Seven years passed before Aristophanes pro duced another play. In the meantime public measures had been taken to check political satire, and The Birds (414) ridicules the Athenians' fondness for litigation and their flighty character. Two old men leave Athens in disgust, and with the birds establish the city Cloud-cuekoo-town, in mid-air, shut off the gods from enjoying sacrifice, and win back the sceptre from Zeus. The whole play is very brilliant and clever. Some have wished to see in it a caricature of the Athenians' hopes of founding a great western empire in Sicily. The Lysistrata (411) represents a woman's conspiracy to bring about peace. The Thesmophoriazustr, produced three months after the preceding comedy, con tains an attack on Euripides, whom the women, who are celebrating the Thesmophoria, propose to punish for his hatred of them. The Frogs (405) is devoted to literary criticism. In the opening scenes Dionysus is on his way to Hades in search of a good poet, for Sophoeles and Euripides have just (lied. The remainder of the play is given to the adventures of Dionysus in Hades, and the contest between 2Eschylus and Euripides for the seat of honor there, which lEschylus wins. The real subject is the decay of tragic art, for which Euripides is blamed. The Ecelesiazuste (392 or 389 n.c.), or The Women in Parliament, is a satire on commu nistic ideas current at this time. The women
disguised as men occupy the Pnyx, and adopt a new thoroughgoing communistic constitution. In the P/utits (which failed in 408, but was re vived in 388) the god of wealth has his sight restored to him, and thereafter confers his blessings only on the deserving.
It will he seen that in the extant plays there is a gradual change from political and personal satire to caricature of social conditions; further more, the local character of the earlier plays gives way in the later to a certain cosmopolitan ism. These, therefore, form the transition to the middle and new comedy. Aristophanes, in the opinion of the ancients, held a middle place between his older contemporaries, Cratinus and Etipolis, combining the severe character of the one with the grace of the other. In wit, rollick ing humor, invention, skill in the use of lan guage and rhythm, he has never been surpassed. The text is hest edited by Meineke (Leipzig, IMO), and Blaydes (Halle, 1886). The Scholia are published by G. Dindorf (Oxford, 1835) ; Diibner (Paris. 1842), and from the Ravenna MS., by Rutherford (1806). There are numer ous commentated editions of single plays. Eng lish translations have been made by Mitchell, Frere, Rogers. Kennedy, and Tyrrell.