[114] He uses the diminutive δραμάτιον.
[115] κατὰ ἰατρῶν (Stobæus, 102, 3). He was thus a precursor of Molière and Mr. Bernard Shaw.
[116] Diogenes Laertius, VII, 173.
[117] This point is made by Bernhardy, Grundriss der Gr. Litteratur II, ii. p. 72.
[118] His date is not, however, certain, and there is some reason to assign his floruit to the time of Alexander the Great.
[119] The most amazing example is that of the “Three Unities”—those of Action, Time, and Place—of which such a vast amount has been heard and which ruled tyrannically over French “classical” tragedy. It is difficult to believe that Aristotle never mentions the “Three Unities”. On the Unity of Action he has, of course, much to say; the Unity of Time is dismissed in one casual sentence. As to the Unity of Place there is not a word. (It is signally violated in the Eumenides and the Ajax.)
[120] Poetic, 1454a.
[121] Ibid.
[122] See Wilamowitz-Moellendorff’s magnificent Einleitung in die griechische Tragödie, pp. 48-51 (e.g. “nicht mehr Aristoteles der aesthetiker sondern Aristoteles der historiker ist der ausgangspunkt unserer betrachtung” and “unser fundament ist und bleibt was in der poetik steht”).
[123] Poetic, 1449b: ἔστιν οὖν τραγῳδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ χωρὶς ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰδῶν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις, δρώντων καὶ οὐ δι’ ἀπαγγελίας, δι’ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν.