[256] The celebrated painter, born at Heraclea, a
contemporary of Aristophanes.
[257] A deme and frontier fortress of Attica, near
the Boeotian border.
[258] An Athenian physician of the day.
[259] An allusion to the paroxysms of rage, as represented
in many tragedies familiar to an Athenian audience,
of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, after he had killed
his mother.
[260] No doubt the comic poet, rival of Aristophanes.
[261] Unexpected wind-up of the story. Aristophanes
intends to deride the boasting of Lamachus, who was
always ascribing to himself most unlikely exploits.
The ‘Peace’ was brought out four years
after ‘The Acharnians’ (422 B.C.), when
the War had already lasted ten years. The leading
motive is the same as in the former play—the
intense desire of the less excitable and more moderate-minded
citizens for relief from the miseries of war.
Trygaeus, a rustic patriot, finding no help in men,
resolves to ascend to heaven to expostulate personally
with Zeus for allowing this wretched state of things
to continue. With this object he has fed and trained
a gigantic dung-beetle, which he mounts, and is carried,
like Bellerophon on Pegasus, on an aerial journey.
Eventually he reaches Olympus, only to find that the
gods have gone elsewhere, and that the heavenly abode
is occupied solely by the demon of War, who is busy
pounding up the Greek States in a huge mortar.
However, his benevolent purpose is not in vain; for
learning from Hermes that the goddess Peace has been
cast into a pit, where she is kept a fast prisoner,
he calls upon the different peoples of Hellas to make
a united effort and rescue her, and with their help
drags her out and brings her back in triumph to earth.
The play concludes with the restoration of the goddess
to her ancient honours, the festivities of the rustic
population and the nuptials of Trygaeus with Opora
(Harvest), handmaiden of Peace, represented as a pretty
courtesan.
Such references as there are to Cleon in this play
are noteworthy. The great Demagogue was now dead,
having fallen in the same action as the rival Spartan
general, the renowned Brasidas, before Amphipolis,
and whatever Aristophanes says here of his old enemy
is conceived in the spirit of ‘de mortuis nil
nisi bonum.’ In one scene Hermes is descanting
on the evils which had nearly ruined Athens and declares
that ’The Tanner’ was the cause of them
all. But Trygaeus interrupts him with the words:
“Hold—say not so, good
master Hermes;
Let the man rest in peace where now he
lies.
He is no longer of our world, but yours.”
Here surely we have a trait of magnanimity on the
author’s part as admirable in its way as the
wit and boldness of his former attacks had been in
theirs.
