fondness for introducing lame heroes in his plays.
11
An allusion to the proverbial nickname applied to the Chians (in Greek)—'crapping Chian.' There is a further joke, of course, in connection with the hundred and one frivolous pretexts which the Athenians invented for exacting contributions from the maritime allies.
12
Masters of Pylos and Sphacteria, the Athenians had brought home the three hundred prisoners taken in the latter place in 425 B.C.; the Spartans had several times sent envoys to offer peace and to demand back both Pylos and the prisoners, but the Athenian pride had caused these proposals to be long refused. Finally the prisoners had been given up in 423 B.C., but the War was continued nevertheless.
13
An important town in Eastern Laconia on the Argolic gulf, celebrated for a temple where a festival was held annually in honour of Achilles. It had been taken and pillaged by the Athenians in the second year of the Peloponnesian War, 430 B.C. As he utters this imprecation, War throws some leeks, the root-word of the name Praisae, into his mortar.
14
War throws some garlic into his mortar as emblematical of the city of Megara, where it was grown in abundance.
15
Because the smell of bruised garlic causes the eyes to water.
16
He throws cheese into the mortar as emblematical of Sicily, on account of its rich pastures.
17
Emblematical of Athens. They honey of Mount Hymettus was famous.
18
Cleon, who had lately fallen before Amphipolis, in 422 B.C.
19
An island in the Aegean Sea, on the coast of Thrace and opposite the mouth of the Hebrus; the Mysteries are said to have found their first home in this island, where the Cabirian gods were worshipped; this cult, shrouded in deep mystery to even the initiates themselves, has remained an almost insoluble problem for the modern critic. It was said that the wishes of the initiates were always granted, and they were feared as to-day the 'jettatori' (spell-throwers, casters of the evil eye) in Sicily are feared.
20
Brasidas perished in Thrace in the same battle as Cleon at Amphipolis, 422 B.C.
21
An Athenian general as ambitious as he was brave. In 423 B.C. he had failed in an enterprise against Heracles, a storm having destroyed his fleet. Since then he had distingued himself in several actions, and was destined, some years later, to share the command of the expedition to Sicily with Alcibiades and Nicias.
22
Meaning, to start a military expedition.
23
Cleon.
24
The Chorus insist on the conventional choric dance.
25
One of the most favourite games with the Greeks. A stick was set upright in the ground and to this the beam of a balance was attached by its centre. Two vessels were hung from the extremities of the beam so as to balance; beneath these two other and larger dishes were placed and filled with water, and in the middle of each a brazen figure, called Manes, was stood. The game consisted in throwing drops of wine from an agreed distance into one or the other vessel, so that, dragged downwards by the weight of the liquor, it bumped against Manes.
26
A general of austere habits; he disposed of all his property to pay the cost of a naval expedition, in which he beat the fleet of the foe off the promontory of Rhium in 429 B.C.
27
The Lyceum was a portico ornamented with paintings and surrounded with gardens, in which military exercises took place.
28
A citizen of Miletus, who betrayed his country to the people of Pirene. When asked what he purposed, he replied, "Nothing bad," which expression had therefore passed into a proverb.
29
Hermes was the god of chance.
30
As the soldiers had to do when starting on an expedition.
31
That is, you are predicated.
32
The initiated were thought to enjoy greater happiness after death.
33
He summons Zeus to reveal Trygaeus' conspiracy.
