Ἀλλὰ τιμὴ τοῖσι χρηστοῖς, ὅστις εὖ λογίζεται.
[763] It appears that the complaint was made ostensibly against Kalistratus, in whose name the poet brought out the “Babylonians,” (Schol. ad Arist. Vesp. 1284), and who was of course the responsible party, though the real author was doubtless perfectly well known. The Knights was the first play brought out by the poet in his own name.
[764] See Acharn. 377, with the Scholia, and the anonymous biography of Aristophanês.
Both Meineke (Aristoph. Fragm. Comic. Gr. vol. ii, p. 966) and Ranke (Commentat. de Aristoph. Vitâ, p. cccxxx) try to divine the plot of the “Babylonians;” but there is no sufficient information to assist them.
[765] Aristoph. Acharn. 355-475.
[766] See the Arguments prefixed to these three plays; and Acharn. 475, Equit. 881.
It is not known whether the first comedy, entitled The Clouds (represented in the earlier part of B.C. 423, a year after the Knights, and a year before the Wasps), appeared at the Lenæan festival of January, or at the urban Dionysia in March. It was unsuccessful, and the poet partially altered it with the view to a second representation. If it be true that this second representation took place during the year immediately following (B.C. 422: see Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, ad ann. 422), it must have been at the urban Dionysia in March, just at the time when the truce for one year was coming to a close; for the Wasps was represented in that year at the Lenæan festival, and the same poet would hardly be likely to bring out two plays. The inference which Ranke draws from Nubes 310, that it was represented at the Dionysia, is not, however, very conclusive (Ranke, Commentat. de Aristoph. Vitâ, p. ccxxi, prefixed to his edition of the Plutus).
[767] See the obscure passage, Vespæ, 1285, seqq.; Aristoph. Vita Anonymi, p. xiii, ed. Bekker; Demosthen. cont. Meid. p. 532.
It appears that Aristophanês was of Æginetan parentage (Acharn. 629); so that the γραφὴ ξενίας (indictment for undue assumption of the rights of an Athenian citizen) was founded upon a real fact. Between the time of the conquest of Ægina by Athens, and the expulsion of the native inhabitants in the first year of the Peloponnesian war (an interval of about twenty years), probably no inconsiderable number of Æginetans became intermingled or intermarried with Athenian citizens. Especially men of poetical talent in the subject-cities would find it their interest to repair to Athens: Ion came from Chios, and Achæus from Eretria; both tragic composers.
The comic author Eupolis seems also to have directed some taunts against the foreign origin of Aristophanês, if Meineke is correct in his interpretation of a passage (Historia Comicor. Græc. i, p. 111).