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Aristophanes., Starkie, W. J. M. ed. (William Joseph Myles), 1860-1920.
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Page I
THE
ACHARNIANS OF ARISTOPHANES

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THE ACHARNIANS
OF
ARISTOPHANES

WITH INTRODUCTION
ENGLISH PROSE TRANSLATION, CRITICAL NOTES
AND COMMENTARY
BY
W. J. M. STARKIE, M.A.
HON. LITT. D., DUBLIN
RESIDENT COMMISSIONER OF NATIONAL EDUCATION, IRELAND
LATE PRESIDENT OF THE QUEEN'S COLLEGE, GALWAY
SOMETIME FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN
EDITOR OF THE VESPAE

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1909

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REGIAE SCHOLAE
SA L OPVENSI
TPOOiEIA

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PREFACE

THE present edition of the Acharnians forms the second part of
a complete commentary on Aristophanes which I hope to publish
in the next few years, provided that my health, and the forbearance of my publishers do not fail. The first part-the Wasps,which was intended as an introduction to the whole, appeared in
Messrs. Macmillan's "Classical Series," so long ago as 1897.
Hitherto, absorbing official duties have delayed the progress of
the work: but much of it is already written, and I am not
without hope that the succeeding instalments may be published,
at regular intervals, during the next ten years.
I have learned much from my predecessors, and my obligations to them are acknowledged on every page of my work. But
I am constrained to confess that we, commentators, are a laughterless folk ('agelasts,' as George Meredith styled us), and 'the
dog,' Aristophanes, 'too witty and too profane is' to surrender
his secret to other than kindred spirits. The heart of old Attic
comedy can be studied best in the plays of one who, having less
than little Greek, was incapable of reading it. To me at least
the works of Shakespeare have been more helpful in interpreting
the humours of Aristophanes than the whole quire of commentators and brochure-writers,- Greek, French, German, and
English.
My translation of the play is in prose, as I have neither the
ability nor the desire to attempt to rival the brilliant verse
renderings of Frere, Rogers, and Tyrrell. Apart from that consideration, I am convinced that the peculiar humour of old Attic
comedy moves awkwardly in modern verse. At any rate, in the
Elizabethan drama the most Aristophanic characters (e.g. Falstaff)
invariably employ prose. For this reason I have tried to give a
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THE ACHARNIANS OF ARISTOPHANES

Shakespearean flavour to my style. To imitate Shakespeare
argues some temerity, but the attempt was, in my opinion,
worth making. There was much in common between the ages of
Pericles and Elizabeth which impressed itself upon the language
of Aristophanes and Shakespeare, so full is it of the freshness,
daring, and intellectual vigour of those extraordinary days, when,
as it seems, everyone, from heroes to catchpoles, spoke in a
tongue that was of imagination all compact.
In distributing the choric parts between the leaders of the
Chorus, I have been much assisted by J. W. White's article, 'An
unrecognized actor in Greek comedy.' The best Codices assign
all such parts to the whole Chorus, but they are unsafe guides
in this matter. I have noted, with perhaps unnecessary care,
all the instances of the misuse of the paragraphus in the
Ravennas, in order to show that its employment is quite
arbitrary. As is well known, the intelligence of the reader was
unassisted in early times even by the paragraphus, and the
traditional distribution of roles, as given in the Codices (but
not in R, which, at least in the Acharnians, mostly has the
paragraphus), is due to the Scholiasts, who were the least
intelligent of men.
The text which I have adopted may be said to be conservative.
I have sought to defend the text of the best Codices against rash
alterations, but I have not printed anything which, in my opinion,
is not fairly defensible. In the following passages I have ventured
to print suggestions of my own, viz.: 11. 13, 24 sq., 101, 327,
412, 610, 731, 924, 957, 1093, 1150. I am convinced that,
in 1. 610, I have restored the hand of the poet, from traces in
the Ravennas.
I have not been able to make any use of Mr. Rennie's
scholarly edition of the Acharnians which was not available
until my commentary had been printed off.
In conclusion, I must record my gratitude to Messrs.
R. & R. Clark, and to their reader Mr. F. E. Webb, for the
extraordinary accuracy with which they have printed from a
very difficult MS.
W. J. M. STARKIE.
TYRONE HOUSE, DUBLIN,
June 28, 1909.

