 On the other hand, the better class at Athens endeavour 
 to protect the better classes in the aUied cities, recognising 
 that it is to the interest of their own class at all times to 
 protect the best element in the cities.' 
 
 16. * It may be said that the real strength of Athens lies 
 in the capacity of the aUies to contribute their money 
 quota. But to the democratic mind it is a greater advan- 
 tage still for the individual Athenian to get hold of the 
 wealth of the allies, leaving them only enough to hve upon 
 and to cultivate their estates, but powerless to harbour 
 treacherous designs.' 
 
 16. Compelling the allies to voyage to Athens to have their 
 cases tried, looked on by the writer as a mistaken policy ; 
 but the demos gains numerous advantages from this : 
 
 1 . * A steady receipt of salaries all the year from court 
 fees.' 
 
 2. Holding their sessions at home. 
 
 3. * They thus preserve the friends of democracy and 
 ruin her opponents in the courts' (koi tovs fj.(v tov Srjfiov 
 
 orw^ovcri, TOVS S' (vavriovs diroXXvovaiv €V tois SiKaaTrjpiois:). 
 
 18. * Whereas now every single individual among the allies 
 [not only generals or ambassadors] is forced to pay 
 flattery to the Athenian demos, because he knows that he 
 must betake himself to Athens and win or lose his case, 
 not before anybody, but before the sovereign demos, which 
 is really law at Athens ; and he is compelled to do the 
 supphant in the courts, and when a jurjnnan enters, to 
 take him by the hand. For this reason the allies find 
 themselves more and more slaves to the demos at Athens.' 
 
86 THE BIRDS 
 
 % 
 
 II. 14. They lack one thing, namely, being an island. As it 
 is, the farming portion of the community and the wealthy 
 landowners are too ready to cringe to the enemy. The 
 demos [mainly the town population], on the other hand, 
 have no such fears. 
 
 15. If they were an island they would be free from the fear 
 of the city being betrayed by a few to the enemy. * But 
 now, if there should be faction, those who would set it on 
 foot would do so in the hope of success by bringing in an 
 enemy by land.' 
 
 16. ' Since, however, they did not chance to inhabit an 
 island from the first, what they now do is this — they 
 deposit their property in the islands, trusting to the 
 command of the sea, and they suffer the soil of Attica to 
 be ravaged, knowing that to expend pity on that would 
 be to deprive themselves of other greater advantages.' 
 
 18. ' It is not allowed to caricature or otherwise hbel the 
 demos on the comic stage, so that they may not hear them- 
 selves ill spoken of. Individuals may be satirised ; and 
 this because they are well aware that, as a general rule, the 
 person caricatured does not belong to the demos or the 
 masses, but he is more Hkely to be some wealthy or well- 
 bom person, or man of influence.' 
 
 20. * For my part I pardon the people its own democracy, as, 
 indeed, it is pardonable in any one to do good to himself.' 
 
 We shall find further illustration of these points in the 
 plays of Aristophanes, to be now considered. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Birds of Aristophanes and its meaning. 
 The * Zeus ' analogy. 
 
 We are now in a position to resume the consideration of 
 the Birds, which we left in Chapter I. 
 
 The scene opens in a wild and remote region. Peisthe- 
 taems, a typical elderly Athenian of the better class, whose 
 name suggests the meaning of * a persuader of his friends,' 
 with an allusion perhaps to the political clubs at Athens 
 (eratpetai), accompam'ed by a follower Euelpides (* Hopeful '), 
 arrive there after long wanderings. Euelpides explains to 
 the spectators : 
 
 ' We have fled from the city of our birth, though having the 
 rights of citizenship in tribe and birth, citizen with citizen, not 
 soared away by any one, not hating that city in itself, so as not 
 to consider it by gift of nature great and wealthy, and common 
 to aU — to pay fines in. For the cicadae, indeed, sing one month 
 or two upon the branches, but the Athem'ans are always singing 
 during their whole Hfe upon lawsuits. For this reason we are 
 journeying on this path ... in search of a place free from 
 trouble, where we may settle and Uve. Now our journey is to 
 Tereus, the hoopoe, wishing to learn from him if anywhere, where 
 he has flown, he has seen such a city.' (1-48.) 
 
 Tereus, in my view, stands for the ancient regime at 
 
 Athens. According to the legend he was king of Thrace, 
 
 and was metamorphosed into a hoopoe, and his wife Procne 
 
 into a nightingale ; but the point is that she was a daughter 
 
 of one of the early kings of Athens. She is also referred to 
 
 later in the play as of kindred with the two Athenians (368). 
 
 The Hoopoe, who in the play is king of the birds, is also 
 
 alluded to as an Athenian, as, for instance, in line 75. * he 
 
 m 
 
88 THE BIRDS 
 
 was once a man, and now and then longs to eat Phaleric 
 anchovies ' — Phalerum being one of their sea beaches. 
 
 An allusion follows to the naval expedition then in Sicilian 
 waters, and to the litigiousness at Athens (108-111) : 
 Epops. * What country do you hail from ? Euel. Erom 
 where the fine triremes come. Epops. Are you heliasts ? 
 Euel. Quite the reverse — ^antiheHasts.' It is then indicated, 
 under aUegory, that the country people of Attica were less 
 litigious than the townsmen. 
 
 114-148. They explain to the Hoopoe that they are in 
 search of a comfortable city to settle in, and he asks if they 
 are looking for a greater city than Athens. They reply : 
 
 * Certainly not greater, but one more suited to us.' To 
 which the Epops : ' Evidently you are seeking to live under 
 an aristocracy.' * What, I ? By no means,' Euelpides 
 rephes, ' I even hate the son of Scellias ' (whose name was 
 Aristocrates ^). All they want is a town where they can 
 spend their days in security and pleasure. The Epops 
 sarcastically suggests various outlandish places, among 
 them the coast of the Red Sea. 'Ah,' replies Euelpides, 
 
 * by no means by the seaside for us, where the Salaminian 
 galley will come in sight early in the morning with a con- Ji 
 stable on board ' — ^an allusion presumably to the recall, a " 
 few months before, of Alcibiades from Sicily. This state 
 ship was used for executing the orders of the courts. ij 
 
 162-172. Peisthetaerus has now conceived an idea : 
 
 * Verily, I see a mighty plan possible for the race of birds, 
 and a power by which it might be effected if you would 
 trust yourselves to me. ... In the first place give up 
 fluttering about everywhere with open mouth, for this is an 
 undignified business. For example, if any one there among 
 us (iK€L Trap' rjfiLv) should ask among the flutterers, '* What 
 sort of bird is this ? " Teleas will say as follows : "A 
 man-bird, unstable, fluttering, fickle, never at any time 
 remaining in the same place." ' Epops. * By Dionysus, you 
 
 * Aristocrates, a rich Athenian, of moderate conservative views, and 
 associate of Theramenes in the establishment of the constitution of the 
 Five Thousand. 
 
I 
 
 THE BIRDS 89 
 
 rightly find fault with this. What then can we do ? * 
 Peisth. * Found one city ' (ot/ct'o-are fiiav irokiv). This is 
 evidently a description of the people of ' moderate ' views 
 at Athens, who were ' out of it,' and advice to concentrate 
 on some plan of action for improving their condition. The 
 sequel shows what it is. 
 
 173-197. Ai-istophanes is now sailing very near the wind, 
 so he conveys his meaning under double entente, and an 
 appearance of a hit at the theories of the astronomers. 
 The place Peisthetaerus advises the birds to fortify is the 
 
 * pole ' of the heavens above, which will then be called 
 
 * polis ' — a, city. The situation is indicated ambiguously, 
 but quite clearly in one sense of the words, as one where 
 they were standing, one which was frequented, and where 
 everything passed through (axrirep etiroi rt? totto?. | oti Be 
 iroXelrat, tovto koX Ste/sp^erat | airavra hia tovtov). This 
 points clearly to Sicily, the geographical position of 
 which would justify the expectation that, under a good 
 government, it would become a centre of the then world's 
 over -sea trade. But the passage cannot be rendered into 
 English, because it depends on the dual meaning of iroXelrai, 
 (181), which, in its application to the pole (ttoXo?), means 
 
 * is turned about,' and, in its application to the city (ttoX*?), 
 means * is frequented by people ' (from the sense of * circu- 
 lating '). By an ingenious transition the writer gets rid of 
 
 * pole,' sHps in ' place ' (totto?), after leading up to it by 
 the alUterative rpoirov, and then, by substituting the 
 neuter pronoun toOto, which can be made to refer to either 
 TToXo? or TOTTo?, accordlug to the gesture of the actor, is 
 able to make the ambiguous play with the word iroXelrai, 
 and even with the dangerous phrase BLepx^rai airavTa Bia 
 TOVTOV, which he gives as a reason why the heaven above 
 is called the * pole.' The tovtov is again ambiguous ; 
 applied to the ' place,' the phrase refers to the convenience 
 of trade ; applied to the ' pole,' it is a strained way of 
 expressing the then prevailing idea as to the revolution of 
 the heavens. The natural way of putting that would be 
 to say that the * pole,' in its revolution, passed round 
 
90 THE BIRDS 
 
 everything.^ That the significance of this passage would 
 largely depend on the actor's method of rendering it is 
 further shown by the frequent recurrence of the demon- 
 strative pronoun ; thus ovto<;, tovto, Blcl tovtov, tovto, 
 TovTov, in six Hues (179-184). The same remark applies to 
 the directions of Peisthetaerus to the Hoopoe — * look down/ 
 
 * look up/ * look around,' * If/ concludes Peisthetaerus, 
 
 * you found " this/' and once fortify it, from this " pole " 
 it shall be called " city " (TroXt?), so that you shall rule over 
 men like locusts [i.e. your subjects will have plenty to eat], 
 but the gods, on the other hand, you shall destroy with a 
 Mehan famine.' ^ By the ' gods ' is meant, in my opinion, 
 the sovereign democracy at Athens, and by ' men ' (avOpwTrcov) 
 the subject allies ; these two terms being adopted, with 
 their significance, from the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus, 
 under the theory of its meaning which I have summarised 
 in the preface and developed in the volume on that play. 
 
 It may be asked why, if the passage carries this meaning, 
 it was not seized by a Greek audience. The answer surely 
 is that it is impossible to take in the meaning of a compHcated 
 set of lines on hearing them for the first time spoken from 
 the stage. Let me give an illustration. Not long ago I 
 went to a performance of The Merchant of Venice. I had 
 not read the play since school days, and had forgotten much 
 of it. The speech of the Prince of Morocco, beginning 
 
 * Mislike me not for my complexion,' was magnificently 
 rendered by the actor. Unfortunately I stopped to think, 
 I suppose only for a few seconds, what ' The shadowed livery 
 of the burnished sun ' meant. In the meantime the speech 
 was going on, and I missed much of its effect. It was not 
 until I looked it up afterwards in the book that I realised 
 properly what had been said. So it is always with speeches 
 on the stage which are heavily charged with thought. If 
 they are good they are better at home, where the mind can 
 
 * The ' pole ' in antiquity was not thought of as a fixed point, but as a 
 concave sphere enclosing the earth, and carrying round in its revolution 
 the fixed stars. 
 
 ■ For the reduction of Melos, see p. 81 above. 
 
THE BIRDS 91 
 
 pause over them. Presumably the majority in an Athenian 
 audience were illiterate ; they would therefore be under a 
 disadvantage, and those only would understand the inward- 
 ness of such a passage who were intended to understand it, 
 namely, the author's poHtical friends, whom he probably 
 associated with at the * Clubs,' and among whom copies of 
 his plays might be handed about .^ No doubt an Athenian 
 audience was very quick, but they were human and subject 
 to human limitations. The compHments which Aristo- 
 phanes pays them about their * cleverness ' were largely 
 in the nature of flattery, with the object of winning the 
 prize for his play. When he brings an impersonation of 
 the average Athenian on the stage, ignorance and stupidity 
 have their full share in its composition. It is, however, 
 always treated with caution, as a dangerous animal to play 
 with. 
 
 To proceed with the passage — Peisthetaerus adds, by 
 way of further explanation, that the atmosphere is between 
 earth and heaven {iv fieao) hrjirovOev drip iaTi 7^9). * Then, 
 like as we (rifieU), if we wish to go to Delphi to consult the 
 oracle, ask of the Boeotians a passage, so, when men sacrifice 
 to the gods, unless the gods bring in tribute to you (<^6pov 
 (t>epa)(TLv v/jLip 01 Oeoi), you shall not grant a passage to 
 the odour of the thighs through the city which is not theirs 
 (tt)? dWoTplat;) and the " chaos " ' {tov x^^^^j ^^^ void of 
 atmosphere, a word used instead of heaven, the seat of the 
 gods, probably to give an astronomical colour to the 
 passage). This convinces the Hoopoe, who, with a shout 
 of admiration and various bird-conjurations, says that he 
 never heard a more clever device. 
 
 The Hoopoe now undertakes to summon the Chorus of 
 
 Birds, in order that Peisthetaerus may explain his plan 
 
 to them. At first they receive the two strangers with 
 
 hostility, but are finally induced to give them a hearing. 
 
 * An illustration of this point occurs in the poet's reference in the 
 Parabasis of the Wasps to his failure to win the prize in the previous year 
 with the Clouds (423 b.o.)- He tells the general audience that ' though 
 no one had ever heard better comic verses * they failed to understand 
 
92 THE BIRDS 
 
 After some mock-ceremonial Peisthetaerus begins by saying 
 that his preparations are due to the importance of the 
 utterance with which his mind has long been full, and 
 proceeds (465 sq.) : 
 
 ' to such an extent do I grieve over you, who, being formerly 
 kings — 
 
 Cher. We kings ? Kings of what ? 
 
