No More Learning

[83] Mentioned both in 'The Acharnians' and 'The Knights. '

[84] The drachma was worth six obols, or twice the pay of a heliast.

[85] We have already seen that the Athenians sometimes kept their small
money in their mouth.

[86] Which were placed in the courts; dogs were sacrificed on them.

[87] As already stated, the statue of Lycus stood close to the place
where the tribunals sat.

[88] The barrier in the Heliaea, which separated the heliasts from the
public.

[89] The whole of this comic trial of the dog Labes is an allusion to the
general Laches, already mentioned, who had failed in Sicily. He was
accused of taking bribes of money from the Sicilians.

[90] To serve for a bar.

[91] This was a customary formula, [Greek: aph' Estias archou], "begin
from Hestia," first adore Vesta, the god of the family hearth. In similar
fashion, the Romans said, _ab Jove principium_.

[92] For conviction and acquittal.

[93] On which the sentence was entered.

[94] No doubt the stew-pot and the wine-jar.

[95] The _article_ Bdelycleon had brought.
--The clepsydra was a kind of
water-clock; the other vessel is compared to it, because of the liquid in
it.

[96] A title of Apollo, worshipped as the god of healing.

[97] A title of Apollo, because of the sacrifices, which the Athenians
offered him in the streets, from [Greek: aguia], a street.

[98] Bdelycleon.

[99] The formula used by the president before declaring the sitting of
the Court opened.

[100] That is, by way of fine.

[101] A reference to the peculations Laches was supposed to have
practised in keeping back part of the pay of the Athenian sailors engaged
in the Sicilian Expedition.

[102] The [Greek: Thesmothetai] at Athens were the six junior Archons,
who judged cases assigned to no special Court, presided at the allotment
of magistrates, etc.

[103] Thucydides, son of Milesias, when accused by Pericles, could not
say a word in his own defence. One would have said his tongue was
paralysed. He was banished. --He must not be confounded with Thucydides
the historian, whose exile took place after the production of 'The
Wasps. '

[104] When the judges were touched by the pleading of the orator and were
decided on acquittal, they said to the defending advocate, "_Cease
speaking, descend from the rostrum. _"

[105] There were two urns, one called that of Conviction, the other of
Acquittal.

[106] Meaning, that he had at first produced pieces under the name of
other poets, such as Callistrates and Phidonides.

[107] Eurycles, an Athenian diviner, surnamed the Engastromythes ([Greek:
muthos], speech, [Greek: en gastri], in the belly), because he was
believed to be inspired by a genius within him.