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[185] These feasts were also called the Anthesteria or Lenaea; the
Lenaeum was a temple to Bacchus, erected outside the city. They took
place during the month Anthesterion (February).

[186] A celebrated athlete from Croton and a victor at Olympia; he was
equally good as a runner and at the 'five exercises' ([Greek:
pentathlon. ]).

[187] He had been Archon at the time of the battle of Marathon.

[188] A sacred formula, pronounced by the priest before offering the
sacrifice ([Greek: kan_ephoria]).

[189] The maiden who carried the basket filled with fruits at the
Dionysia in honour of Bacchus.

[190] The emblem of the fecundity of nature; it consisted of a
representation, generally grotesquely exaggerated, of the male genital
organs; the phallophori crowned with violets and ivy and their faces
shaded with green foliage, sang improvised airs, called 'Phallics,' full
of obscenity and suggestive 'double entendres. '

[191] The most propitious moment for Love's gambols, observes the
scholiast.

[192] Married women did not join in the processions.

[193] The god of generation, worshipped in the form of a phallus.

[194] A remark, which fixes the date of the production of the
'Acharnians,' viz. the sixth year of the Peloponnesian War, 426 B. C.

[195] Lamachus was an Athenian general, who figures later in this comedy.
[196] At the rural Dionysia a pot of kitchen vegetables was borne in the
procession along with other emblems.

[197] Cleon the Demagogue was a currier originally by trade. He was the
sworn foe and particular detestation of the Knights or aristocratic party
generally.

[198] That is, the baskets of charcoal.

[199] The stage of the Greek theatre was much broader, and at the same
time shallower, than in a modern playhouse.

[200] A mountain in Attica, in the neighbourhood of Acharnae.

[201] Orators in the pay of the enemy.

[202] Satire on the Athenians' addiction to lawsuits.

[203] 'The Babylonians. ' Cleon had denounced Aristophanes to the senate
for having scoffed at Athens before strangers, many of whom were present
at the performance. The play is now lost.

[204] A tragic poet; we know next to nothing of him or his works.

[205] Son of Aeolus, renowned in fable for his robberies, and for the
tortures to which he was put by Pluto. He was cunning enough to break
loose out of hell, but Hermes brought him back again.

[206] This whole scene is directed at Euripides; Aristophanes ridicules
the subtleties of his poetry and the trickeries of his staging, which,
according to him, he only used to attract the less refined among his
audience.

[207] "Wheeled out"--that is, by means of the [Greek: ekkukl_ema], a
mechanical contrivance of the Greek stage, by which an interior was
shown, the set scene with performers, etc.