 Peisth. Of all things that exist, of me first, of this man, and 
 of Zeus himself, had an existence more primeval and earlier than 
 Cronus, and the Titans, and earth. 
 
 Chob. And earth ? 
 
 Peisth. Aye, by Apollo. 
 
 Chob. This, by Zeus, I had not heard. 
 
 Peisth. Very hkely, for you are unlearned and not curious 
 about knowledge.' 
 
 and the question follows : * Is not, then, the sovereignty 
 [17 ^aaiXeia — ^which is personified as the * bride ' at the 
 end of the play] rightly theirs if they had an existence prior 
 to the earth and prior to the gods, inasmuch as they are the 
 oldest ? * 
 
 In this passage the favourite belief of the old Athenian 
 Eupatrids is, in my belief, reflected that they were 'yrj'yeveh 
 and avToxOove^ original inhabitants of Attica and sprung 
 from heroes and gods of the soil. ' Zeus ' is the victorious 
 monarch of the legends, as in the Prometheus Bound ; and 
 just as he is the * new ruler * in heaven in relation to the 
 older dispensations whom he supplanted, so the new ' Zeus ' 
 at Athens, namely, the sovereign * Demos,* has ejected the 
 natural and rightful rulers of the land. 
 
 Illustrations follow that * not the gods, but the birds, 
 were rulers and kings over men in ancient times,' and 
 Peisthetaerus then describes to the birds their present 
 deplorable condition, in lines, for those who understood 
 their inner meaning, of poignant significance (520 sq.) : 
 
 * And no man in those days used to swear by a god, but all 
 by the birds ... so great and sacred did they all think you in 
 former times, but now they regard you as captives, fools, and 
 slaves. And they throw stones at you, as they do at mad people, 
 
 
THE BIRDS 93 
 
 and even in the precincts of the temples every bird-catcher sets 
 snares, traps, limed-twigs, springes, meshes,^ nets, trap-cages for 
 you, and then they take and sell you in heaps. . . .' 
 
 Under this allegory the treatment of the better classes at 
 Athens by the popular courts is, as it appears to me, 
 described, and in the comic lines which follow, as to the 
 various ways of cooking the birds, the ruinous penalties to 
 which they were subjected by fines, banishment, confisca- 
 tions, etc., are alluded to. The lines must, of course, be 
 read in the Greek, for haK their significance lies in the 
 rhythm, which expresses the feeling with which they are 
 charged. The action of the play, which up to this point 
 has been in appearance merely comic, does not lead naturally 
 to this speech, and even less to the lament of the birds which 
 follows it : 
 
 iroAv Srj TToXv 8rj \a\(7r<aTdT0vs koyovs 
 rjveyKaiy avOpio<^\ k.t.X. 
 
 and they deplore ' the poor spirit of my fathers, who, 
 when their forefathers had transmitted to them these 
 honours, let them go to my injury.' * But you,' they 
 conclude, ' have come to me through some deity and by 
 some happy chance as my preserver. . . . Tell us then 
 what to do, since life is not worth our living unless we may 
 
 ' re0Aai, with a double meaning, i.e. meshes and cloudy argiunents 
 designed to confuse. Compare with this the appeal in the Farabasis of 
 the Achamiana against the treatment of deserving old men in the popular 
 courts : 
 
 * We aged veterans blame the city, for we are not supported by you in 
 our old ago in a manner worthy of those our sea-fights, but suffer grievously 
 at your hands, who having cast us, old as wo are, into prosecutions, allow 
 us to be laughed at by stripling orators . . . and babbhng through age 
 we take our stand at the bar, seeing nothing except it be the mist of 
 justice ' [with a reference to the confusion of the case]. ' But the young 
 man [eager to get on] strikes quickly, engaging us with trim, rounded 
 phrases, and then dragging us up [i.e. like a ship on shore — the metaphor 
 being from a naval engagement], he cross-examines us, setting spring- 
 traps of words {,(XKavba.\T)dp' iirtZv)^ rending, troubling, and confounding 
 a man of the years of Tithonus. And he mumbles through age, and is 
 condemned in his suit emd departs. Then he whimpers and cries, and says 
 to his friends, " I have to pay in a fine what I had wherewith to buy me a 
 ooflSn" ' (676-691). 
 
94 THE BIRDS 
 
 by any means ^n our power recover our sovereignty ' 
 (ttjv rj^erepav ^aaiXeiav). 
 
 To this Peisthetaerus replies that first there must be one 
 city for the birds {filav opvldcov ir6\i>v eZi/at), and then 
 that they must build a fortification round the whole air and 
 irav tovtI to fiera^v — ^an ambiguous expression, as before, 
 *all this that is between.' When they have done this, 
 they will demand back the dominion from Zeus (t^i/ 
 apxv^ TOP At' cLTraiTelv), and if he refuses they will proclaim 
 a ' sacred war ' against him, and forbid the gods (roiat 
 Oeolau) to pass through their territory. To the men (toI^ 
 S' avdpQ>7roL<;) — ^the subject alhes, as I read it — ^they must 
 send one herald * henceforth to sacrifice to birds, since they 
 have the sovereignty ' ; and another to the gods {rolat 
 Oeolcri) — ^the democracy at Athens — ^for the purpose of 
 coming to some arrangement, as described, about the 
 sacrifices ; the speech concluding with an irreverent jibe 
 about Zeus, which causes Euelpides to exclaim in a similar 
 vein, /3/ooz/TaTft) vvv 6 fjuiya^; Zdv — ' Let the great Jos 
 thunder now,' spoken in derision, not of deity, for which 
 Aristophanes had as much respect as Aeschylus, but of the 
 Athenian democracy. 
 
 The good things which will come to men through the 
 birds are then described, ' if they think of you as a god, as 
 life. Earth, Cronus, Poseidon ' ; and Euelpides says, ' Bah ! 
 How much better are these (the birds) than Zeus to rule over 
 us.' ' Much,' says Peisthetaerus. * In the first place we 
 shall not have to build them stone temples, with golden 
 gates, for they will dwell under bushes and little holm- 
 oaks. For the worshipful birds (aefivoU) an olive-tree will 
 be the temple. And we shall not have to go to Delphi or to 
 Ammon to sacrifice, but standing amid the arbutus and 
 the wild oHves with barley and wheat, we will pray to 
 them, holding up our hands, to grant us some share of good 
 things. And these shall immediately be ours when we 
 have thrown them a Httle grain.' (610-626.) 
 
 There is an evident allusion here to the Acropohs of 
 Athens, where the sacred olive-tree grew, and where the 
 
THE BIRDS 95 
 
 Areopagus, the seat of government in old days, was situated. 
 The whole passage is, I believe, an allegory of the restora- 
 tion to power of the better classes, not the extreme oHgarchs, 
 who never foimd favour with Aristophanes, but the better 
 class of citizens generally, whose influence in the constitution 
 it was, in his view, necessary to re-establish if Athens was 
 to be saved. The passage is also striking from the evidence 
 it gives of the growing dissatisfaction with the old pagan 
 behefs, and particularly the oracles, which existed among 
 the educated classes.^ 
 
 Peisthetaerus and Euelpides now, by the expedient of 
 * eating a little root,' are furnished with wings, and the 
 Parabasis follows telling of the antiquity of the birds and 
 the advantages to be derived from acknowledging them as 
 gods. The opening lines are evidently reminiscent of the 
 speech of Prometheus, in the play of Aeschylus, about the 
 helpless condition of men before he took them in hand. 
 
 Directions having been given for building the city, which 
 they agree to name ' Cloud-cuckoo-town,' and the two 
 heralds having been sent out, Peisthetaerus prepares to 
 sacrifice. He is interrupted, however, by the arrival of 
 various pests, obviously from Athens — ^a poet, an oracle - 
 monger, a geometrician, a commissioner ' elected by the 
 bean,' a vendor of decrees. He drives them out, one after the 
 other, with a whip. The sacrifices are announced as favour- 
 able, and the great fortification as completed. Iris, 
 messenger of the gods, flies through the new city without a 
 permit, on her way to men to tell them to sacrifice to the 
 gods. She is stopped, and after being ridiculed very grossly 
 by Peisthetaerus, departs, tlireatening the thunderbolt of 
 Zeus. The significant points in this conversation are 
 the questions of Peisthetaerus : * Who are you ? ' * Iris.' 
 ' Paralus or Salaminia ? ' i.e. the two Athenian state galleys, 
 the first used for embassies and ceremonial and poHtical 
 business, the second for summonses, etc., from the law 
 courts. Further, Peisthetaerus : * Do you dare to fly without 
 
 * Evidence of scepticism about the oracles is found in the great writers* 
 e.g. in Aeeohyius and Thucydides. 
 
96 THE BIRDS 
 
 a pass through this city which belongs to some one else 
 (t^9 aXkoTpia<;) and the chaos ? . . . We should be putting 
 up with a good deal, methinks, if while we rule the rest you 
 gods are allowed to go on as you like, and not made to 
 reaHse that you, in turn, must obey your superiors.' To her 
 explanation that she is flying to men {irpo^ av6 p(oirov<;) to 
 tell them to sacrifice to the Olympian gods (rol^ 'OXvfjLirioL^ 
 6€oU), Peisthetaerus replies that * birds are gods to men 
 now, to whom they must sacrifice, not to Zeus ' (1236). 
 On her departure the Chorus exclaims, *We have shut 
 out the gods of the race of Zeus, so that they can no longer 
 pass through my city, or any mortal throughout the earth 
 any longer send smoke of sacrifices to the gods by this 
 way ' ; in other words, by intercepting the tribute by 
 means of a fortified base, from which a fleet could operate, 
 they have * held up ' the democracy at Athens. 
 
 The herald who went to * men ' now returns and reports 
 that they are all ' bird-mad,' and that thousands of them 
 are coming to join the new city. The Chorus is delighted, 
 and says th^^t they could not do better than settle in such 
 a place, where they will find * Wisdom, Love, ambrosial 
 Graces, and the cheerful face of gentle -minded TranquilHty ' 
 (1320). Various people then arrive, and ask to be provided 
 with wings — a, young profligate who wants to make away 
 with his father, another poet, and a ' Sycophant.' Peis- 
 thetaerus sends the first, with good advice, to work off his 
 pugnacity in Thrace ; good-naturedly chaffs the poet ; 
 and after trying without success to persuade the informer, 
 who is a young man, to earn an honest living, flogs him off 
 the stage. The latter episode is interesting for the Hght it 
 throws on the methods practised by such men for plundering 
 the richer people in the allied cities, who had to come to 
 Athens to plead before the courts there. In exhorting him 
 to better ways, Peisthetaerus says that he is furnishing him 
 with wings by his words, for ' by words the mind is raised 
 aloft, and the man stirred. Thus I wish to set you also on 
 the wing by good words and turn you to a legitimate 
 occupation ' (1449). 
 
THE BIRDS 97 
 
 1470 sq. A chorus of the nature of topical gibberish 
 follows, being, like the two later ones of a similar character, 
 designed, as I think, for the purpose of diverting too critical 
 attention from the dangerous scenes which they enclose. 
 The first of these is a conversation between Peisthetaerus and 
 Prometheus, in which obviously Aristophanes had Pro- 
 metheus of the Prometheus Bound in mind, because he quotes 
 words used by Aeschylus.^ A person, who turns out to be 
 Prometheus, enters concealed under a cloak and carrying 
 an umbrella and a camp-stool. After discovering himself 
 and getting Peisthetaerus to hold the umbrella over him 
 while he talks, for fear he should be seen by Zeus or some 
 of the gods, he announces to him that * Zeus is ruined,' for, 
 since they had fortified the new city, ' no one of men any 
 longer sacrifices to the gods, nor has the steam from thighs 
 ascended to us from that time . . . while the barbarian 
 gods (ot §€ ffdp^apoi deoi), famished with hunger, . . . 
 say they will march against Zeus from above (dvwdev) if he 
 does not have the ports opened to allow the cut -up entrails 
 to come in.' Asked about these barbarian gods beyond 
 (or above) them (av(o6€v), he says they are * Triballi,' and he 
 tells Peisthetaerus as a secret in advance that ambassadors 
 are coming to him from Zeus and the Triballi of the upper 
 regions (rwy avo)) about a truce ; ' but do you not make 
 peace with them unless Zeus deUvers up the sceptre to the 
 birds again, and gives you Basileia [t^i/ ffao-iXeiav, the 
 sovereignty, as before, but here personified] to have as your 
 wife.' He describes Basileia as ' a most beautiful damsel, 
 who manages Zeus's thunderbolts and everything else, 
 good counsel, good administration, moderation, the dock- 
 yards, abuse, the pay-clerk, the three obols.' ' If,' says 
 Prometheus, * you get her, you get everything.' (1494-1543.) 
 All this appUes quite naturally to the imperial govern- 
 ment at Athens. The democracy which controlled it is 
 represented as reduced to come to terms with the exiles, 
 that is, the moderate conservatives, not only from Athens 
 
 * 1513, AKOve S-i) vvv (cf. P.V. 648) ; 1547, /xt<ra) 8' S.TavTa^ roi>% ^foiJt, ws oXada 
 a(, (cf. P.V. 996 and 120-122). 
 
 O 
 
98 THE BIRDS 
 
 but from the islands, who have combined against them. 
 The price of the withdrawal of the blockade is that the 
 ancestral constitution, under which the better classes 
 controlled the government, should be restored. In the 
 mind of the author this probably meant a reversion to the 
 constitution of Cleisthenes, as it was before Pericles, when 
 the higher magistracies were confined to citizens of the 
 higher rates of assessment, and the Areopagus had certain 
 inhibitory and censorial powers. 
 
