See Bergk, De Reliquiis Comœd. Antiq. p. 142, seq.; Meineke, Frag. Cratini, vol. ii, p. 93, Ὀδυσσεῖς: compare also the first volume of the same work, p. 43: also Runkel, Cratini Fragm. p. 38 (Leips. 1827).
[525] Aristophanês boasts that he was the first comic composer who selected great and powerful men for his objects of attack: his predecessors, he affirms, had meddled only with small vermin and rags: ἐς τὰ ῥάκια σκώπτοντας ἀεὶ, καὶ τοῖς φθειρσὶν πολεμοῦντας (Pac. 724-736; Vesp. 1030).
But this cannot be true in point of fact, since we know that no man was more bitterly assailed by the comic authors of his day than Periklês. It ought to be added, that though Aristophanês doubtless attacked the powerful men, he did not leave the smaller persons unmolested.
[526] Aristoph. Ran. 1067; also Vesp. 1095. Æschylus reproaches Euripidês:—
Εἶτ᾽ αὖ λαλίαν ἐπιτηδεῦσαι καὶ στωμυλίαν ἐδίδαξας,
Ἣ ᾽ξεκένωσεν τάς τε παλαίστρας, καὶ τὰς πυγὰς ἐνέτριψε
Τῶν μειρακίων στωμυλλομένων, καὶ τοὺς παράλους ἀνέπεισεν
Ἀνταγορεύειν τοῖς ἄρχουσιν. Καίτοι τότε γ᾽, ἡνίκ᾽ ἐγὼ ᾽ζων,
Οὐκ ἠπίσταντ᾽ ἀλλ᾽ ἢ μᾶζαν καλέσαι καὶ ῥυππαπαὶ εἰπεῖν.
Τὸ ῥυππαπαὶ seems to have been the peculiar cry or chorus of the seamen on shipboard, probably when some joint pull or effort of force was required: compare Vespæ, 909.