Any citizen trying to evade his duty to be present
was liable to have his white robe streaked red, and so be exposed to
general ridicule on finally putting in an appearance on the Pnyx.
was liable to have his white robe streaked red, and so be exposed to
general ridicule on finally putting in an appearance on the Pnyx.
Aristophanes
[679] An Athenian general, who gained brilliant victories over the
Thebans during the period prior to the Peloponnesian war.
[680] A dithyrambic poet, and notorious for his dissoluteness; he was
accused of having daubed the statues of Hecate at the Athenian
cross-roads with ordure.
[681] The women wore yellow tunics, called [Greek: krok_otoi], because of
their colour.
[682] This Thrasybulus, not to be confounded with the more famous
Thrasybulus, restorer of the Athenian democracy, in 403 B. C. , had
undertaken to speak against the Spartans, who had come with proposals of
peace, but afterwards excused himself, pretending to be labouring under a
sore throat, brought on by eating wild pears (B. C. 393). The Athenians
suspected him of having been bribed by the Spartans.
[683] A coined word, derived from [Greek: _achras_], a wild pear.
[684] Amynon was not a physician, according to the Scholiast, but one of
those orators called [Greek: europr_oktoi] (_laticuli_) 'wide-arsed,'
because addicted to habits of pathic vice, and was invoked by Blepyrus
for that reason.
[685] A doctor notorious for his dissolute life.
[686] The Grecian goddess who presided over child-birth.
[687] He is afraid lest some comic poet should surprise him in his
ridiculous position and might cause a laugh at his expense upon the
stage.
[688] In accordance with a quaint Athenian custom a rope daubed with
vermilion was drawn across from end to end of the Agora (market-place) by
officials of the city at the last moment before the Ecclesia, or Public
Assembly, was to meet.
Any citizen trying to evade his duty to be present
was liable to have his white robe streaked red, and so be exposed to
general ridicule on finally putting in an appearance on the Pnyx.
[689] A parody on a verse in 'The Myrmidons' of Aeschylus. --Antilochus
was the son of Nestor; he was killed by Memnon, when defending his
father.
[690] See above.
[691] He was very poor, and his cloak was such a mass of holes that one
might doubt his having one at all. This surname, Evaeon ([Greek: eu
ai_on], delicious life) had doubtless been given him on the 'lucus a non'
principle because of his wretchedness.
[692] Apparently a wealthy corn-factor.
[693] Presumably this refers to the grandson of Nicias, the leader of the
expedition to Sicily; he must have been sixteen or seventeen years old
about that time, since, according to Lysias, Niceratus, the son of the
great Nicias, was killed in 405 B. C. and had left a son of tender age
behind him, who bore the name of his grandfather.
[694] That is, the pale-faced folk in the Assembly already referred
to--really the women there present surreptitiously.
[695] To eat cuttle-fish was synonymous with enjoying the highest
felicity.
[696] A common vulgar saying, used among the Athenians, as much as to
say, _To the devil with interruptions! _
[697] This stood in the centre of the market-place.
[698] It was the custom at Athens to draw lots to decide in which Court
each dicast should serve; Praxagora proposes to apply the same system to
decide the dining station for each citizen.
[699] In Greek [Greek: h_e basileius]([Greek: stoa], understood), the
first letter a [Greek: b_eta.