 The friendly recognition of Prometheus by Peisthetaerus 
 (w <f>lXe UpofjLTjdev) is a point to notice. It is to be ex- 
 plained, in my belief, by the admiration which Aristophanes 
 felt for Aeschylus (cf . Frogs), and it goes to confirm the view 
 which I hold that the character of Prometheus in the 
 Prometheus Bound is intended as a representation of the 
 poet himself. It will be observed that Aristophanes puts 
 into the mouth of Peisthetaerus a pointed comment on the 
 remark of Prometheus, * I hate all the gods, as you know ' 
 (which comes from P.V. 996), in the reply, 'Yes, by Zeus, 
 you always were disHked by the gods ' {Oeofiiar}^). The 
 significance of the remark is illustrated by the statement 
 about Aeschylus in the Frogs, 807, that * he did not get on 
 with the Athenians.' 
 
 1665 sq. The deputation from the gods arrives. It 
 consists of Poseidon, Hercules, and Triballus, the latter 
 being represented as a boor, speaking an unintelhgible 
 patois. This would have seemed natural to the general 
 audience, as the TribaUi were a savage Thracian tribe, who 
 had been heard of at Athens in recent years in connection 
 with fighting in the north. In this sense, therefore, avcoOev 
 would be intelligible. But such a construction leaves the 
 whole scene of the embassy without any intelHgible meaning. 
 I beHeve the three gods are intended to represent the old- 
 time parties of the ' Plain,' the ' Shore,' and the ' Hill * 
 (the Eupatrid country party, the mercantile or middhng 
 party, and the poorer peasantry), the quarrels between 
 whom, in the previous century, led to the * tyranny ' of 
 Pisistratus, and ultimately to the constitution of Cleisthenes 
 
THE BIRDS 99 
 
 (see Chapter I.). In this construction avtoOev would mean 
 from the uplands of Attica, where the poorer peasant 
 population lived. All the dialogue seems to point to this 
 conclusion, and, in particular, the fact that the casting vote 
 of Triballus decides the question whether the gods will 
 agree to the terms of Peisthetaerus ; for it was by the 
 support of the poor men of the * Hill ' that Pisistratus 
 gained the sovereignty of Athens. The exclamation of 
 Poseidon at the awkwardness of Triballus, ' democracy, 
 what are you bringing us to if the gods have elected such 
 a fellow as this to serve on an embassy 1 ' (1570), confirms 
 this view, as it was not until the time of Pericles that the 
 lower-class assessment had been admitted to public office. 
 Poseidon leads the deputation because the power of the 
 democracy depended on the command of the sea. Hercules 
 represents the old country party (in sympathy with the 
 Lacedaemonians), and his attitude is very much that of the 
 Titans in the Prometheus Bound, who despised diplomacy 
 and trusted to brute strength. He would ' hang the 
 fellow ' (1575). He is otherwise represented as a guzzler 
 in the traditional manner of the satiric drama. Peis- 
 thetaerus greets him familiarly, as an old friend, as he 
 greeted Prometheus. 
 
 The cooking of certain birds is a clever expedient for dis- 
 arming democratic suspicion, because it recalls the earlier 
 description of the sufferings of the birds generally (523 sq.), 
 and Peisthetaerus says, in reply to a question of Hercules, 
 that they are * certain birds who rose up against the birds 
 of the democratic party and were adjudged guilty ' (1583). 
 The real allusion I take to be to the extreme oligarchs, a 
 small but powerful faction who were opposed to any form 
 of democratic constitution. Aristophanes, and the people 
 he represented, were in favour of a * polity,* as understood 
 by the founders of the constitution. The appeal of 
 Peisthetaerus to the ambassadors represents their attitude 
 (1596 «5r.): 
 
 * But we did not at any time first commence war with you 
 [the ruling democracy], and now we are willing to come to terms 
 
100 THE BIRDS 
 
 with you, if you, on your part, are willing to do what is just, now 
 if ever. And the justice of the case is this, that Zeus restore 
 the sceptre again to us birds.* 
 
 Compare with this the similar speech of Prometheus 
 about Zeus in the play of Aeschylus (194-200), where 
 Prometheus says that on certain conditions he is quite 
 willing to be his friend. 
 
 In the argument of Peisthetaerus that * you, the gods, will 
 be more powerful if the birds have the rule below,' the idea 
 seems to be that the state generally will be stronger if its 
 rulers are drawn, as of old, from the better classes ; and the 
 legal argument with Hercules seems to mean that the 
 country party will gain nothing by sticking to the * demos,' 
 because, if it falls, the reversion will not come to them. 
 Hercules and Triballus come to an agreement to concede 
 the demands of Peisthetaerus, and Poseidon says that 
 
 * since you two are decided, I will hold my tongue ' ; in 
 other words the town democracy is overruled by the united 
 country party. Peisthetaerus is then invited by Hercules 
 
 * to come with us to heaven, in order that you may receive 
 Basileia and everything there ' (iva ttjv ^aaiXeiav koI 
 TCL irdvT cKel Xd07)<;), namely, at Athens, where the new 
 government over the Athenian empire is to be estabhshed. 
 Peisthetaerus then appears with the thunderbolt of Zeus 
 in his hand and leading Basileia, the assistant or coadjutor 
 of Zeus (irdpeBpov Ato?), as his wife. Amid general 
 rejoicings he summons * the winged tribes of associates ' 
 to follow in the marriage -train * to the region of Zeus 
 and the nuptial couch,* that is, to Athens, the seat of 
 government. 
 
 If the foregoing interpretation is right, as I believe it is, 
 this play, of course, throws light on the political condition 
 of Athens at the time, and, in particular, on the proceedings 
 connected with the mutilation of the Hermae and the recall 
 of Alcibiades, to which so much obscurity attaches. 
 Whether, however, in writing it, Aristophanes was deliber- 
 ately fomenting conspiracy is another question. Obviously, 
 
THE BIRDS 101 
 
 in view of the great length and careful writing of the play, 
 it must have been written some time before it was produced 
 in March 414, perhaps before the recall and escape of 
 Alcibiades, which occurred some time in the latter part of 
 415, the expedition against Sicily having sailed in May or 
 June of that year. In the state of public feeling at the 
 time of the performance all political allusion was dangerous, 
 and Aristophanes, feeling that he had no scope for his 
 pecuhar talent, but must resort to concealment, may have 
 simply amused himseK by seeing how far he could go in 
 expressing under allegory ideas which were in the air, and 
 which represented his real political aspirations. In other 
 words he may have had no serious intention of advocating 
 among his own friends, who would have been also those of 
 Alcibiades, the desperate expedient of using the fleet in 
 Sicily for holding up the democracy at Athens, and com- 
 pelling them thereby to do justice to the Conservative 
 party, whom they had driven by persecution through the 
 popular law courts into disaffection. Still, whatever may 
 have been the actual state of mind of Aristophanes in 
 writing and producing this remarkable work, there can be 
 no question, both from its tenor, and from the spirit of 
 all his other surviving plays, that he was deeply in earnest 
 in his efforts to bring about an improvement in the govern- 
 ment of his country, and, as was natural, in the political 
 position of his friends and the party with which his sym- 
 pathies lay. The failure of the play to win the first prize 
 may have been due to the fact that it was not inteUigible 
 to the audience. We read that a play called The 
 Comaatae (' Revellers ') was first, the title of which im- 
 plies that it had reference to the nocturnal outrages which 
 had so perturbed the minds of the Athenians, and the 
 subject may have been more to their liking, and in the 
 manner of obvious political allusion to which they were 
 accustomed in the comedy of those days. 
 
 With regard to the * Zeus ' analogy, my belief is that it 
 was proverbial at Athens. We have seen that the age of 
 
102 THE BIRDS 
 
 Pisistratus was referred to as the * age of Cronus.* ^ Pericles, 
 when he had become supreme, was nicknamed the 
 * Olympian,' ' our peak -headed Zeus,' ^ etc. Another illus- 
 tration occurs in a fragment of Timotheus, a musician who 
 lived in Athens at the end of the fifth century, and who is 
 said to have most corrupted the purity of the classic lyric 
 by the introduction of ad captandum artifices.^ He writes : 
 
 OVK dciSo) TO. TraAata, 
 
 Kal Tol Kaiva yap 5/Aa K/0€tcr(ra>, 
 
 V60S o Zeus ^acriA,€U€t, 
 
 TO Trdkat 5' ^v Kpovos apx<av' 
 
 diriTto Movca TraAata. 
 
 ' I do not sing the old songs, for the new are better. It is 
 Zeus who reigns now ; the rule of Cronus is overpast ; away 
 with the old Muse.' * 
 
 A similar analogy occurs in some parallel passages in 
 Aristophanes and the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus. 
 Thus in the Knights we read : 
 
 Chorus to Sausage-seller. * O thou who hast appeared as the 
 greatest benefactor to all mortals, I envy you your readiness of 
 speech ; for if you attack him [Cleon] in this way, you will be 
 the greatest of the Greeks, and alone bear sway in the city, and 
 rule over the aUies, having a trident with which you will make 
 plenty of money by shaking and disturbing ' {a-inov re Kal 
 
 TapaTTWv).^ 
 
 The trident in this passage of course represents the sea- 
 supremacy of Athens, just as the * trident of Poseidon ' 
 does, as I consider, in lines 945-946 of the Prometheus Bound. 
 In the <7eia>v re Kal Tapdrreov there is a similar association 
 of ideas, that is, between the position of the Sausdge-seller 
 as representative of the sovereign ' Demos ' and the * Zeus ' 
 
 * Seo p. 10 above. * Plutarch, Pericles. 
 » Sir R. C. Jebb, introduction to Bacchylides, 1905. 
 
 * In contrast we have the complaint of Plato as to ' uncultured law- 
 lessness ' in taste, and that an ' evil theatocracy ' were the judges, instead 
 of the old ' aristocracy,' in music and poetry {Laws). 
 
 ' The allusion is to charges against the demagogues of taking bribes 
 in oonneotion with the tribute. 
 
THE BIRDS 103 
 
 of the allegory in the play of Aeschylus. This view obtains 
 the strongest confirmation from some lines in the Peace of 
 Aristophanes, where the demagogue Cleon (then dead) is 
 derided by the Chorus in a line taken from the defiance of 
 Zeus by Prometheus : 
 
 (OS KVKCtTCU KUl TTaTCtTO) TTaVTa Kttl TttpaTTCTW, 
 
 ov yap av \aipovr€^ rjfieh Ttjfiepov irava-aifxed' av. 
 
 (320-321.) 
 
 fhe passage in the Protneiheus Bound is as follows : 
 
 \dovLOL'i KVKaTta TravTtt Kal TapaacreTfo' 
 yvdjx^€i yap ovSev riovBe fi wott* Kal (fipdcrai 
 irphs ov \ptiov viv iKirt(rtlv rvpavviSos. 
 
 (lOU-1017.) 
 
 Other striking examples occur of a proverbial analogy 
 between the Athenian democracy and * Zeus ' in the Wasps 
 and the Peace, which will be given in their place in the next 
 chapter.^ 
 
 On the same analogy the ruling citizens of Athens are, 
 in my belief, alluded to under the designation of Oeoi, 
 ' gods,' both in the Prometheus Bound and in the Birds , 
 which follows it. Thus, in the former play, Prometheus 
 describes himself as — 
 
 l^^^ffiSB^^ 
 
 Tov Atos k\6pov, rov 7ra(ri d(.ol% 
 
 St' akiTi\B€t.a<i kX06vd\ oTToo-ot 
 
 T^v Atos avX-qv il(Toi,\vf.v<TiVf 
 
 Sttt tt)v Xlav <f>i\6rriTa /3poTU)V. (120-123.) 
 
 And in the latter they are so alluded to passim, deoit 
 the surviving title of one of the comedies of Hermippus, 
 may possibly have had the same significance. The original 
 derivation of deol helped this suggestion, as the word had 
 the meaning of * disposers.' ^ 
 
 IH > See below, pp. 113, 114, 120, 121. 
 
 ■ ' They [the Pelaagians] had no distinct names for the gods ' — deodf 
 8i irpo<Tuv6fi€aav ff<pias, dirb tov toioOtov, Srt k6<th(^ divres rd ird-vra irpifiy/xaTa 
 Kal Tciaas vofiiit eXxoy (Herod, ii. 52). ' Probably from the root of rldrifu, 
 BO that the etymology of Herodotus seems to be correct ' (Sayce, Herod, 
 1883). 
 
104 THE BIRDS 
 
 In addition to the passages already mentioned two other 
 lines in Aristophanes which are reminiscent of the 
 Prometheus Bound may be noted : 
 
 The first line of the address to the Sausage -seller in the 
 Knights above quoted, w irdacv dv6p(07roi<; (paveU fJbiyca-Tov 
 a)(j>e\rj^a, is presumably taken from lo's address to 
 Prometheus, w kolvov d)(f)6\rj/jLa dvarolcrt, (f)avei<; (631) ; and 
 in the same play the reply of the Sausage -seller, to fiev 
 voTjfjba rrj^ 6eov, to Se KXi/Mfi ifiov (1203), is evidently a parody 
 of the reply of Prometheus to lo's question as to who 
 bound him to the rock — ^ovXevfia fiev to AZoj/, 'H<^ato-Tou 
 Sk xelp (637). 
 
 Note. — In the foregoing chapter I have made no mention of 
 Suvem's theory, which was on somewhat similar lines , because 
 I was led to my theory as to the meaning of the Birds solely by 
 the conclusions as to the meaning of the Prometheus Bound 
 which were suggested to me in the course of the effort to put it 
 into an English dress, and I was not aware at that time of the 
 existence of Siivem's theory. His theory broke down mainly 
 owing to his identification of the ' gods ' with the Peloponnesians, 
 an interpretation which could not be sustained. It was made 
 pubHc in Grermany in 1827, and the Essay was translated iato 
 EngHsh by W. R. Hamilton in 1835 (John Murray). 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Other plays of Aristophanes : AchamianSy Knights, Wasps, Peace, 
 
 That the Birds of Aristophanes has a definite political 
 meaning, and is not an aimless extravaganza, is seen still 
 more clearly from an examination of the other extant plays. 
 They are eleven in all out of a reputed total of about fifty, 
 and with the exception of the latest play, the Plutua^ which 
 is in the nature of a social allegory, every one of them has a 
 purpose connected with the history of the times. It is 
 reasonable therefore to ask why the Birds should be an 
 exception, especially from those who, while asserting that 
 the play has no political significance, are yet unable to tell 
 us what it does mean. 
 
