why, as he says, the whole nation would have flown to arms at once to avenge the insult.
At this point he is interrupted. One party of the Acharnians are for making short work with such a blasphemer. But the other Semi-chorus vow that he says nothing but the truth, and dare them to lay hands upon him. A struggle ensues, and the war faction call aloud for Lamachus—the “Great Captain” of the day. And that general, being ready within call (as every one is who is required for stage purposes), makes his appearance in grand military costume, with an enormous crest towering over his helmet, and a gorgon’s head of gigantic dimensions upon his shield. He speaks in heroics, as befits him:—
“Whence falls that sound of battle on mine ear?
Who needs my help? for Lamachus is here!
Whose summons bids me to the field repair,
And wakes my slumbering gorgon from her lair?”
Dicæopolis is paralysed at the terrible vision, and humbly begs pardon of the hero for what he has said. Lamachus bids him repeat his words:—
“Dic. I—I can’t remember—I’m so terrified.
The terror of that crest quite turned me dizzy:
Do take the hobgoblin away from me, I beseech you.[21]
Lam. (takes off his helmet.) There then.
Dic. Now turn it upside down.
Lam. See, there.
Dic. Now give me one of the feathers.”—(F.)
And, to the general’s great disgust, he pretends to use it to tickle his throat. He is so terribly frightened he must be sick. Lamachus draws his sword, and makes at the scoffer; but in the tussle the general (to the great amusement, no doubt, of the audience) gets the worst of it. He indignantly demands to know who this vulgar fellow is, who has no respect for dignities:—
“Dic. I’ll tell ye—an honest man; that’s what I am.
A citizen that has served his time in the army,
As a foot-soldier, fairly; not like you,
Pilfering and drawing pay with a pack of foreigners.”—(F.)
He appeals to his audience—did any of them ever get sent out as High Commissioners, with large salaries, like Lamachus? Not one of them. The whole administration of the Athenian war office is nothing but rank jobbery. The general, finding the argument taking a rather personal and unpleasant turn, goes off, with loud threats of what he will do to the Spartans; and Dicæopolis, assuming his own acquittal by the Acharnians, proclaims, on the strength of his private treaty of peace, a free and open market on his farm for Megarians and Thebans, and all the Peloponnesian Greeks.
An interval between what we should call the acts of the play is filled up by a “Parabasis” as it was termed—a chant in which the Chorus pleads the author’s cause with the audience. By his comedy of ‘The Babylonians,’ produced the year before, he had drawn upon him, as has been already said, the wrath of Cleon and his party, and they had even gone so far as to bring an indictment against him for treason against the state. And he now, by the mouth of the Chorus, makes a kind of half-apology for his former boldness, and assures the spectators that he has never been really disloyal to Athens. As to Cleon the tanner—he will “cut him into shoe-soles for the Knights;” and we have already seen how he kept his word.
When the regular action of the comedy is resumed, Dicæopolis has opened his free market. The first who comes to take advantage of it is an unfortunate Megarian, who has been reduced to poverty by the war. His native district, lying midway between the two powerful neighbours, had in its perplexity taken what they thought the strongest side, had put an Athenian garrison to the sword, and had suffered terribly from the vengeance of the Athenians in consequence. They had been excluded, on pain of death, from all ports and markets within the Athenian rule, and twice in every year orders were given to march into their territory and destroy their crops. The misery to which the wretched inhabitants were thus reduced is described with a grim humour. The Megarian, having nothing else left to dispose of, has brought his two little daughters to market for sale.