Page IX
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION:
PAGE
I. THE YOUTH OF ARISTOPHANES, AND THE EARLY YEARS OF
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR... xi
II. ANALYSIS OF THE ACHARNES.... XXX
III. ARISTOTLE ON THE LAUGHTER IN COMEDY.. xxxiii
IV. THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE ACHARNS... lxxiv
V. METRICAL ANALYSIS. lxxxi
VI. ARISTOPHANIC LITERATURE..... lxxxvi
TEXT, TRANSLATION, CRITICAL NOTES AND COMMENTARY..
EXCURSUSES I.-IX.........241
INDEX RERUM........ 255
INDEX GRAECITATIS...... 258

ix

b

Page XI
INTRODUCTION
I
THE YOUTH OF ARISTOPHANES AND THE EARLY YEARS
OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

THE date of the birth of Aristophanes is unknown;l and it is
not even certain that he was, by origin, a genuine Athenian.
According to the most prevalent tradition, he was descended from
an Aeginetan stock,2 while others have recorded that he was born
at Lindus in Cyprus,3 or at Naucratis in Egypt.4 A scholiast
informs us that he was 'almost a stripling' when he produced
the Banqueters5; but this seems to be an exaggeration, as
a moral-satirist of tender years is an improbable phenomenon.6
It has been plausibly argued that his birth should be placed
before the law of Pericles excluding from citizenship children not
born of two Athenian burghers. The date of this enactment was
451 B.c., and it is not improbable that the birth of Aristophanes
should be assigned to that year, as such a supposition would
explain the ambiguity of his position.7 Without being an alien,
he might have been accused of foreign birth, as having been born
in the year of the great purification of the register. It is possible

On the question of Aristophanes'
birth see Roland Kent, Class. Rev. xix.
(1905), pp. 153 sqq.
2 cp. 653 n.
3 cp. Anon. vita xii. 5 (Bergk), and
v. Leeuwen, Prolegom. p. 171.
4 cp. Suidas s.v. Aristophanes, schol.
NVb. 272, Athen. 229 E, v. Leeuwen, ib.
p. 179 n. 5. (On the authority of Heliodorus cp. FHG. iv. p. 425, Fr. 5.)

5 In 427 B.C.; cp. schol. Ran. 504
(o^xeb'v /UeLpaKtoKoS).
6 cp. Kaibel in Pauly-Wissowa, Realcncycl. ii. p. 971.
7 cp. [Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 26. 4 (where
see Sandys), v. Leeuwen, ib. p. 39,
Beloch, Gr. Gesch. i. p. 471; Holnm, Grk.
Hist. ii. p. 206 n. 1, thinks it was only a
solitary measure which was not effective
beyond the year in which it was passed.
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THE ACHARNIANS OF ARISTOPHANES