 The date of the birth of Aristophanes is not certainly 
 known, but it appears that he came on the stage at a very 
 early age, and at first, and for some time after, wrote under 
 the names of other writers.^ He professes, through the 
 Chorus, that he did this through modesty, and * because 
 he thought the comic poet's art (KoafKphohihacrKaXCav) 
 to be the most difficult task of all ; for that, after many 
 had courted her, she had granted favours to few ; and 
 because he long since perceived that you were in nature 
 changing with the year, and betrayed the former poets as 
 soon as they grew old.' ^ But it seems probable that the 
 real reason was the great personal risk which a writer of 
 his views and aims would incur in the Athens of that time. 
 I do not think that sufficient weight has been given to this 
 consideration. 
 
 Hia first play is said to have appeared (under the name 
 of another) in 427 B.C., the year after the death of Pericles 
 
 ' See Parabasis of Knights and WaapB. 
 « Knights, 515-519. 
 
106 THE BIRDS 
 
 and the fifth year of the Peloponnesian War. The leading 
 men at Athens were Nicias and Cleon, the former being the 
 first general and the representative man of the higher 
 classes, the latter the ' demagogue ' and at that time the 
 most powerful man, politically, in the city. In the following 
 year appeared the Babylonians, of which (though it has not 
 come down to us) we know that the character was poHtical. 
 In it the subject alHes were represented as barbarian slaves 
 employed to grind in a mill, and it was a protest against the 
 oppressive and impolitic proceedings of Cleon and the 
 popular party in this connection. Exactions for the pur- 
 pose of the tribute from the richer classes in the island 
 states, blackmailing of individuals among them by informers, 
 and plundering of them through decisions of the popular 
 courts at Athens, to which they were obliged by Athenian 
 law to have recourse, are among the subjects of a poHtical 
 character alluded to in the extant plays. 
 
 The Acharnians, which comes next (425 B.C.), is a strong 
 appeal, under the exuberant wit, for putting an end to 
 hostilities with Sparta, with the yearly ravaging of Attica 
 which they involved. Incensed with his attacks Cleon had 
 prosecuted the poet before the Council on a charge, appar- 
 ently, of ridicuHng the city and insulting the democracy, 
 and in some way had tried to muzzle him.^ He defends 
 himself, and maintains that, so far from that, he deserves 
 well of the citizens for * putting an end to their being 
 cajoled by strangers and deHghting in being flattered.' 
 ' Never, therefore,' he says, * give up your poet, as he will 
 represent in his comedies what is right {^^ Kco/ijLwBrjcrei ra 
 hUaia) . . . not by flattery, nor by bribes and cheating 
 . . . but by teaching you what is best.' ^ In this the real 
 Aristophanes speaks. The low standard of some of his 
 appeal to the populace in the conduct of plot and dialogue 
 is partly the measure of their own moral sense, partly the 
 customary furniture of the old comedy, and partly (in certain 
 passages undoubtedly) an expedient for seK-protection. 
 
 » Acharn. 377 «g., 602, 630 aq. 
 « lUd. 665-658. 
 
THE BIRDS 107 
 
 Whether, however, the writing seemed to him or to them as 
 indecent in some passages as it seems to us, may well be 
 doubted. It must be remembered that they were accus- 
 tomed to indecent symbolism in public in their rehgious 
 ritual and other forms which had come down to them from 
 the past. 
 
 The next is the Knights (424 B.C.), which is poUtics from 
 beginning to end. The courage of the author is shown by 
 the fact that he here for the first time comes forward in his 
 own name, though the play entirely centres round Cleon, 
 represented as the * Paphlagonian,' a tanner, and steward to 
 * Demos.' The plot is the rivalry of the demagogues for 
 the favour of the people, in the course of which Cleon is out- 
 done by a Sausage -seller, who, when he has won, adopts a 
 new pohcy, and ' boils down ' Demos, who becomes thereby 
 rejuvenated and reformed. The closing scene represents, 
 like the Birds, the poet's cherished dream of a reversion to 
 earlier political conditions, such as prevailed before the 
 lower classes had obtained control of affairs. Thus : 
 
 Chorus (to Agoracritus, till then a Satisage-seller) . O thou 
 light for sacred Athens and succourer of the islands, with what 
 good news have you come, at which we should fill the streets with 
 the steam of sacrifice ? 
 
 Agor. I have boiled down your Demos, and made him 
 beautiful from being ugly. 
 
 Chor. Why, where is he now, O inventor of wonderful devices. 
 
 Agor. He is dwelling in the violet-crowned, the old-time 
 Athens. 
 
 Chor. Would we could see him. What sort of dress has he ? 
 What sort of person has he become ? 
 
 Agor. Such as when he used to mess with Aristides and 
 Miltiades in olden time. But you shall see him, for now there 
 is a noise of the Prophylaea being opened. Cheer now the appear- 
 ance of the ancient Athens, wondrous and much sung of, where 
 the illustrious Demos dwells. 
 
 Chor. sleek, and violet-crowned, and much-envied Athens ! 
 Show to us the monarch of Greece and of this land. 
 
108 THE BIRDS 
 
 m 
 
 Agor. Lo ! there he is for you to behold, wearing the cicada, 
 splendid in the olden garb, not smelling of voting-shells, but of 
 peace, anointed with myrrh. 
 
 Chob. Hail thou king of the Grecians ! . . . 
 
 Demos. O dearest of men, come hither, Agoracritus ! How 
 much good you have done me by boiling me down. 
 
 Demos. Happy man, now I am reinstated in my pristine 
 
 constitution (fxaKapios es t' a/o^ttta 5^ KaOicTTafiai). 
 
 Agob. You will say so when I give you the thirty years' 
 treaties. Come hither, Treaties (ai ^TrovSat), quickly. 
 
 Demos. O Zeus much -honoured, how beautiful ! . . . How 
 in the world did you get them ? 
 
 Agor. Did not the Paphlagonian keep them hidden away 
 within, that you might not get them ? Now therefore I hand 
 them over to you, to take with you into the country. 
 
 Demos. But tell me what mischief will you do to the Paphla- 
 gonian who did this. 
 
 Agob. Nothing much, except that he shall follow my trade. 
 He shall have the exclusive sale of sausages at the gates, mixing 
 dogs' with asses' flesh ; and when he is drunk he shall slang with 
 the women of the town, and drink the dirty water from the 
 baths. 
 
 Demos. You have well devised what he deserves. . . . And 
 let some one carry him out to exercise his trade, that the 
 foreigners (^ej/oi) whom he maltreated may behold him. (1318 sq.) m 
 
 This is strong meat in the way of politics before a popular 
 audience with sovereign powers, considering that Cleon was 
 their recognised leader, and that only the year before he 
 had * brought off ' the great stroke, with the assistance of 
 Demosthenes, of capturing the Spartans who were cut off 
 in Sphacteria, an event which Thucydides says * of all the 
 events of the war was the one which caused most surprise 
 in Greece.' In the same year he had probably also doubled 
 the tribute and raised the pay for service in the popular 
 courts from one obol a day, as granted by Pericles, to three 
 obols. But it is fairly clear that, though the * demos * 
 made use of Cleon in their own interests, and were much 
 under the influence of his rhetoric, which combined violence 
 
 i 
 
THE BIRDS 109 
 
 with racy personalities, they did not respect him, and were 
 ready to enjoy a laugh at his expense. 
 
 The line about Athens in the foregoing scene, * O sleek 
 and violet-crowned,' etc., which in the original is & ral 
 XtTrapal Koi loaTe<j)avoL koI dpL^i^XcoTOt 'Adrjvai, is well 
 known in an English rendering, which is more pretty than 
 correct as a representation of the original : 
 
 * rich and renowned, and with violets crowned, 
 O Athens, the envied of nations.' 
 
 The line (in the English form) is quoted by Professor 
 Bury in his History, in connection with a discussion on the 
 foreign policy of Cleon, and he remarks that * the poet who 
 was inspired to write it cannot have been altogether out of 
 sympathy with those who strove to maintain the imperial 
 position of his country,' that is, with Cleon and the other 
 democratic leaders. But the Athens of this scene is the 
 old-time Athens, governed by men with different ideas. 
 Also the line is, in a sense, ironical. One of Cleon 's * oracles ' 
 earlier in the play is that Demos * is to rule over every 
 country crowned with roses ' (966) ; and later the Chorus 
 says to him, * Demos, you possess a fine sovereignty, when 
 all men dread you as a despot {Sicnrep dvBpa rvpavvov) ; 
 yet you are easily led by the nose, and you love being 
 flattered' (1111 sq.). In the play of the previous year 
 Aristophanes, as we have seen, had said that he deserved 
 well of the people in exposing the flatteries of strangers by 
 which they were cajoled, and he adds : * And formerly the 
 ambassadors from the cities, with intent to cajole you, 
 used first to call you " violet -crowned " ^ . . . and as 
 often as any one soft-sawdered you by calling you " sleek 
 Athens " (XtTrapa? 'A^T^i/a?), he used to get all he wanted 
 through the " sleekness," for having attached to you the 
 glory of an anchovj\' ^ The line under discussion clearly 
 contains an allusion to this point, which would be remem- 
 bered by the audience, and they would see at once that the 
 
 * An epithet said to have been given to Athens by Pindar. 
 ■ Acham, 636 aq. 
 
110 THE BIRDS 
 
 ^ 
 
 poet meant that the Athens which deserved those titles was 
 the city of the past, when it was led by men of position. 
 
 Oppression of the wealthier classes, to find money for the 
 ' demos ' : 
 
 Cleon (to the audience). Veteran heliasts, clansmen of the 
 three obols, whom I feed by bawling, right or wrong, come to ^^ 
 my rescue, since I am beaten by conspirators. IH 
 
 Choeus. With justice, since you devour the pubHc goods ^ 
 before they are distributed by lot, and you press and squeeze those 
 who are under account, to see which of them is green, or ripe, 
 or not yet ripe ; and if you perceive any one of them to be an 
 easy-going man and a gaper,^ you drag him back from the 
 Chersonese ^ and . . . throw him and fall upon him. You 
 observe, too, which of the citizens is a simpleton, rich and no 
 rascal, and afraid of meddUng in poKtics. (255 sq.) 
 
 Cleon. How can there be a citizen, O Demos, who loves you 
 more than I do, who from the first, when I was a councillor, 
 collected very much money for the treasury by torturing some, 
 strangling others, and begging of others, caring nothing for any 
 individual provided I gratified you ? (773 sq.) I 
 
 Cleon. At all events I will tend and nourish him [Demos], 
 finding out by fair means or foul whence he shall continue to get 
 his three obols. (799.) 
 
 Chorus. Have you [Cleon] not from the very first displayed 
 impudence, in refiance on which you drain the wealthy ones 
 among the foreigners, being the first to do this ? (322 sq.) 
 
 The Sausage-seller relates how he brought news to the 
 Council that anchovies were cheaper than they had ever 
 been since the beginning of the war. Whereupon Cleon, 
 not to be outdone, had made a proposal ' that on the 
 occasion of the happy events which have been announced 
 to us, we sacrifice a hundred oxen to the goddess for the 
 good news.' But the Sausage -seller ' overshot him with 
 two hundred oxen, and advised to make a vow to sacrifice 
 
 * KtxfiviiTa ; cf . Birds, 1 65, jxt) ircpiir^Teade Travraxri Kexw^res. 
 
 * I.e. where he had retired for a quiet life. 
 
 I 
 
THE BIRDS 111 
 
 a thousand goats to Artemis on the morrow, if sprats went 
 at a hundred for the obol ' (642 sq.). The point of this is 
 that under Pericles the number of public festivals had been 
 greatly increased, only a small portion of the victims being 
 used for the sacrifice, and the rest being eaten by the people. 
 The skins were sold and the money reahsed went to a public 
 fund. The cost of these entertainments fell on the richer 
 citizens. 
 
 The dog Cerberus, who will * lick clean your plates and 
 islands '—of Cleon (1034). 
 
 In the year 422 B.C. (tenth of the war) the Wasps was 
 performed. The ' Wasps ' are the dicasts of Athens, repre- 
 sented as sharp, suspicious, irritable old men, who spend 
 their whole time in the courts, and take pleasure in condemn- 
 ing people. Turning Philocleon (a partisan of Cleon) by 
 his son Bdelycleon (the opposite) from a dicast into a 
 gentleman of leisure, is the subject of the play, which is 
 extremely ludicrous in character, as well as of great historical 
 interest. It also throws light on the Birds, because, like 
 that play, the plot owes its origin to the weariness and disgust 
 felt by the poet at the proceedings of the popular courts, 
 and their effect on the character of the citizens and the 
 management of affairs. 
 
 The son has grown so tired of his father's ways, that he 
 resolves to prevent him getting out of his house to attend 
 the courts. Every other means had failed, for the old 
 man's thoughts flitted ever ' round the clepsydra.' He had 
 >ven accused the cock of having been bribed * by those 
 under account ' to wake him too late in the morning, and 
 ' through fear that he might at some time find himself short 
 of voting-pebbles, he kept a shingle in his house.' They 
 had tried various cures, even * purifying him with Cory- 
 bantic rites.' But he ' rushed out with the kettle-drum, and 
 burst into the new court and began to judicate.' Then they 
 made him * lie down for a night in the temple of Asclepius, 
 but he appeared in the early dawn at the bar.' After that 
 
112 THE BIRDS 
 
 they tried to keep him indoors, but he used to 'escape 
 through the drains and the chimneys.' * So now we have 
 covered the whole house with nets, and are keeping guard 
 all round it. Now the name of the old man is Philocleon — 
 that it is by Jove — ^but of his son here, Bdelycleon, having 
 bean-fed and haughty manners ' (Speech of the slave 
 Xanthias, 85 sq.). 
 
