[213] The law of Morychis, during the operation of which this play, like the Odysses of Cratinus and various others, seems to have been brought out, is interesting as an early instance of the influence of political events upon the development of early Athenian comedy, an influence entirely absent in the case of the romantic comedy.
[214] Thus the final disappearance of the parabasis, though an important enough event for the history of the form of Comedy, is but an incident in the real development of the art. This is shown by the fact that, when, under the law of Morychis, the parabasis was temporarily suspended, the result was the immediate appearance, at this date already, of plays which belong, in spirit, entirely to “Middle” Comedy.
[215] This means the school of Cratinus, when unrestricted by legislation, and allowed to take its own course. Prohibitive legislation naturally tended to put the two schools of comedy on much the same footing.
[216] The few exceptions will be considered presently. [[p. 127.]]
[217] [The author contemplated, but does not seem to have written, an Excursus on “Pericles and Aspasia.”]
[218] In neither of these must it, of course, be supposed that the erotic element was at all the leading motive. Most of the fragments of the Nemesis seem to refer to events which must be supposed to have taken place some time after the erotic incident had been closed, while in the Seriphii the description of Andromeda as δελέαστρα (Fr. 12) is the only allusion to her preserved. Indeed, it is vain in Cratinus to look for any leading motive at all, for, as Platonius says of him (de Com. p. 27), εὔστοχος ὢν ἐν ταῖς ἐπιβολαῖς τῶν δραμάτων καὶ διασκευαῖς, εἶτα προϊὼν καὶ διασπῶν τὰς ὑποθέσεις οὐκ ἀκολούθως πληροῖ τὰ δράματα.
[219] The apparent allusion to the Hetaera Myrrhina in Eupolis, Autolycus, Fr. 10, is too uncertain to be of any value.
[220] The Tyrannis (another suggestive title) also satirised the drunkenness of women (cp. the fragment ap. Athen. xi. 481 B). It may be remembered in this connection, that the introduction of drunken persons on the stage was an invention of his master Crates.
τὸν ἰδρῶτα καὶ τὴν ἄρδαν ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ σπόγγισον.