[455] He had helped to establish the oligarchical government of the Four Hundred, who had just been overthrown.
[456] The fight of Arginusae; the slaves who had fought there had been accorded their freedom.—The Plataeans had had the title of citizens since the battle of Marathon.
[457] Things were not going well for Athens at the time; it was only two years later, 404 B.C., that Lysander took the city.
[458] A demagogue; because he deceived the people, Aristophanes compares him with the washermen who cheated their clients by using some mixture that was cheaper than potash.
[459] Callistrates says that Clidemides was one of Sophocles' sons; Apollonius states him to have been an actor.
[460] Dionysus was, of course, the patron god of the drama and dramatic contests.
[461] The majestic grandeur of Aeschylus' periods, coupled with a touch of parody, is to be recognized in this piece.
[462] It is said that Euripides was the son of a fruit-seller.
[463] Euripides is constantly twitted by Aristophanes with his predilection for ragged beggars and vagabonds as characters in his plays.
[464] Bellerophon, Philoctetes, and Telephus, were all characters in different Tragedies of Euripides.