 Philocleon now attempts an escape, and faiHng in one 
 way, comes out, like Ulysses, under the belly of his ass. 
 He is discovered, and being asked who he is, of course 
 replies, Ovn^ (Nobody). 
 
 It is now early dawn, and the Chorus of old dicasts (the 
 
 * Wasps ') arrive with a lamp, to rouse up their fellow- 
 dicast for the day's work. They urge each other to hasten, 
 
 * since it is now the turn of Laches, and they all say that 
 he has a hive of money. Therefore yesterday Cleon, our 
 guardian, told us to be there in good time, with provision 
 of three days' bitter anger against him, to punish him for 
 his misdeeds.' (240-244.) 
 
 The allusion here is to the harsh treatment which the 
 Assembly and the courts used to mete out to the generals 
 who disappointed their expectations. Laches appears to 
 have been called to account by Cleon for taking bribes in 
 Sicily. 
 
 On the refusal of Bdelycleon to let his father out, the 
 Chorus exclaims, ' Is it not then evident to the poor that 
 " tyranny " is secretly stealing upon us ? ' Whereupon 
 Bdelycleon suggests whether it would not be possible, 
 
 * without fighting and clamour, to join in a conference and 
 a reconciliation.' ' A conference with thee,' repHes the 
 Chorus, *thou hater of the demos, and lover of absolutism, 
 and associator with Brasidas, and wearer of moustaches ? ' 
 The Chorus reiterates the catchword of * tyranny,' and he 
 rejoins : * How everything with you is " tyranny " and 
 " conspirators," whatever be the accusation, great or small. 
 It is fifty years since I even heard the name of a tj^ranny, 
 and yet it is now going cheaper in the market-place than 
 salt fish ' (463-490). He then tells his father that he is a 
 
THE BIRDS 113 
 
 slave, while he fancies he rules ; * for tell us, father, what 
 honour you have in plundering Greece ' (520). They now 
 agree to debate the question, with the Chorus as arbitrators. 
 Philocleon asks for a sword, which he * can fall upon if he is 
 overcome in argument,' which is evidently an allusion to the 
 suicide of Paches, the general, who, according to Plutarch, 
 fell on his sword before the dicasts. 
 ^ Philocleon begins, and he undertakes to demonstrate that 
 the dominion of the dicasts is inferior to no sovereignty 
 d^aatkeiav) : ' For what creature at the present time is 
 more fortunate or blessed, or more luxurious or feared, than 
 a dicast, especially an old one ? ' He describes the 
 
 * suppUcators,' fellows of huge size who wait for his 
 approach, * put their hand, which has robbed the public 
 funds, gently on me, and bowing low, say in a piteous 
 voice — " Pity me, father, I beseech you, if ever you yourself 
 stole anjrthing when holding any office, or on service, when 
 making purchases for the mess." ' Then in the court, some 
 lament their poverty, some tell us stories, others make 
 jokes, * that I may laugh and lay aside my wrath. And if we 
 should not be won by these means, he drags in his little chil- 
 dren by the hand, his daughters and his sons, while I listen. 
 And they bend down their heads together and bleat ; and 
 then their father, trembling, suppHcates me as a god to acquit 
 him for their sakes.^ ... Is not this a mighty dominion 
 and derision of wealth ? ' And more in the same vein, includ- 
 ing the protection of Cleon, and the three obols. (548 sq,) 
 
 There are some lines at the conclusion of this demon- 
 stration of the dicast Philocleon which have a very important 
 bearing on the view which I seek to establish, that the 
 
 * Zeus ' of the Birds is the sovereign Demos of Athens : 
 
 ■ * Do I not then hold a great dominion (apx^»')> aiid in no 
 way inferior to that of Zeus, who am called by the same title as 
 
 * Compare with this passage the eiocount of the trial of Socrates in 
 Plato, where Socrates condemns these practices as bringing contempt on 
 the law, Tliey were, however, the inevitable result of the system under 
 which the judges and jury were the same, and without professional know- 
 ledge or trfldning. 
 
 H 
 
114 THE BIRDS 
 
 n 
 
 Zeus ? At any rate if we make a clamour in court {9opvl3rj(T(ofXiv ^), 
 those who pass by say, " O king Zeus, how the dicastery 
 thunders ! " And if I hghten, the rich and very dignified whistle 
 and are in a horrid fright at me.' (620-628.) 
 
 The Chorus comment on this : ' We have never heard 
 any one speak so clearly or sagaciously/ and is quite 
 satisfied that their old friend will win. 
 
 It is now Bdelycleon's turn, and he begins : * It is a 
 difficult task, and one for a clever intellect, and greater 
 than belongs to comedians, to treat an inveterate disease 
 which has been bred in the State. But our father, son 
 of Cronus (KpovLST)) , . / This is a continuation of the 
 * Zeus ' analogy of the previous speech. He then mentions 
 the Athenian revenue from the tribute, and various tolls, 
 rents, etc., and from confiscated property, which he puts at 
 a total of * nearly two thousand talents.' The number 
 of dicasts * being six thousand — ^and they do not as yet 
 dwell in the country in large numbers,' ^ their yearly pay 
 'amounts, I take it, to 150 talents.' Not a tenth then 
 comes to us as our fee, says Philooleon ; * and pray what 
 becomes of the rest of the money ? ' It goes, replies 
 Bdelycleon, * to those who say " I will not betray the noisy 
 crowd of the Athenians, but will fight always for the many " 
 . . . and then these men take bribes from the cities in sums 
 of fifty talents, threatening them in such terms, and 
 terrifying them : " You shall give the tribute, or I will 
 thunder and overturn your city." [The ' Zeus ' analogy 
 again.] But you are contented to gnaw at the offal of your 
 dominion.' 
 
 He then mentions the presents received by these men, 
 wine, carpets, cheese, cloaks, necklaces, drinking cups, 
 etc., while the poor dicasts get nothing but their pay, 
 and so on in the same vein. ' For they wish you to be poor ; 
 and I will tell you for what purpose they do this, that you 
 
 * The word used by Xenophon of the movement among the dicasts 
 during the trial of Socrates, when he began to speak to them about the 
 warning voice, t6 SaifiSviov. 
 
 * I.e. they were mostly townsmen. The same observation occurs, 
 under allegory, in the Birds. 
 
THE BIRDS 115 
 
 may know your domesticator, and then, when they hound 
 you on against some of their enemies, that you may spring 
 upon them ferociously. For if they wished to provide a 
 liveUhood for the people it would be easy. For there are a 
 thousand cities which now pay us tribute ; if one ordered 
 each of these to maintain twenty men, twenty thousand of 
 the commons would live on all dainties, and chaplets of 
 every description, and beestings and beestings -pudding, 
 enjoying things worthy of their land and of the trophy at 
 Marathon.' Finally he says he is prepared to give his father 
 all he asks ' except to drink pay -clerks' milk.' (650-724.) 
 
 The Chorus are convinced by these arguments, but 
 Philocleon cannot bring himself to give up acting as a 
 dicast, so his son arranges for him to hold a court in his 
 own house. This pleases him, and, after ludicrous prepara- 
 tions, a prayer is offered that the exceeding harsh dis- 
 position of the father may be mitigated, and that he may be 
 merciful and pity the defendants more than the plaintiffs, 
 and cease from his peevishness. A case for hearing has been 
 found, for ' did not Labes, the dog, just now rush past into 
 the kitchen, and snatch up and devour a fresh Sicilian 
 cheese ? ' It is accordingly brought on with the indict- 
 ment : * A dog of the Cydathenian tribe has indicted Labes, 
 the Aexonian, for injustice, in that he devoured the Sicihan 
 cheese alone. The penalty a collar of fig-tree.' ^ The mock 
 trial suggests that Laches, who is evidently referred to, 
 did, in the opinion of the author, receive bribes or commit 
 some peculation, but that he was a brave and useful soldier, 
 who lived a hard life, and should be treated indulgently 
 accordingly. By a trick Philocleon is made to acquit the 
 defendant while intending (according to his usual practice) 
 to condemn him. He is so overwhelmed by his mistake 
 that he has to be led indoors, his son consoHng him with 
 promises to take him out to dinner everywhere, and enable 
 him to * spend the rest of your life agreeably, and Hjrper- 
 , bolus shall not cheat you and laugh at you.' (725-1008.) 
 
 f ^ Ad allusion to the sycophants, from <rOKovp a fig. In the prosecuting 
 dog Cleon is intended. 
 
116 THE BIRDS 
 
 *« 
 
 i 
 
 The * Parabasis ' follows in which the poet descants upon 
 his services to the State, and his courage in attacking Cleon ; 
 and he reproaches the audience for faiHng to give him the 
 prize for his Clouds : ' Having found such an averter of evil 
 and purifier of this land, you betrayed him last year, when 
 he had sown with the newest ideas, which, through your 
 not clearly understanding them, you rendered barren. And 
 yet he swears by Dionysus that no one at any time ever 
 heard better comic verses than those. . . . This, therefore, 
 is a disgrace to you that you did not understand them at 
 once. But our poet has been thought none the worse of 
 for that among the discerning {rolcro (to<I>oI<;), because, in 
 shooting past his rivals, he destroyed his chance of victory.' 
 (1015-1050.) 
 
 This claim to have raised comedy is frequent with Aristo- 
 phanes. It reveals that an Athenian audience was not so 
 intellectual as some writers would have us suppose. The 
 self-praise in which the poet indulges in these addresses to 
 the audience has been the subject of comment. Something 
 of the same kind is found in the poetry of Spenser, and in my 
 book on that subject I suggested that an explanation was 
 to be sought, to some extent, in the absence of advertise- 
 ments and press reviews. I think this explanation apphes 
 also, to some extent, to the practice of Aristophanes. |il 
 
 The play concludes with some farcical scenes in which ^ 
 Philocleon is instructed, with dire results, in the arts of 
 living the life of a man of fashion, and ends with his challeng- 
 ing all comers to dance a match with him in one of ' those 
 old-fashioned dances with which Thespis used to contend 
 for the prize.' The challenge is accepted by the ' sons of 
 Carcinus,' who are represented by professional grotesques, 
 and the play ends with a wild acrobatic performance in 
 which the Chorus of Dicasts join in for the exit. 
 
 We come next to the Peace, which was performed at the 
 Great Dionysia of March 421, within a month of the ' Peace 
 of Nicias,' ten years from the outbreak of the war. Cleon 
 
THE BIRDS 117 
 
 and Brasidas were both dead, having been killed at Am phi- 
 polls in the previous year, and there was a strong desire on 
 both sides for peace. The unexpected capture of a body of 
 Spartan citizens at Pylos in 425 had put Athens in an 
 excellent position for making peace, but, instigated by 
 Cleon, the Assembly had rejected the Lacedaemonian over- 
 tures, thinking that they could get better terms, and recover 
 at least some of the positions on the Continent which they 
 had lost some twenty years before, soon after they had 
 acquired them. The fact was that the Athenians, though 
 still supreme at sea, were, as I have said before, no match 
 on land for the Dorian spear, and their successes in the 
 Peloponnese and in Boeotia were due more to naval raids, 
 sudden incursions, and the accidents of fortune, than to 
 organised military power. The boast which Thucydides, 
 perhaps not without a touch of irony, puts into the mouth 
 of Pericles in the funeral oration, that they were able to 
 beat their adversaries ' without laborious training,' whereas 
 their adversaries were * always undergoing it from early 
 youth,' ^ was more gratifying to Athenian vanity than 
 true in fact. They had overreached themselves, having 
 overlooked Brasidas, who had marched from the Peloponnese 
 through northern Greece into their dominions in Chalcidice 
 and Thrace, and having been heavily defeated at DeUum in 
 a badly managed, or unfortunate, expedition against the 
 Boeotians (424 B.C.). It is said that the Athenian land 
 forces were permanently affected in morale by this defeat ; ^ 
 probably also owing to loss of confidence in the adminis- 
 tration under the new class of demagogues.^ At any rate 
 the Athenians had no substantial success hereafter, but only 
 a period of decHne, with occasional naval victories, until 
 their fall as an imperial power in 404 B.C. For in the mean- 
 time Sparta and her alUes acquired the means, which they 
 had lacked through poverty, of waging prolonged warfare 
 at sea, that is to say through Persian gold, as an offset to the 
 resources derived by Athens from the tribute. 
 
 » Thuc. ii. 39. » Xen. Mem. iii, 6. 
 
 • CI. Thuo. V. 7 and la 
 
118 THE BIRDS 
 
 *i 
 
 At the time, however, when this play appeared there was 
 no sign of a fatal issue for Athens, as her strength, though 
 much reduced for the time being by the great plague of 
 430 B.C., was still unimpaired, and if it had not been for 
 the terrible disaster which befell the Sicilian expedition in 
 413 B.C., she might well have held her own. Indeed, at the 
 moment we are considering, it seems that the desire for 
 peace was, if anything, stronger in Sparta than at Athens, 
 owing mainly to the desire to recover the prisoners held as 
 hostages since their capture in Sphacteria, and to a loss of 
 confidence which that event and various raids on their 
 coasts had inspired in the Spartan citizens. Since the 
 Athenians had these men in their hands they had been 
 immune from invasion. On the other hand, the number 
 of cities which had revolted from them in Chalcidice under 
 the influence and successes of Brasidas caused them great 
 concern for their empire, and the death of Cleon gave the 
 moderate men at Athens, headed by Nicias, who repre- 
 sented the traditional conservative policy of a good under- 
 standing with Sparta, as practised by the pre-Periclean 
 statesmen such as Aristides and Cimon, their opportunity.* 
 The peace which was concluded as the result of their efforts, 
 shortly after the appearance of this play, was on the basis 
 of the restoration of the places captured on both sides during 
 the war and the liberation of prisoners. Owing to disputes 
 which immediately arose the treaties were never effectively 
 carried out, and war was soon resumed, but the play, which 
 I now proceed to describe, shows how great, in the minds of 
 many, were the expectations from peace at that time. 
 
