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[284] Meaning, to start on a military expedition.

[285] Cleon.

[286] The Chorus insist on the conventional choric dance.

[287] One of the most favourite games with the Greeks. A stick was set
upright in the ground and to this the beam of a balance was attached by
its centre. Two vessels were hung from the extremities of the beam so as
to balance; beneath these two other and larger dishes were placed and
filled with water, and in the middle of each a brazen figure, called
Manes, was stood. The game consisted in throwing drops of wine from an
agreed distance into one or the other vessel, so that, dragged downwards
by the weight of the liquor, it bumped against Manes.

[288] A general of austere habits; he disposed of all his property to pay
the cost of a naval expedition, in which he beat the fleet of the foe off
the promontory of Rhium in 429 B. C.

[289] The Lyceum was a portico ornamented with paintings and surrounded
with gardens, in which military exercises took place.

[290] A citizen of Miletus, who betrayed his country to the people of
Priene. When asked what he purposed, he replied, "Nothing bad," which
expression had therefore passed into a proverb.

[291] Hermes was the god of chance.

[292] As the soldiers had to do when starting on an expedition.

[293] That is, you are pedicated.
[294] The initiated were thought to enjoy greater happiness after death.

[295] He summons Zeus to reveal Trygaeus' conspiracy.

[296] An Athenian captain, who later had the recall of Alcibiades decreed
by the Athenian people; in 'The Birds' Aristophanes represents him as a
cowardly braggart. He was the reactionary leader who established the
Oligarchical Government of the Four Hundred, 411 B. C. , after the failure
of the Syracusan expedition.

[297] Among other attributes, Hermes was the god of thieves.

[298] Alluding to the eclipses of the sun and the moon.

[299] The Panathenaea were dedicated to Athene, the Mysteries to Demeter,
the Dipolia to Zeus, the Adonia to Aphrodite and Adonis. Trygaeus
promises Hermes that he shall be worshipped in the place of all the other
gods.

[300] The pun here cannot be kept. The word [Greek: paian], Paean,
resembles [Greek: paiein], to strike; hence the word, as recalling the
blows and wounds of the war, seems of ill omen to Trygaeus.

[301] The device on his shield was a Gorgon's head. (_See_ 'The
Acharnians. ')

[302] Both Sparta and Athens had sought the alliance of the Argives; they
had kept themselves strictly neutral and had received pay from both
sides. But, the year after the production of 'The Wasps,' they openly
joined Athens, had attacked Epidaurus and got cut to pieces by the
Spartans.