No More Learning

[599] A deme of Attica.

[600] The women lodged in pairs during the Thesmophoria in tents erected
near the Temple of Demeter.

[601] The Corinthians were constantly passing their vessels across the
isthmus from one sea to the other; we know that the Grecian ships were of
very small dimensions.

[602] This was the name of the place where the Ecclesia, the public
meeting of the people, took place; the chorus gives this name here to
Demeter's temple, because the women are gathered there.

[603] The spaces left free between the tents, and which served as
passage-ways.

[604] A choric dance began here.

[605] A woman's footgear. --On undressing the supposed child, Mnesilochus
perceives that it is nothing but a skin of wine.

[606] Dr. P. Menier repeatedly points out in his "La medecine et les
po? tes latins," that the ancient writers constantly spoke of ten months
as being a woman's period of gestation.

[607] A cotyla contained nearly half a pint.

[608] Both the Feast of Cups and the Dionysia were dedicated to Bacchus,
the god of wine; it is for this reason that Mnesilochus refers to the
former when guessing the wine-skin's age.

[609] The Cretan robe that had covered the wine-skin.
[610] An allusion to the tragedy by Euripides called 'Palamedes,' which
belonged to the tetralogy of the Troades, and was produced in 414 B. C.
Aristophanes is railing at the strange device which the poet makes Oeax
resort to. Oeax was Palamedes' brother, and he is represented as
inscribing the death of the latter on a number of oars with the hope that
at least one would reach the shores of Euboea and thus inform his father,
Nauplias, the king of the fact.

[611] The images of the various gods which were invoked at the
Thesmophoria, and the enumeration of which we have already had.

[612] Charminus, an Athenian general, who had recently been defeated at
sea by the Spartans. --Nausimache was a courtesan, but her name is
purposely chosen because of its derivation ([Greek: naus], ship, and
[Greek: mach_e], fight), so as to point more strongly to Charminus'
disgrace.

[613] A general and an Athenian orator.

[614] A courtesan.

[615] Aristomache ([Greek: mach_e], fight, and [Greek: arist_e],
excellent) and Stratonice ([Greek: stratos], army, and [Greek: nik_e],
victory) are imaginary names, invented to show the decadence of the
Athenian armies.

[616] Eubule ([Greek: eu], well, and [Greek: bouleuesthai], to
deliberate) is also an imaginary name. The poet wishes to say that in
that year wisdom had not ruled the decisions of the Senate; they had
allowed themselves to be humbled by the tyranny of the Four Hundred.

[617] The cylinder and the beams were the chief tools of the weaver. It
was the women who did this work.

[618] The taxiarch had the command of 128 men; the strategus had the
direction of an army.

[619] The Sthenia were celebrated in honour of Athene Sthenias, or the
goddess of force; the women were then wont to attack each other with
bitter sarcasms.