 Trygaeus, a rustic small proprietor, who describes himself 
 as * a skilful vine-dresser, no sycophant or lover of affairs,' 
 is so weary of the war that he forms a plan to ascend to 
 heaven to remonstrate with Zeus on the destruction which 
 he is bringing on the cities of Greece. He accompHshes the 
 voyage on the back of a gigantic dung-beetle, which he has 
 fed and trained for the purpose, but on his arrival at the 
 house of Zeus he is informed by Hermes that the gods 
 ^ For these faote see Thuo. v, 14-16. 
 
THE BIRDS 119 
 
 * removed yesterday ' to a higher region, * in order that 
 they might no longer see you fighting, or hear anything 
 when you supplicate them.' In their place they had left 
 *War,' to whom they had delivered up the Greeks, to do 
 with them as he pleased. They had done this through 
 anger, * because you chose to remain at war when the other 
 side (eKeivtov) we^") often ready to make peace.' * On 
 account of this I know not if you will ever see Peace again.' 
 Try. ' Whither then has she gone ? ' Herm. ' War has 
 cast her into a deep cave.' (1-223.) 
 
 ' War ' now comes out with a huge mortar, in which he is 
 preparing to pound the cities of Greece. The command 
 of rhythm by Aristophanes, in producing striking effects, 
 even with the language of comedy, is well shown in the 
 opening lines spoken by * War ' : 
 
 nOA. ta> j^poToX /SpoTol fiporol ttoAvtAij/zovcs, 
 a»S avTiKa /AaA.a ras yvct^ov? dXyqatTe. 
 
 10) Upaa-ial ^ Tpi(rdd\iai nal nevTOLKis 
 Kai iroXkoSiKOLKis^ a)S dnokeia-de rrjp.ipov. 
 
 3 Mcya/ja, Mcyap*, k.t.A. 
 
 * War ' then, with a blow, sends his boy ' Tumult ' for a 
 pestle, who repHes that * we have not got one, as it is only 
 yesterday that we came in ' ; so he sends him to the 
 Athenians for one, and he returns without one ; * for what- 
 do-you-call-him, the pestle of the Athenians, is destroyed, 
 the leather-seller who pounded up Greece.' He then teUs 
 him to get one from Lacedaemon, but he returns with the 
 answer, that * the pestle of the Lacedaemonians is also 
 destroyed,' for they ' lent it to others against the Thrace- 
 ward countries and then lost it.' ^ So he decides to go in 
 and make one for himself. (236-288.) 
 
 * Prasiae was a town on the coast of Laconia, which the Athenians had 
 captured and destroyed (Thiic. ii. 56). While saying this he throws 
 leeks [irpdaov) into his mortar. 
 
 * The allusion is to the death of Cleon and Brasidas at Amphlpolis in 
 the previous year. 
 
120 THE BIRDS 
 
 ^ 
 
 In the meantime Trygaeus concerts a plan with the 
 Chorus of husbandmen for dragging ' Peace ' out of the 
 cave : * Come, O ye husbandmen, merchants, artificers, 
 labourers, foreign residents, strangers and islanders, come 
 hither, ye people all, as quickly as possible with shovels, 
 crowbars, and ropes.' The speech expresses the Pan- 
 Hellenic feeHng of the poet, and it is agem expressed in the 
 line of the Chorus : .1 
 
 Trygaeus warns the Chorus not to make too much noise, 
 lest they wake ' the Cerberus below ' (Cleon), and he prevent 
 them, as he did when on earth, from dragging up the 
 goddess ; and they reply with a line taken from the defiance 
 of Zeus by Prometheus in the play of Aeschylus : 
 
 (US fcvKctTto) KOI TTaretTW Ttavra /cat TapaTTCTw. (320.) 
 
 If we get Peace, they say, * you will no longer find me a 
 severe or peevish dicast, nor harsh in disposition, as before, 
 but you would see me mild and far more youthful.' They 
 begin to move away the stones, but Hermes enters and 
 warns them to desist, as ' Zeus denounced death against 
 any one who should be found digging her out.' A scene 
 follows which seems to be clearly intended as a parody of 
 the * Supplicators ' before the dicasteries (see Wasps), in 
 which they beg Hermes not to inform against them, and 
 finally give him a gold cup (see Wasps again), which per- 
 suades him : ' Ah me 1 how compassionate I always am 
 towards golden cups ! Henceforth, sirs, the task is yours ' 
 (425). In this scene, as has been observed, there is a line 
 of the Chorus suggestive of ' bleating ' (385) ; also Trygaeus 
 undertakes to show up a ' conspiracy,' which is being 
 * hatched against all the gods by the Moon and the knavish 
 Sun, to betray Greece to the Barbarians.' ^ These are the 
 
 * Cf. T/yaiatrata, 574 aq., 1112 aq. 
 
 * In order that they may thereby get the sacrifices, as the barbarians 
 sacrificed not to Zeus, but to the Sun and Moon — a similar idea, it will be 
 observed, to that exploited in the Birda, 
 
 J 
 
m 
 
 THE BIRDS 121 
 
 very points alluded to in the description of the proceedings 
 of the popular courts in the Wasps, and the ' Zeus ' of this 
 satire is, in my opinion, throughout intended for the ruling 
 democracy, who, under the popular leadership, were always 
 in favour of carrying on the war with Sparta. 
 
 In a very dramatic scene they then haul up Peace (together 
 with Opora and Theoria), not, however, until they have got 
 rid of every one from the ropes except the husbandmen. 
 The occasion being free from risk, the poet names the useless 
 or half-hearted, namely, the war party at Athens, the 
 Boeotians, the Argives, who have been getting profit out 
 of the war from both sides, some Lacedaemonians, the 
 Megarians, who were too starved, and those Athenians who 
 cared for nothing but trying law cases. (458-519.) 
 
 Some beautiful lines having been spoken about the 
 deHghts of returning to the farms — * the figs and the myrtles, 
 the new sweet wine, the violet -bed beside the well, and the 
 oHves which we long for ' ^ — Hermes addresses the husband- 
 men in a set oration, which, from its position in the play, 
 its tone, and the metre, is evidently intended as a serious 
 political contribution. He explains the origin of the war, 
 nd how Peace was lost : 
 
 * Phidias first began the calamity, having fared ill ; and then 
 
 Pericles, fearing lest he should share his fate, dreading your dis- 
 
 l^kosition and inquisitorial way, before he suffered any calamity 
 
 ^^^mself , with his own hands set the city in a flame, having thrown 
 
 in a httie spark of a Megarian decree, which blew up so great a 
 
 l^brar, that all the Greeks, both here and there [i.e. in the Pelopon- 
 
 ■^Tiese] shed tears by reason of the smoke . . . and this goddess 
 
 disappeared. 
 
 Try. By Apollo, I had not learned this from any one, nor had 
 
 I^_I heard how Phidias was coimected with her. 
 ^K Cho. Nor I, till now. On this account then she is fair of 
 ^feature, because she is a connection of his. Certainly many 
 
 things escape our observation. 
 I^k Herm. And then, when the cities which you ruled over per- 
 ceived that you were incensed against each other and showing 
 
 » Cf. Thuc. U. 14-16, 
 
122 THE BIRDS 
 
 your teeth, through fear of the tribute they contrived all manner 
 of stratagems against you, and gained over the chief men of 
 the Lacedaemonians with money. And they, since they were 
 sordidly greedy of gain, and treacherous under the mask of 
 hospitahty, shamefully rejected this goddess and took up war. . . . 
 And then also, when the labouring population flocked together 
 into the city from the fields, they did not perceive that they were 
 being sold in the same way, but . . . they looked to the orators ; 
 and they well knowing that the poor were weak and in want of 
 victuals, drove away this goddess with two-pronged clamours 
 . . . and they used to harass the substantial and rich among 
 the aUies, attaching to each the imputation of being pro- 
 Brasidas. And then you used to worry him Hke Uttle dogs ; for 
 the city, pale and sitting in terror, was glad to devour whatever 
 calumnies any one threw to her. But they, the foreigners, seeing 
 the blows with which they were beaten, stopped with gold the 
 mouths of those who did this, so as to make those men rich, 
 while Greece was impoverished without your perceiving it. ^^ 
 Now the tanner was the person who did this.* |H 
 
 He concludes with an allusion to their rejection of peace 
 after the affair of Pylos, to which Trygaeus replies : * We 
 erred in this ; but pardon us, for our minds at that time were 
 wrapped up in the hides.' ^ (605-669.) 
 
 Trygaeus (whose beetle has conveniently disappeared) 
 now descends to earth with the help of the goddesses, and 
 the opportunity is taken to speak the Parabasis, which is a 
 curious laudation by the poet of his own efforts. In it 
 he claims to have been * the best and most celebrated of all 
 comic poets ' (KoafjucphihaaKoXo^), in that he had put an 
 end to * low buffooneries, and made our art dignified.' 
 
 The rest of the play is concerned with the celebration of 
 the return of Peace and her marriage to Trygaeus. It 
 contains (among the usual coarse material with which these 
 plays conclude and to which I have already alluded) an 
 attractive description of country life, and some noteworthy 
 exhortations by the poet against a war which he regarded as 
 fratricidal (1098), as, for instance, the hope of the Chorus 
 
 ^ /.e. of the tanner, Cleon. 
 
THE BIRDS 
 
 123 
 
 that * we may be as lambs towards each other, and far milder 
 towards the aUies ' (935), and the prayer to Peace by 
 IVygaeus : ' And put a stop to our over-nice suspicions with 
 which we chatter against each other ; and blend us Greeks 
 again, as from the beginning, with the balsam of friendship, 
 and temper our minds with a milder fellow-feeling ' (993- 
 999). It also contains a contemptuous attack on the sooth- 
 sayers, who deluded the people. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Theory applied to the History. 
 
 Let us endeavour now to see how far this theory of the 
 meaning of the Birds throws Hght on the very guarded 
 narrative of Thucydides as to the operations of the generals 
 in Sicily up to the time of the recall of Alcibiades. In intro- 
 ducing the speech of Alcibiades in opposition to that of 
 Nicias, the historian anticipates events in the following 
 remarks about the former : 
 
 ' He was hoping that he might be the conqueror of Sicily and 
 Carthage ; and that success would repair his private fortunes, 
 and gain him money as well as glory. He had a great position 
 among the citizens and was devoted to horse-racing and other 
 pleasures which outran his means. And in the end his wild 
 courses went far to ruin the Athenian state. For the people 
 feared the extremes to which he carried his lawless self-indulg- 
 ence, and the far-reaching purposes which animated him in all 
 his actions. They thought that he was aiming at a tyranny 
 and set themselves against him. And therefore, although his 
 talents as a miUtary commander were unrivalled, they entrusted 
 the administration of the war to others, because they personally 
 objected to his private hfe ; and so they speedily shipwrecked 
 the state.' ^ 
 
 In the midst of the preparations occurred the mutilation 
 of the Hermae. * The Athenians took the matter greatly 
 to heart — ^it seemed to them ominous of the fate of the 
 expedition ; and they ascribed it to conspirators who wanted 
 to effect a revolution and to overthrow the democracy.' ^ 
 
 Certain metics and servants also gave information that 
 * the mysteries were frequently profaned by the celebration 
 of them in private houses, and of this impiety they accused, 
 among others, Alcibiades. A party who were jealous of his 
 
 » Thuo. vL 16. • Ihid. 27. 
 
 vu 
 
THE BIRDS 125 
 
 influence over the people, which interfered with the per- 
 manent establishment of their own, thinking that if they 
 could get rid of him they would be supreme, took up and 
 exaggerated the charges against him, clamorously insisting 
 that both the mutilation of the Hermae and the profanation 
 of the mysteries were part of a conspiracy against the demo- 
 cracy, and that he was at the bottom of the whole affair.' * 
 He demanded that he should be heard on these charges 
 before saiHng, but they secured the postponement of the 
 trial with the intention of stirring up stronger feeling against 
 him in his absence. * So it was decided that Alcibiades 
 should sail.' ^ 
 
 The orders to the generals were as follow : * They were 
 told to assist Egesta against Selinus ; if this did not demand 
 all their military strength they were empowered to restore 
 the Leontines, and generally to further in such manner as 
 they deemed best the Athenian interest in Sicily.' ^ 
 
 At Rhegium the generals held a council of war. Nicias 
 was for ' sailing against SeHnus, which was their main 
 errand ' ; they would then ' pass along the coast before the 
 eyes of the other cities and display the visible power of 
 Athens . . . after this they would return home, unless a 
 speedy way of reheving the Leontines or obtaining support 
 from some of the other cities should unexpectedly present 
 itself. But they should not throw away their own resources 
 and imperil the safety of Athens.' * 
 
 Alcibiades urged * that it would be a disgrace to have 
 gone forth with so great an armament and to return without 
 achieving anything.' They should send envoys to all the 
 cities, negotiate with the Sicels, and * first appeal to the 
 Messenians, whose city being on the highway of traffic was 
 the key of Sicily, and possessed a harbour from which the 
 Athenian forces could most conveniently watch the enemy. 
 Finally, when they had brought the cities over to them, 
 and knew who would be on their side in the war, they should 
 attack Selinus and Syracuse, unless the Seluntians would 
 
 > Thuo. vi. 28. • Ibid, 29. 
 
