[686] The Grecian goddess who presided over child-birth.
[687] He is afraid lest some comic poet should surprise him in his ridiculous position and might cause a laugh at his expense upon the stage.
[688] In accordance with a quaint Athenian custom a rope daubed with vermilion was drawn across from end to end of the Agora (market-place) by officials of the city at the last moment before the Ecclesia, or Public Assembly, was to meet. Any citizen trying to evade his duty to be present was liable to have his white robe streaked red, and so be exposed to general ridicule on finally putting in an appearance on the Pnyx.
[689] A parody on a verse in 'The Myrmidons' of Aeschylus.—Antilochus was the son of Nestor; he was killed by Memnon, when defending his father.
[690] See above.
[691] He was very poor, and his cloak was such a mass of holes that one might doubt his having one at all. This surname, Evaeon ([Greek: eu ai_on], delicious life) had doubtless been given him on the 'lucus a non' principle because of his wretchedness.
[692] Apparently a wealthy corn-factor.
[693] Presumably this refers to the grandson of Nicias, the leader of the expedition to Sicily; he must have been sixteen or seventeen years old about that time, since, according to Lysias, Niceratus, the son of the great Nicias, was killed in 405 B.C. and had left a son of tender age behind him, who bore the name of his grandfather.
[694] That is, the pale-faced folk in the Assembly already referred to—really the women there present surreptitiously.
[695] To eat cuttle-fish was synonymous with enjoying the highest felicity.