ARISTOPH'ANES, the only writer of the old Greek comedy of whom we possess any entire works, was the son of one Philippus, and was b. at Athens about the year 444 B.C. We know very little of 'his history. Plato, in his Symposium, relates that he was fond of pleasure—a statement which it is easy to credit when we consider the tendencies of his profession in all ages. It seems equally clear, however, from the vigorous and consistent expression of his convictions in his various works, and from the fear less manner in which he assails the political vices of his day, that he was possessed of an honest and independent spirit. He appeared as a comic writer in the fourth year of the Peloponnesian war (427 "Lc.). The piece which he produced was entitled Daitaleis (the Banqueters), and received the second prize. It ridiculed the follies of extravagance, and, like all his subsequent works, was pervaded by a contempt of modern life, and an admi ration of the sentiments and manners of the earlier generations. Next year, he wrote the Babylonians; in which he satirized Cleon, the so-called demagogue, so sharply, that the latter endeavored to deprive him of the rights of citizenship, by insinuating that he was not a real Athenian. This, in all probability, gave rise to the various traditions of A. having been born in Rhodes, Egypt, etc. Fragments of these plays remain. In 425, his Acharnians obtained the first prize. It was written to expose the madness of the war then waging between Athens and Sparta, and exhibits the feelings of the " peace-party" in the former city. It is still extant. In 424 appeared Ili1rpei3, the Knights or Horsemen. It was the first which the poet produced in his own name, and evinces the singular bold ness of the author. It is leveled against Cleon, and presents us with a striking picture both of a vulgar and insolent charlatan, and of the fickle, cunning, credulous, and rather stupid mob over whom he precariously despotizes. It is related of this piece that, when no actor would undertake to play the part of the influential Cleon, A. himself imperson ated the demagogue. Unfortunately for the character of Cleon, as well as that of the Athenian democracy, these caricatures and misrepresentations of A. have been received as historical pictures. How far they are from the truth, has been clearly shown by Grote, in his history of Greece. See CLEON. In 423, A. produced the Clouds, which, along with the Knights, are the two most famous of his comedies. They exhibit in overflowing rich ness that fancy, wit, humor, satire, and shrewd insight which characterize this greatest of all Greek comic writers. The Clouds, however, displays at the same time the weak nesses and limitations of A.'s mind. Its aim was to deride the pretensions of the new sophistical school, and to point out its pernicious tendencies. So far well. But A., who was no philosopher, demonstrates his own incapacity to appreciate the highest range of thought and character, by selecting no less a person than Socrates as the most perfect representative of a sophist. A., who was both religiously and politically conservative, had apparently no clearer conception of abstract truth than is involved in reverence for the sanctities of the past, the old gods, old traditions, old manners, and old sentiments.
He had an instinctive hatred of innovations, and considered all equally pernicious. As he had represented Cleon the reformer as a vulgar innovator and demagogue, ruled by the lowest considerations, he makes the innovating views of Socrates also proceed from corrupt motives, veiled perhaps with more craft. Alcibiades is caricatured in this bril liant comedy as a wildly extravagant youth, whose career of ruin is accelerated by the insidious instructions of Socrates; and a hint is thrown out towards the end of the piece, which unfortunately proved to be the "shadow" of a "coming event." A. represents the father of Alcibiades as about to burn the philosopher and his whole phrontisterion (subtlety-shop); and there can be little doubt that this dramatic vilification of the purest of heathen moralists led to that persecution which, twenty years later, culminated in his condemnation and death. In 422 appeared the Wasps, still extant, in which the pop ular courts of justice are attacked; and three years later, in his Peace, he returns to the subject of the Peloponnesian war, which is ridiculed with great cleverness. In 1414, he produced two comedies, Amphiaraus and the Birds, both of which caricature, in the live liest manner, the Sicilian expedition, then being meditated, but which proved so utter a failure. The Lysistrata belongs to the year 411, and exhibits a civil war of the sexes, as the monstrous issue of that in the Peloponnesus. In his Pintas and Eeclesiacusce, which respectively appeared in 408 and 392, true to his mission as the enemy of innova tion, he assailed the new passion for Done manners and institutions, and ventured to ridicule Plato, in that, however, in which the philosopher is weakest—namely, his polit ical theory. Euripides, also, as the sophist among poets, is severely handled in the Frogs, which belongs to the year 405.
A. wrote 54 comedies, of which only 11 are extant. lie is acknowledged to stand far aboie all his contemporaries or successors of the middle and new comedy* in wealth of fancy and beauty of langua,ge. His choruses sometimes exhibit the purest spirit of poetry; and Plato himself says that the soul of A. was a temple for the graces. The ingenu ity which he displays in the mechanical artifices of verse is not less wonderful. Frogs are made to croak choruses, pigs to grunt through a series of iambics, and words are coined of amazing length—the Eeclesicausce closes with one composed of 170 letters. It only remains to be added, what might naturally be expected, that the personalities in which A. indulged descend at times into coarseness and indecency, and that even the gods whom he undertook to defend are treated with levity, and placed in the • most ludicrous lights.
The comedies of A. have been edited by Brunel( (1781-1783), Dindorf (1794-1826), Bekker (1829). They have all been translated into German by Voss (Brunswick, 1821), and there are several translations of single plays into English.