[770] Like the Furies who composed the Chorus in Aeschylus' 'Eumenides.'
[771] A ravine into which criminals were hurled at Athens.
[772] During the winter the poor went into the public baths for shelter against the cold; they could even stop there all night; sometimes they burnt themselves by getting too near the furnace which heated the water.
[773] i.e. the most opposite things; the tyranny of Dionysius of Syracuse and the liberty which Thrasybulus restored to Athens.
[774] Crimes to which men are driven through poverty.
[775] The ancients placed statues of Hecaté at the cross-roads ([Greek: triodoi], places where three roads meet), because of the three names, Artemis, Phoebé and Hecaté, under which the same goddess was worshipped. On the first day of the month the rich had meals served before these statues and invited the poor to them.
[776] A verse from Euripides' lost play of 'Telephus.' The same line occurs in 'The Knights.'
[777] And not the citizens of Argos, whom agriculture and trade rendered wealthy.—Pauson was an Athenian painter, whose poverty had become a proverb. "Poorer than Pauson" was a common saying.
[778] There is here a long interval of time, during which Plutus is taken to the Temple of Aesculapius and cured of his blindness. In the first edition probably the Parabasis came in here; at all events a long choral ode must have intervened.
[779] The Athenians had erected a temple to Theseus and instituted feasts in his honour, which were still kept up in the days of Plutarch and Pausanias. Barley broth and other coarse foods were distributed among the poor.