 • Ibid. 8. * Ibid, 47. 
 
126 THE BIRDS 
 
 come to terms with the Egestaeans, and the Syracusans 
 would permit the restoration of the Leontines.' ^ 
 
 * Lamachus was of opinion that they ought to sail direct 
 to Syracuse and fight as soon as possible under the walls 
 of the city, while the inhabitants were unprepared and con- 
 sternation was at its height.' He was also of opinion that 
 they should make Megara their naval station. ' The place 
 was deserted and was not far distant from Sjnracuse either 
 by land or by sea. Lamachus having thus spoken, 
 nevertheless gave his own voice for the proposal of 
 Alcibiades.' ^ 
 
 Alcibiades then sailed to Messene and proposed an 
 alliance to the inhabitants. He failed to convince them at 
 first and returned to Rhegium, but it appears that before 
 his recall he had made further progress with them, because 
 we read that ' when he was recalled and gave up his com- 
 mand, foreseeing that he would be an exile, he communicated 
 to the Syracusan party at Messene the plot of which he was 
 cognisant,' namely, to betray the city to the Athenians.' 
 
 An Athenian force of sixty ships now sailed to Naxos, 
 where they were received, to Catana, where they were 
 denied admission, to Syracuse, * to see whether there was 
 any fleet launched,' and thence back to Catana, where they 
 managed to effect an entrance. They then sailed back to 
 Rhegium, and with their entire force moved to Catana, 
 where on their arrival they began to establish their camp. 
 Rumours then reached them that the Camarinaeans would 
 join them, and that the Syracusans were manning a navy, 
 * so they sailed with their whole force first to Syracuse, but 
 they found that there was no fleet in preparation ' ; they 
 then passed on to Camarina and found that the citizens 
 would not receive them. * So they sailed away without 
 effecting their purpose. They then disembarked on a 
 part of the Syracusan territory, which they ravaged. But 
 a few Syracusan horse coming up killed some of their light - 
 armed troops who were straggling. They then returned to 
 Catana. There they found that the vessel Salaminia had 
 » Thuo. vi. 48. « Ibid. 49, 60. • Ibid. 74. 
 
THE BIRDS 127 
 
 come from Athens to fetch Alcibiades, who had been put 
 upon his trial by the State and was ordered home to defend 
 himself. With him were summoned certain of his soldiers, 
 who were accused, some of profaning the mysteries, others 
 of mutilation of the Hermae.' ^ 
 
 Now Alcibiades, whose plan was followed, was evidently 
 in command during these proceedings, and the dilatory 
 nature of them, as well as the plan itself, suggest that there 
 was some ulterior motive in the mind of the commander. 
 The Birds, imder the interpretation above given, suggests 
 what this motive was, namely, not to obtain a victory for 
 the democratic fleet until a sufficiently strong party had 
 been secured in Sicily which could be used by Alcibiades 
 and his party in the fleet for their own purposes. It seems, 
 indeed, quite possible that reports of his dilatory proceed- 
 ings reached Athens, and tended to excite further suspicion 
 against him. They were engaged there in attempting to 
 track down the authors of what they believed to be a con- 
 spiracy against the democracy,^ and about this and the 
 feehng against Alcibiades Thucydides relates as follows : 
 
 * The enemies of Alcibiades, who had attacked him before he 
 sailed, continued their machinations, and popular feeling was 
 deeply stirred against him. ... It so happened that while the 
 city was in this state of excitement a small Lacedaemonian 
 force proceeded as far as the Isthmus, having something to do in 
 Boeotia. They were supposed to have come, not in the interest 
 of the Boeotians, but by a secret understanding with Alcibiades ; 
 and the Athenians really believed that but for their own alacrity 
 in arresting the accused persons the city would have been 
 betrayed. For one whole night the people lay in arms in the 
 temple of Theseus, which is within the walls. About this time 
 too the friends of Alcibiades at Argos were suspected of con- 
 spiring against the Argive democracy, and accordingly the 
 Argive hostages who had been deposited in the islands were 
 at once given up by the Athenians to the vengeance of the 
 Argive people. From every quarter suspicion had gathered 
 
 » Thuc. vi. 50-63. 
 
 ' ' Tho whole affeur seemed to them to indioate some conspiraoy aiming 
 at obgarchy or tyranny ' (Thuc. vi. 60). 
 
128 THE BIRDS 
 
 round Alcibiades, and the Athenian people were determined to 
 have him tried and executed ; so they sent the ship Salaminia 
 to Sicily bearing a summons to him and to others against whom 
 information had been given.' ^ 
 
 On the departure of Alcibiades from Sicily the two 
 remaining generals turned their attention to Selinus and 
 Egesta, which was the initial object of the expedition. 
 
 Henceforth Alcibiades devoted himself to pulling down 
 the power of the ruling democratic party at Athens.^ 
 Addressing the Spartan assembly after his flight, he said,™ 
 * There were demagogues, as there always have been, who 
 led the people into evil ways, and it was they who drove me 
 out. Whereas we [his family] were leaders of the state as 
 a whole, and not of a part only ; it was our view that all 
 ought to combine in maintaining that form of government 
 which had been inherited by us, and under which the city 
 enjoyed the greatest freedom and glory.* ^ 
 
 After the disaster to the Athenian arms in Sicily, 
 Alcibiades, who had powerfully contributed to it by his 
 advice, fomented revolt among the Athenian allies ; then, 
 falling out with Sparta, he went over to Tissaphernes, who 
 was in alliance with Sparta, and began to work on him in 
 the Athenian interest. He was now preparing the way for 
 his own return from exile. ' He knew that, if he did not 
 destroy his country altogether, the time would come when 
 he would persuade his countrymen to recall him ; and he 
 thought that his arguments would be most effectual if he 
 were seen to be on intimate terms with Tissaphernes. 
 And the result proved that he was right. The Athenian 
 soldiers at Samos soon perceived that he had great influence 
 with him, and he sent messages to the chief persons among 
 them, whom he begged to remember him to all good men 
 and true, and to let them know that he would be glad 
 to return to his country and cast in his lot with them. 
 He would at the same time make Tissaphernes their friend ; 
 but they must establish an oligarchy, and abolish the 
 villainous democracy which had driven him out. Partly 
 » Thuo. vL 61. « Ibid. 89. 
 
THE BIRDS 129 
 
 moved by these messages, but still more of their own in- 
 clination, the trierarchs and leading Athenians at Samos 
 were now eager to overthrow the democracy.' ^ 
 
 The long-standing conspiracy in the * clubs ' against the 
 rule of the democratic party, of which the Birds affords 
 evidence, now begins to take effect, and the result followed 
 in the revolution at Athens of 411 B.C. by which the ohgar- 
 chical government of the ' Four Hundred ' was estabhshed. 
 This was succeeded by that of the * Five Thousand,' a 
 
 * pohty,' or constitution, under which representation was 
 once more given to the propertied class. Pay for ofl&ces 
 was aboHshed. ' This government,' writes Thucydides, 
 
 * during its early days was the best which the Athenians ever 
 enjoyed within my memory. Oligarchy and Democracy 
 were duly attempered. And thus after the miserable state 
 into which she had fallen, the city was again able to raise 
 her head.' ^ In the meantime Alcibiades, who favoured the 
 moderate constitution, had got himself accepted by the 
 democratic fleet at Samos, and showed his skill as a military 
 leader by defeating the Peloponnesian fleet at Cyzicus 
 (410 B.C.). This success led to the restoration of the 
 democracy with the unlimited franchise, the leader of the 
 Assembly being Cleophon. And now Alcibiades, after 
 successfid operations in the Hellespont, returned to Athens 
 (407 B.C.). He there had an extraordinary welcome. * Yet 
 the joy of the citizens was mingled with tears when they 
 thought of their past disasters.' * Some said ' he had been 
 the victim of plots, hatched in the brains of people less able 
 than himself ' ; others, that he was * the master mischief 
 maker.' * But the power of his personality asserted itself as 
 usual, and Plutarch relates : * He had so won the affections 
 of the poor and the lower orders that they were strangely 
 desirous of living under his rule. Many even besought him 
 to put down his personal enemies, so that, having become 
 superior to their envy, and having swept away decrees, 
 and laws and other pernicious nonsense, he might carry on 
 
 1 Thuc. viii. 47. * Ibid. 97. 
 
 ' Plut. Ale. 32. * Xen. HeUen. i. i. 4, 
 
130 THE BIRDS 
 
 the government without fear of the sycophants. What his 
 own views about making himself despot of Athens may have 
 been we cannot tell ; but the most influential of the citizens 
 were so alarmed at this that they hurried him away as 
 quickly as possible to sea, voting whatever measures he 
 pleased, and allowing him to choose his own colleagues/ ^ 
 
 Lysander had now the command of the Peloponnesian 
 fleet and Cyrus was supplying him with money. Alcibiades, 
 who had difficulties in the way of supplies, was less successful 
 against him than the Athenians expected, and a defeat of 
 one of his lieutenants, when he was himself absent in search 
 of means to pay his troops, brought matters to a head. 
 Plutarch says that * Thrasyllus, a bitter personal enemy of 
 Alcibiades, now set sail for Athens to accuse him, and to 
 exasperate his enemies in the city against him. He made 
 a speech to the people, representing that Alcibiades had 
 ruined their affairs and lost their ships by insolently abusing 
 his authority and entrusting the command, during his own 
 absence, to men who owed their influence with him to deep 
 drinking and sailors' yarns, and that he securely traversed 
 the provinces to raise money, indulging in drunken debauches 
 with Ionian courtesans, while the enemy's fleet was riding 
 close to his own. He was also blamed for the construction of 
 certain forts in Thrace, near Bisanthe, which he destined as 
 a place of refuge for himself, as if he could not or would not 
 live in his native city. The Athenians were so wrought 
 upon by these charges against Alcibiades that they elected 
 other generals to supersede him, thus showing their anger 
 and disHke for him.' ^ On learning this, Alcibiades, ' who 
 was moreover in bad odour in the camp, sailed away with a 
 single trireme to his private fortress in the Chersonese.' * 
 He had evidently made up his mind that he could not, on 
 any terms, live under the democracy. 
 
 Conon now took the chief command, and the battle of 
 Arginusae was fought (406 B.C.), in which the Athenian fleet 
 was victorious. The Spartans thereupon offered terms of 
 
 1 Plut. Ale. 34, 36. « Ibid. 36. 37. 
 
 • Xen. Hellen. i. i. 6. 
 
THE BIRDS 131 
 
 peace, which the Athenian Assembly, at the instance of 
 the popular leader Cleophon, rejected. After the engage- 
 ment there was a failure on the part of the generals, owing, 
 as was alleged, to a storm, to rescue the survivors on wrecks 
 and disabled ships. The eight generals (not including 
 Conon) who were present were deposed by the home authori- 
 ties and put on their trial. Two of them kept away, and 
 the other six were condemned by a single vote of the 
 Assembly and executed. One of the generals is said to have 
 been actually on a sinking ship, and to have been rescued. 
 Much mystery attaches to these proceedings, and much has 
 been written about them. It seems probable, however, 
 that the explanation lies in the same cause as in the case 
 of the mutilation of the Hermae, namely, in the suspicion of 
 ohgarchical conspiracy. As time went on the democracy 
 had got rid of numbers of men of position, and had so 
 ahenated the sympathies of the educated class that they 
 had no one on whom they could depend in emergency. 
 As a result they were a prey to apprehension. On the 
 present occasion there seems to have been a sudden access 
 of suspicion that the generals, who were, some of them at 
 any rate, men of standing, had let a number of the fleet 
 drown with a view, as I suggest, to getting rid of members 
 of the democratic party. The words used by Euryptolemus 
 in pleading for the life of Pericles and Diomedon before the 
 Assembly show that some such plot was suspected. * In 
 what I urge there is no trap or plot whereby you can be 
 deceived by me or any other man ' ; and the two laws 
 under which, alternatively, he begged that they should 
 have a fair trial were both concerned with treason.^ 
 
 Having made a clean sweep of these commanders the 
 Athenians were left, no doubt, with inferior material, and 
 the disaster at Aegospotami in the following year gives 
 evidence of this. The suggestion that there was treachery 
 cannot be substantiated ; the narrative of Xenophon shows 
 
 * The decree of Cannonus referring to men ' who are guilty of treafion 
 egainst the people of Athens,' and ' that other law which is directed against 
 robbers of temples ttnd betrayers of their country ' (Xen. Hdlen. i. i. 7). 
 
132 THE BIRDS 
 
 sufficiently that the loss of the fleet was due to incompetence 
 in the commanders and lack of discipline among the men, 
 Alcibiades, who came down to the shore on which the fleet 
 was drawn up, made an effort to save them, but was refused 
 a hearing. 
 
 In contemplating the failings of the Athenian democracy 
 we must remember that they were pioneers in the experi- 
 ment of free government, and that, with all their cleverness, 
 they were primitive people. Attempts to draw analogies 
 between the institutions which they evolved and those of 
 modem western states are for the most part misleading. 
 The gulf which lay between the few and the many, social, 
 philosophical, and religious, was too widely fixed to render 
 compromise possible, and compromise is of the essence of 
 modern life. Even with Socrates the condition of a high 
 standard of conduct was knowledge, of which the many are, 
 for the most part, incapable. However we may interpret 
 them, we have other oracles. If any political lesson may 
 be drawn from imperial Athens, it lies perhaps in the failure 
 of the ruling democracy to govern with impartiahty, and in 
 their aUenation, with fatal results to themselves, of the 
 educated and upper-class element. But human nature 
 and spiritual guidance being what they were, could anything 
 different be expected ? 
 