that his ancestors settled in Attica in 500 B.C., during the war
between Athens and Aegina, when many Athenian sympathizers
abandoned the island.1 Philippus, the father of the poet, may
have been one of these.
Whether the birth of Aristophanes should be placed in
451 B.C. or, as some hold, in 446 B.C., he was born at a time
when the Athenian empire had reached the highest point of its
splendid development, and before the battle of Coronea had
shattered Pericles' hopes of an united Greece under the hegemony
of Athens, and the revolt of Euboea2 had shown how assailable
her existing empire was from the circumference.
The memories were still fresh of the battles of giants at
Marathon and Salamis, when the gods themselves descended,
in order to take their stand beside the Greek heroes in the
national struggle against Persia.3 Many of the 'ancients' of
those Epic contests were still in the flesh, and were exalted to
the rank of the heroes of the Theban and the Trojan wars.4 The
names of Aristides and Xanthippus were still on men's lips.
Themistocles, ostracized through Spartan influences, had only
recently ended his troubled life at Magnesia.5 Cimon, the hero
of the poet's party in later days, had just been recalled from exile,
and had recovered some portion of his great popularity.6 The
Athenian sphere of influence, partly due to her patriotism in the
national struggle, but mainly to the supineness and corruption of
the Spartans, had extended from Attica over the whole world as
known to the Greeks, and Athens was able to negotiate with
Persia as an equal power.7 Under Cimon's rggime, it had seemed
for a moment that an union of the Greek race had become a
political possibility. The only apparent obstacle was the existence
of the great Dorian military state, Sparta. But Cimon's goodnatured indulgence 8 for a time successfully lulled the suspicions
of that jealous centre of reaction.
The magnanimous and pleasure-loving nature of Cimon won
him the affectionate regard of the literary circles at Athens. He
was extolled by the comic poets as 'leader of united Greece,' even
1 cp. Herod. vi. 90, v. Leeuwen, ib. 6 cp. Holm, ib. pp. 174 sqq.
p. 39, Pauly-Wissowa, ib. i. p. 967. 7 e.g. at the time of the so-called
2 446 B.C. 'Peace of Cimon'; cp. Holm, ib. p. 179
3 cp. Pans. i. 15. 32, xii. 10. 10. n. 7, ib. p. 259 n. 9, Busolt, Gr. Gesch.
4 cp. 181 n. IIl. i. p. 347 n. 2.
5 cp. Beloch, ib. pp. 458 sqq. 8 cp. Holm, ib. p. 134.

Page XIII
THE YOUTH OF ARISTOPHANES

Xili

by Cratinus,1 who never failed to attack the other popular leaders
'with the public lash.' 2
Aristophanes seems to have been educated in the political school
of Cimon from his earliest years. The ideal of that statesman, viz.
the union of all Greek states in amity against the common foe,
never ceased to be the passionate desire of his life.3 This
attractive policy long continued to influence poetic, imaginative
spirits like Aristophanes, or theorists like Isocrates, but bitter
experience soon demonstrated that the Greek temperament was
incapable of political union. The ideal of every Greek community
was complete independence.4 A representative, or federal, system
of government was never realized, even in a small state such as
Athens.5 In Greece, individuals often received the rights of
citizenship in a foreign state; but, unlike Rome, neither Athens
nor Sparta ever admitted allied communities, such as Euboea or
the Cyclades, to political privileges. Thus Athens could become
the capital of her empire only by establishing a tyranny; 6
she could secure the hegemony of Greece only by conquering
Sparta.
This truth, which the successive downfalls of Athens and
Sparta rapidly demonstrated, was never learnt by Cimon, or by
Aristophanes.
And yet it had become obvious to deeper thinkers, such as
Themistocles,7 early in the fifth century B.C., and was admitted by
most statesmen when the ungracious rejection by Sparta of
Cimon's assistance in the Messenian war 8 dissolved the Spartan
alliance, and established the ascendancy of Pericles and Ephialtes,
who had opposed the policy of Cimon.
After that untoward event Athens and Sparta drifted apart,
and a chain of events was established which made the
Peloponnesian war inevitable. One interesting attempt was
made to create a religious head in Greece, when Pericles
summoned deputies to Athens to discuss the restoration of the
1 cp. Cratinus, who calls him dvbp 6eios 3 Pax 302 sq. i5 IHavhXXves, fBoOSowKaL pLXokevTraros I Kai 7rdvr' dpLa-ros TWv Ir ev eterep 7r&7rore, \ rdseWv adlraayXXCv&Te
Ilave\XX\'vv 7rp6tos (i. p. 11 K.; ii. p. Kai KaKWV OtLVLKtKWV.
15 M.), Beloch, ib. p. 461. 4 cp. Holm, ib. p. 242.
2 Platonius 2. Repi c&aq. ap. (p. 6 5 cp. Beloch, ib. p. 497.
Kaibel), (KpaTrtvo) arwws, Kara rnv 7rapoL- 6, 3. 2.
iav YyvfV1^ rT KE^aX\ Tiarn s Sar- Tcp. Thuc. 11. 63. 2, i. 3 2.
L7nias Kaac TeWY.ELapTav6vTWv, Tzetzes, 7 Cp. Beloch, ib. p. 459.
lIept Kwc#8slas i. (p. 18 Kaibel) W&0rep 8 In 463 B.c.; cp. Thuc. i. 102. 4,
o7/VloaTia cTitLy TV? K.j0j ilaL KOX\d6v. Holm, ib. p. 134, Beloch, ib. p. 463.

