[59]
Aristophanes
speaks of him in 'The Birds' as a traitor and as an
alien who usurped the rights of the city.
alien who usurped the rights of the city.
Aristophanes
[46] The towns of Thrace, up to that time the faithful allies of Athens,
were beginning to throw off her yoke.
[47] Who fulfilled the office of president.
[48] Meaning, "Will it only remain for us to throw ourselves into the
water? " Helle, taken by a ram across the narrow strait, called the
Hellespont after her name, fell into the waves and was drowned.
[49] He is a prisoner inside, and speaks through the closed doors.
[50] This boiling, acid pickle reminds him of the fiery, acrid temper of
the heliasts.
[51] A name invented for the occasion; it really means, _Cleon who holds
the people in his snares_.
[52] When he entered Troy as a spy.
[53] The island of Naxos was taken by Cimon, in consequence of sedition
in the town of Naxos, about fifty years before the production of 'The
Wasps. '
[54] One of the titles under which Artemis, the goddess of the chase, was
worshipped.
[55] Demeter and Persephone. This was an accusation frequently brought
against people in Athens.
[56] An orator of great violence of speech and gesture.
[57] For Philocleon, the titulary god was Lycus, the son of Pandion, the
King of Athens, because a statue stood erected to him close to the spot
where the tribunals sat, and because he recognized no other fatherland
but the tribunals.
[58] A debauchee and an embezzler of public funds, already mentioned a
little above.
[59] Aristophanes speaks of him in 'The Birds' as a traitor and as an
alien who usurped the rights of the city.
[60] A Greek proverb signifying "Much ado about nothing. "
[61] A Spartan general, who perished in the same battle as Cleon, before
Amphipolis, in 422 B. C.
[62] Meaning, the mere beginnings of any matter.
[63] This 'figure of love'--woman atop of the man--is known in Greek as
[Greek: hippos] (Latin _equus_, 'the horse'); note the play upon words
with the name Hippias.
[64] A tragic poet, who was a great lover of good cheer, it appears.
[65] Old men, who carried olive branches in the processions of the
Panathenaea. Those whose great age or infirmity forbade their being used
for any other purpose were thus employed.
[66] An obscene pun. [Greek: Choiros] means both _a sow_ and the female
organ.
[67] A celebrated actor.
[68] There were two tragedies named 'Niobe,' one by Aeschylus and the
other by Sophocles, both now lost.
[69] A double strap, which flute-players applied to their lips and was
said to give softness to the tones.
[70] The shell was fixed over the seal to protect it.
[71] A calumniator and a traitor (see 'The Acharnians').