INDEX 
 
 [The general sequence of erenta will be found under 'Athens,' and of social 
 and political movement* under 'Athenians.'] 
 
 r= 
 
 Aeschylus, on the accountability 
 of officers of state, 8 ; perhaps a 
 pupil of Lasus of Hermione, 10 ; 
 the theme of the Peraae, 18 n. ; 
 the political character of his 
 plays and the quality of his 
 writing, 21, 46; alludes to treason, 
 
 23 ; his efforts to revive military 
 discipline, 26, 41 ; his admira- 
 tion of the Spartans, 29 ; the 
 historical value of his plays, 32 ; 
 an admirer of Aristides, 35, 40-44 ; 
 probably involved in the fall of 
 Aristides, 44 ; his unpopularity 
 at Athens, 46-47, 98 ; his politics, 
 46 ; probable allusion to, in the 
 Birds, 98. 
 
 Alcibiades, 1. 2, 3, 4, 22 n., 25, 34, 78- 
 82, 88, 100, 124-132. 
 Icmaeonid family, the, 13, 22 ; 
 accused of treachery at Marathon, 
 21 ; Alcibiades a member of, 78 ; 
 also Cleisthenes, 13, 22 ; also 
 Pericles, 22. 
 
 Antiphon, description of, by Thucy- 
 dides, 12. 
 
 Areopagus, the Ck)uncil of the, 6, 
 7, 14, 16, 37, 38, 60, 64, 58. 64, 
 95. 
 
 Aristides, his dread of the new 
 naval policy, 26, 36 ; his political 
 principles, 33, 34, 36 ; his part 
 in the confederacy of Delos, 33 ; 
 his integrity, 34, 43, 44 ; repre- 
 sentative of the archaic age, 35 ; 
 rivalry with Themistocles, 35-37 ; 
 new departure in his policy, 36- 
 
 39 ; fiiccused of peculation, 39, 
 
 40 ; his fall and death, 39-41, 43 ; 
 alluded to by Aeschylus, 40-44. 
 
 Aristophanes, the political char- 
 acter of his plays, 4, 105 ; allu- 
 sions to Marathon and Salamis, 
 
 24 ; allusions to the ' moderate ' 
 party, 88, 92, 93, 95, 99, 101 ; 
 his respect for religion, 94, 95 ; 
 
 not in favour of oligarchy, 95, 99 ; 
 an earnest politician, 101 ; date 
 of birth and early writings, 105 ; 
 Babylonians, 106 ; Acharnians, 
 106; Knights, 107 ; Wasps, 111 ; 
 Peace, 116; the low standard of 
 some of his appeal, 106, 122 ; his 
 Pan-Hellenic feeling, 120-123. 
 
 Aristotle, on the constitution of 
 Athens, 5, 14, 37. 
 
 Art, among the Athenians, 11, 46 n., 
 63, 72 n., 102 n. 
 
 Assembly, the, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 58, 
 74, 131. 
 
 Athenians, the, excitement of, at 
 the mutilation of the ' Hermae,* 
 2 ; and the Sicilian expedition, 
 3, 4 ; the nature and position of 
 the democracy, 5, 29, 37-40, 50, 
 55-63, 66, 71, 82-86 ; condition 
 of, in the time of Solon, 6 ; ad- 
 dicted to peculation, 7 ; effect on, 
 of the payment for service in 
 the popular courts, 8, 55-62 ; 
 early simplicity of, 9 ; their ideas 
 of deity, 10 n., 11 n., 62, 63; the 
 nature of their genius and char- 
 acteristics, 11 ; professors of 
 practical political wisdom among, 
 12, 55 ; legislation among, 15 n.; 
 the dress of the upper classes in 
 the archaic period, 24, 25 ; the 
 ' Laconising ' tendency of the 
 upper classes, 25, 26, 29, 50 ; 
 their inferiority to the Spartans 
 on land, 25, 28, 29, 52, 80, 117 ; 
 the sycophants, 40, 59, 60, 85, 
 96, 106, 115, 130; their severity 
 to unsuccessful commanders of 
 expeditions, 40, 67, 75, 77, 113; 
 their tendency to become unbear- 
 able in prosperity, 41, 77 ; the 
 view that they were ' artistic ' {see 
 Art) ; conditions of society, 55- 
 58 ; the nature of the franchise, 
 56 ; conditions of ancient states 
 ISS 
 
134 
 
 THE BIRDS 
 
 compared with modem, 67, 58 ; 
 religious conservatism of, 63 ; 
 their standard of education, 72, 
 91, 116 ; the ' Clubs,' 87, 91, 129 ; 
 suggested cause of the failure of 
 the democracy, 132. 
 Athens, early constitution of, 5, 6, 7 ; 
 constitution of Cleisthenes, 6 n., 
 13, 14; ancient rival parties, the 
 'Plain,' the 'Shore,' and the 'Hill,' 
 8, 9, 13, 98; the period of the 
 * tyranny,' 9 ; the ' tyranny ' put 
 down by the Spartans, who en- 
 deavour to establish an oligarchy, 
 15 ; negotiations with Persia, 16, 
 17 ; the Spartan allies defeated 
 in the north, 16 ; assists loni- 
 ans against Persia, 17 ; incurs 
 defeat and heavy losses, 19, 20 ; 
 battle of Marathon, 21, 24, 27 ; 
 battle of Salamis, 24, 27, 37 ; 
 change of policy after Salamis, 
 
 25, 37 ; the fleet and the army, 
 26 ; converted from a land to a 
 sea power and tributary empire, 
 
 26, 29-31 ; battle of Plataea, 27, 
 28 ; duration and quality of 
 Athenian empire, 30 ; the ' Fifty 
 years,' 32 ; the confederacy of 
 Delos, 33 ; the tendency of men 
 of outstanding ability to court 
 the populace with a view to 
 a dictatorship, 34, 124, 129 ; 
 the ' Long Walls,' 35, 61, 53 ; 
 the subject allies, 36, 38, 60, 61, 
 73, 85, 90, 106, 114, 115; the 
 effect of the battles of Salamis 
 and Plataea on the constitu- 
 tion, 37-39 ; disaster to the Egyp- 
 tian expedition, 51 ; defeat at 
 Tanagra, 51, 52 ; becomes en- 
 tirely a maritime power, 53 ; 
 thirty years' peace with Sparta, 
 53 ; Pericles becomes the popular 
 leader, 54 ; the tribute and 
 revenues, 62, 74, 85, 114; im- 
 provements of the city by Cimon, 
 64 n. ; the public buildings of 
 Pericles, 62 ; the peace of Nicias, 
 76, 78, 116, 118; cruel decrees 
 against revolted allies, 60 n., 71, 
 73, 78, 81 ; the position of the 
 sovereign democracy before the 
 Sicilian expedition, 81 ; the re- 
 duction of Melos, 81 ; figuratively 
 described by Aristophanes, 107- 
 110 ; demoralisation of the army 
 by defeats on land, 117 ; the 
 ' four hundred,' 129 : the ' five 
 
 thousand,' 129 ; Arginusao, the 
 trial of the generals, 131 ; Aegos- 
 potami, 131, 132. 
 
 Birds, the, ptu*pose of, 2, 3, 4 ; 
 first performance of, 3, 101 ; 
 allusion in, to the old political 
 parties, 9, 97-100 ; and the 
 ' Clubs,' 87, 129 ; the ' gods,' 90, 
 94 ; ' men,' 90, 94 ; and Alci- 
 biades, 101, 127 ; Siivern's theory 
 of, 104 n. 
 
 Cimon, 14 n., 34, 35, 36, 45, 48 sq., 
 54 n., 56, 61, 64. 
 
 Cleisthenes, constitution of, 6 n., 13, 
 14, 33 n. ; withdraws from Athens 
 and returns, 16 ; perhaps ostra- 
 cised, 22 ; perhaps suspected of 
 aiming at ' tjnranny,' 34 ; his 
 constitution favoured later by the 
 upper class, 50, 98 (c/. 6n.). 
 
 Cleon, attacks Pericles, 67, 70 ; his 
 career and qualities, 71-74 ; 
 against peace with Sparta, 77, 
 120 ; his death, 78 ; attacks on, 
 by Aristophanes, 106 sq. 
 
 ' Clubs,' the, 87, 91, 129. 
 
 Comic stage, the, curtailment of 
 freedom of political attack by, 
 4, 86. 
 
 Council, the, 6, 6 n., 7, 14, 15, 38, 
 74. 
 
 Courts, the popular. See Dicasts. 
 
 Cronus, the age of, 10, 102, 114. 
 
 DiCASTERiES. See Dicasts. 
 
 Dicasts, establishment of, 7, 8 ; 
 effect of the introduction of pay 
 for, 8, 38, 55 sq. ; the character 
 of the popular courts, 8, 55, 58, 
 59, 85, 111 sq. ; and the subject 
 allies, 60, 84 ; one-sided views of 
 historians as to, 66 ; allusions to, 
 by Aristophanes, 87, 88, 93, 110- 
 116. 
 
 Draco, the constitution of, 5. 
 
 EuPATBiDS, 6, 69 n., 92. 
 
 Habmodius and Aristogeiton, 13. 
 
 Heliasts. See Dicasts. 
 
 Hermae, mutilation of the, 1, 100, 
 
 124, 125. 
 Hipparchus, 'tyrant,' 9, 10, 11, 
 
 13. 
 Hippias, ' tyrant,' 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, 
 
 17, 21. 
 
INDEX 
 
 135 
 
 Mabathon, battle of, 16, 21, 22, 24, 
 
 25, 27. 
 Miletus, revolt and destruction of, 
 
 17-19 ; the drama on the subject 
 
 by Phrynicus, 19, 20. 
 
 NiciAS, his fear of the people, 67, 74, 
 75 ; his qualities as a general, 67, 
 74 ; confidence of the Lacedae- 
 monians in, 75, 76, 118; his 
 patriotic attitude, 76, 83 ; the 
 peace of, 76, 78, 118. 
 
 OSTEACISM, 14, 15. 
 
 Pericles, his rule described by 
 Thucydides, 1 ; suspected of aim- 
 ing at a ' tyranny,' 34, 69 n. ; 
 compared with Cimon, 49 ; in- 
 troduces pay for the dicasts, 38, 
 54, 55 ; one of the leaders of the 
 popular movement against the 
 Areopagus, 50, 54 ; brings a 
 charge against Cimon, 50, 54 ; 
 his career, 51, 54, 64 ; builds the 
 ' Long Walls,' 53 ; concludes 
 peace with Sparta, 53 ; con- 
 centrates on a naval policy, 53 ; 
 uses the league funds to adorn 
 Athens, 61-63 ; his fear of the 
 people, 63 ; his powers of control, 
 64 ; reasons alleged for his going 
 to war with Sparta, 65, 121, 122 ; 
 charges against Aspasia, 65, and 
 Anaxagoras, 65, and himself, 65, 
 66 ; attacked by Cleon, 67, 70 ; 
 fined, 67 (c/. 40) ; his death, 68 ; his 
 last words, 68 n. ; the Isist of the 
 old Attic leaders, 69 ; a conver- 
 sation with Alcibiades, 78. 
 
 Persians, the, symbolism made use 
 of by their rulers, 16, 18, 19. 
 
 Phidias, 62, 63, 65, 121. 
 
 Phrynicus, his ' Capture of Miletus,' 
 19 ; originator of the political 
 drama, 20. 
 
 Pisistratus, becomes ' tyrant ' of 
 Athens, 9 ; his administration 
 and policy, 9, 10, 11 ; his 
 
 * tyranny ' described as the ' age 
 of Cronus,' 10 ; referred to as a 
 
 * democrat,' 34. 
 
 Plataea, battle of, 27, 28, 32, 33, 39- 
 Promeiheua Bound, the, theory as to 
 its meaning, 4 (c/. Preface) ; an 
 allusion in, to treason, 23 ; its 
 bearing on the career of Aristides, 
 44 ; when and where written, 45 ; 
 allusions to, by Aristophanes, 90, 
 92, 95, 97, 98, 99, 102-104. 
 
 Religion, early ideas of, at Athens, 
 10 n., 11, 62; ancient, contrasted 
 with modern, 58 ; dissatisfac- 
 tion with, among the educated 
 classes, 80, 95 ; indecent sym- 
 bolism of, 107. 
 
 Salamis, battle of, 24, 25, 27, 37. 
 
 Sicilian expedition, 1, 3, 67, 82, 118, 
 124 8q. 
 
 Solon, his legislation, 5-8. 
 
 Sophists at Athens, 12, 80. 
 
 Sparta, endeavours to force oli- 
 garchical government on Athens, 
 16 ; intrigues with Hippias, 17 ; 
 its military discipline, the ' Dorian 
 spear,' 25, 28, 29, 80 ; its policy 
 at Plataea, 28 ; its leadership re- 
 nounced by Athens after the 
 Persian invasion, 33 ; tendency 
 of its citizens to insolence away 
 from home, 34 ; defeats Athens 
 at Tanagra, 51 ; the affair of 
 Pylos, 76 ; peace of Nicias, 76, 
 78, 118 ; recovers its prestige at 
 Mantinea, 80 ; becomes a naval 
 power through Persian gold, 81, 
 117, 130. 
 
 Sycophants (common informers) at 
 Athens, 40, 59, 60, 85, 96, 106, 
 115, 130. 
 
 Thkmistocles, advised by Mnesi- 
 philus, 1 1 ; his naval policy, 29-32 ; 
 his character and aims, 34, 35 ; 
 his banishment, 34, 41 ; rivalry 
 with Aristides, 35, 36, 37, 39 ; 
 his policy of building the ' Long 
 WaUs,' 31, 32, 36, 63. 
 
 • Zeus ' analogy, the, applied to the 
 sovereign democracy, 92, 94, 96, 
 »7, 100, 101-104, 113, 114, 120, 
 121. 
 
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