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THE ACHARNIANS OF ARISTOPHANES

Greek shrines burnt by the barbarians.' But Spartan jealousy
defeated this promising scheme. Henceforth it was clear to all
who were willing to see that there were, in Greece, two
irreconcilable ideals, and that the decision between them should
be made by means of the sword.
But the time was not ripe for the conflict. The Athenian
empire was not yet firmly established, and Sparta had been much
weakened by the Messenian war. For some years Pericles' policy
was peace and retrenchment. From the outset of his career his
aim was to consolidate the League,2 and to strengthen the navy
against the impending struggle which he clearly perceived that
Spartan jealousy and Corinthian commercial greed3 would
inevitably entail. The funds of the League were transferred front
Delos to Athens;4 the temple of Pallas, the patroness of the
League, became the Treasury, and the contributions of the allies
were employed to strengthen the fleet, and to adorn the Acropolis,
as the centre of the religion of the empire. Thus, in a more
restricted sense, Athens became, or, at least, was intended to
become, the religious and artistic centre of Greece.5
Such was the position of Athens during the early years of
Aristophanes.
Subsequently to the poet's birth, for some twenty years, his
father, Philippus, lived quietly on his estilte, in the deme
Cydathenaeon. Though not a noble, he probably enjoyed, to
the full, 'the fair possessions' and 'expensive.ountry establishments' described by Thucydides.6 In temperament, the poet
always remained a lover of country life, and to t lis he owed 'the
native wood-notes wild' which lend to the thoruses in the
Birds, Clouds and Peace a beauty which can be paralleled only
in the songs of Shakespeare, or in a few of the ether lyrics of
the age of Elizabeth. As his home was not far frcm the city, it
is probable that the poet often visited Athens with I is father, and
had some share in the cultivated life that centred there, in the
extraordinary era that divided the 'Thirty Years' Peace' from the
commencement of the Peloponnesian war.7 As a boy he saw the
1 Perhaps soon after 460 B.C.; Op. 5 cp. Thuc. ii. 41. 1 uvveXbv re X\yw
Holm, ib. p. 238. Tv r&cav w r6XLwv r7 'EXXcdos wralsevoiv
2 cp. Beloch, ib. p. 488. eTvac.
3 cp. Holm, ib. p. 327 n. 8. 6 p. Thuc. ii. 65. 2.
4 Perhaps in 454 B.C.; cp. Holm, ib.
pp. 216, 226 n. 6. 7 445 B.C.-431 B.C.

