With him tragedy, after a short reign, expired ; but comedy had only now attained its perfection, and continued to flourish during successive ages. It as sumed different aspects, according to the different periods of its existence. These are called the Old, the Middle, and the New Comedy.
The old comedy was cultivated by Eupolis, Cra tinus, and Aristophanes. It employed itself in the most bitter, and often indecent satire, upon distin guished persons in the commonwealth, who were in troduced by name upon the stage, and held up to public derision. The writings of Aristophanes alone have come down to us, and display a very powerful, but coarse vein of humour. After him, Alexis and Antiphanes introduced the middle comedy. The object of this was still satire, but the improved taste of the age, and preponderating influence of the Macedonian government, no longer allowed the wri ters to indulge in personal attacks ; it was therefore directed against manners in general. All the writers of this school, of whom Mr Cumberland has enu merated thirty-two, have perished, leaving only a few fragments, which make us regret the more what we have lost. The middle was followed by the new comedy, more cultivated, polished, and regular, than either of its predecessors, and nearly approaching, it would appear, to what we call sentimental comedy. It seems to have been chiefly occupied by love-plots, tender sentiments, and more delicate satire. Upwards of 200 names have been transmitted to us, of those who shone in this . line of composition ; but their names only, not their works, if we except a few scat tered fragments, chiefly handed down by fathers of the church, and which therefore have a serious, and even gloomy colouring, probably very different from the general strain of these dramas. Menander, Phi lemon, and Diphilus, are the most celebrated of these writers.
The drama of Athens, however, is not more cele brated than its schools of philosophy. As every ci tizen might acquire an influence in the management of public affairs, provided he possessed the requisite qualifications, it became a desirable attain those talents, and above all that eloquence, which might enable him to sway the decisions of a popular assembly. A class of teachers then arose, by whom this was publicly professed; but the greater number of these, deserting their legitimate office, taughronly the art of making subtle distinctions, and defending right and wrong indiscriminately. These went by the
name of Sophists, which originally signified merely wise men, but which, from their misconduct, has long be come odious. The abuses of this sect`were exposed, and their fame eclipsed, by Socrates, the most cele brated of all heathen philosophers, for pure morality and practical wisdom. His instructions were entirely oral, and seem to have consisted chiefly in the appli cation of sound sense and virtuous principle to the varied scenes of public and private life, of which he was a constant spectator. Openly attacking the per nicious doctrines of the sophist, and secretly despising the superstitions of the multitude, he excited hostility in both; and at length his unworthy fate became as much the shame, as his life had been the glory, of Athens. When death, however, had silenced envy, his fame broke forth in full lustre ; and a crowd of votaries arose, who trod, or affected to tread, in his footsteps. Each, however, modifying and explain mg the Socratic doctrines as suited his own peculiar views, many branches, widely differing from each other, sprung from the same root. Xenophon, the most judicious and most amiable of his disciples, seems to have transmitted his doctrine the most pure and uncorrupted. Plato, on the contrary, sought to and adorn it by an admixture both with his own lofty, and often visionary ideas, and with the tenets of other schools. Hence he may be consider ed rather as having founded a system of his own, than as having faithfully transmitted to us that of his master. Amid a variety of subordinate sects, we may then distinguish the two opposite, at the head of which were Diogenes the cynic, and Aristippus the philosopher of pleasure. The former placed wisdom entirely in the absence of all refinement,• and often even of common decency, and in a life marked only by austerity and privation. The other, con ceiving man made only for enjoyment, sought it. wherever it was to be found; and hence became a welcome guest in courts, and in all gay and opulent. societies. These two were succeeded by the still more celebrated sects of Zeno and Epicurus, of which the former placed the supreme good in virtue, the other in pleasure alone, and which long continued to divide the ancient world. The leading doctrines of each are well known, and shall be fully explained in their proper place.