[303] Which the inspector had brought with him for the purpose of inaugurating the assemblies of the people or some tribunal.
[304] So that the sacrifices might no longer be interrupted.
[305] A disciple of Democrites; he passed over from superstition to atheism. The injustice and perversity of mankind led him to deny the existence of the gods, to lay bare the mysteries and to break the idols. The Athenians had put a price on his head, so he left Greece and perished soon afterwards in a storm at sea.
[306] By this jest Aristophanes means to imply that tyranny is dead, and that no one aspires to despotic power, though this silly accusation was constantly being raised by the demagogues and always favourably received by the populace.
[307] A poulterer.—Strouthian, used in joke to designate him, as if from the name of his 'deme,' is derived from [Greek: strouthos], a sparrow. The birds' foe is thus grotesquely furnished with an ornithological surname.
[308] From Aphrodité (Venus), to whom he had awarded the apple, prize of beauty, in the contest of the "goddesses three."
[309] Laurium was an Athenian deme at the extremity of the Attic peninsula containing valuable silver mines, the revenues of which were largely employed in the maintenance of the fleet and payment of the crews. The "owls of Laurium," of course, mean pieces of money; the Athenian coinage was stamped with a representation of an owl, the bird of Athené.
[310] A pun impossible to keep in English, on the two meanings of the word [Greek: aetos], which signifies both an eagle and the gable of a house or pediment of a temple.
[311] That is, birds' crops, into which they could stow away plenty of good things.
[312] The Ancients appear to have placed metal discs over statues standing in the open air, to save them from injury from the weather, etc.