Page XV
THE YOUTH OF ARISTOPHANES

XV

Parthenon rising from its foundations;' the unveiling of the great
statue of Athena;2 the completion of the Propylaea,3 and the
laying of the foundations of the Erechtheum,4 destined not to be
finished until the fatal year of Aegospotami.
As the most brilliant society at Athens was open to all
comers,5 he may have met the historian Herodotus, whose work
he read and often parodied;6 he certainly had opportunities of
seeing Hippodamus, the adorner of the Piraeus; Ictinus and
Callicrates, the architects of the Parthenon; Mnesicles, the famous
constructor of the Propylaea; the sculptor Phidias; the painters
Polygnotus, Micon and Myron, who were decorating the Poecile
and the Theseum; the musicians Damon and Lampon and the
poets Sophocles, Euripides, Cratinus, and his compeers. The
centre of social life at Athens was the house of Aspasia, which,
at this time, was much frequented by the philosophers Zeno,
Protagoras and Socrates. It is probable that the poet was early
taught by his conservative father to discern certain tendencies
in their teaching destructive of the antique simplicity of thought
that he had learned to love.
Such may have been the current of his life until 'the
hurricane of war was set abroach for all the Greeks, in lieu of
a leash of giglot wenches.'
After 431 B.C., for twenty-seven years, with a comparatively
short interval, the life of the poet and his country friends
became a long-drawn dream of horror. As described in
Thucydides,7 and in the comedies, the policy of Pericles spelt
ruin for the farmers. Hitherto Athens as a world-power had
suffered from one disadvantage: though she commanded the sea,
the soil of Attica was open to Peloponnesian raids; 'while, if
they lived in an island, they might have done what evil they
liked, while they suffered none.' 8
During the Peloponnesian war, the aim of the war-party was
to convert Athens into a fortress instead of a city,9 so as to
assimilate her, as far as might be, to an insular power. The
country-houses were dismantled; the cattle driven across to
1 op. Holm, ib. p. 265. 6 cp. Ach. 70, 74, 86, 524 sqq.
2 In 438 B.C.
3 In 432 B.C.; cp. Holm, ib. p. 267. 7 cp. ii. 14 sqq., Bnsolt, Gr. Gesch. iiI.
4 cp. Holm, ib. p. 269. ii. p. 925 n. 3.
5 cp. Xen. Symp. 1. 11, M. Croiset, 8 cp. [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2. 14.
Aristophane et les partis t Athenes, pp.
20 sqq. 9 cp. Thuc. vii. 28. 2.

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THE ACHARNIANS OF ARISTOPHANES

Euboea and the neighbouring islands; the farmers and small
land-owners, who were unused to city-life, and had rarely visited
even the Agora, were cooped up in the city, with their
innumerable slaves and dependants, where no preparation had
been made for their reception. Few of them could find a roof
to cover them; the majority were forced to encamp in the
deserted parts of the city, in smoky cabins,' in casks and
holes,2 even in the temples and shrines, and within the
Pelasgic wall where it was unlawful to dwell.3 Meanwhile, in
their deserted and pillaged farms, the cicala could find no branch
on which to rest, and was forced to shrill its notes on the
ground.4
Such being the conditions of life, in which perhaps 250,000
people were condemned to live during the stifling heat of an
Athenian summer, it is not strange that the war soon became
unpopular, and that all parties combined for once to destroy the
author of the war, the autocrat who for fifteen years had
governed them in a liberal spirit, without pandering to their
desires.5
To the proper understanding of the comedies of Aristophanes,
it is of great importance to obtain a clear idea of the views
and aims of the different parties that divided Athens at the
beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Thucydides is of little
assistance, as he consistently eschews internal politics, but there
is abundant evidence on the subject in Euripides and Aristophanes.
'There are three classes of citizens,' says a character in the
Suppliant Women of Euripides, 'first, the prosperous and
useless, ever hungering for more; secondly, those who, possessing
naught and lacking the means of luxury, pierce the rich with the
stings of malice, and are bought and sold by the tongues of rascal
demagogues; thirdly, the middle class, who are the salvation of
the State, and the upholders of the constitution.' In other
words, these three classes represented 7 (1) 'the extreme right,'
viz. the oligarchs, the successors of Isagoras, who, in the sixth
century, aided the Spartans in their attempt to overthrow the
1 cp. Thuc.
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