¹ von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U., Aristoteles und Athen ii 343 ffGoogle Scholar.

² Schmid, W., Geschichte der griechischen Literatur I iv 2.1 204 ff.Google Scholar

³ T. Gelzer, R.E. Supplementband xii, Aristophanes (12) (Nachtrag) (also published separately as Aristophanes der Komiker), col. 1467 ff.

⁴ Russo, C. F., Aristofane autore di teatro 298 fGoogle Scholar. (City Dionysia 411). These four works will henceforward be cited by author's name only.

⁵ Rhodes, P. J., The Athenian Boule 185 f.Google Scholar, 190.

⁶ Schol. Th. 32 is useless for our purpose: it tells us that Agathon but all we know independently on that subject is that he was victorious at the Lenaia in 417/6 (Athen. v 217a). Statements by modern scholars that his first Dionysian production was in 414 are merely inferences from the Aristophanic scholion.

⁷ By the Parian Chronicle: Jacoby, F., FGH 239Google Scholar A 63.

⁸ By Apollodoros (Jacoby, F., FGH 244Google Scholar F 35), who says he died ‘the same year as Sophokles’: Sophokles' death is mentioned under 406/5 by Diodoros xiii 103.4.

⁹ Vita Euripidis 44–47 Nauck: Sophokles presented his chorus in mourning and without crowns.

¹⁰ xiii 8.1; Wilamowitz is to be corrected on this point.

¹¹ Lamachos' death, Th. vi 101.6. According to B. Meritt, D., The Athenian ϒear 218Google Scholar, the year 414/3 began on July 29; and Andrewes, A., in Gomme-Andrewes-Dover, , A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, note on v 25.3Google Scholar, shows that the evidence virtually excludes Lamachos' having been killed so late as August.

¹² Th. viii 42. Henceforward references to Thucydides will, unless otherwise indicated, be to the eighth book; references to other books will be distinguished by an asterisk.

¹³ B. B. Rogers, ed., The Thesmophoriazusae of Aristophanes p. xxxviii. (References to this work are to the original edition; for the 1920 reprint all Roman numerals here given should be increased by four.)

¹⁴ See, pro, Russo 3–21; contra, Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., The Dramatic Festivals of Athens ² (rev. J. Gould-D. M. Lewis) 39Google Scholar f.

¹⁵ On Wasps 1326 (Troiades) and Birds 348 (Andromeda) and 424 f. (Phoinissai). In the latter two cases the unlucky commentator is named as Asklepiades.

¹⁶ The Athenian ϒear 218.

¹⁷ It was so taken by Gelzer, col. 1474, and by me in an earlier version of this paper; I am grateful to Professor A. Andrewes for pointing out the error.

¹⁸ Cf. Ar. fr. 81 (from Babylonians) and Peace 395: the reputation was of long standing.

¹⁹ For the earliest date on which an Assembly could take place after the City Dionysia was 12 April; and on the most generous interpretation of the length of the Thucydidean winter there is not then enough time for the events of Thuc. 54.4–60 to take place before the end of it.

²⁰ In vv. 1231 ff., where there is a striking juxtaposition: ‘At present (νũν) when we go to Sparta sober <on embassies>, we immediately look to see what we can throw into confusion; so we don't hear what they do say and make guesses about what they don't say, and make different reports about the same thing. But this time (νυνί) everything was satisfactory.’ Here ‘at present’ refers to real life, ‘this time’ to the world of the play.

²¹ Did Aristophanes originally write and (e.g.) (cf. the familiar etc.), and at the last moment substitute and ( being metrically unsuitable)

²² So Busolt, G., Griechische Geschichte iii 1471Google Scholar, who deduces the date from the relationship between events at Samos and Athens on the one hand, and naval movements on the other.

²³ Lang, M., ‘The Revolution of the 400: Chronology and Constitutions’, AJPh 88 (1967) 176–87Google Scholar.

²⁴ First made, so far as I know, by Lewis, D. M., ‘The Phoenician Fleet in 411’, Historia 7 (1958) 392Google Scholar; see also Meritt, B. D. in Hesperia 33 (1964) 228–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ The doubts raised by Pritchett, , CP 60 (1965) 259–61Google Scholar, are not entirely stilled by Meritt, CP 61 (1966) 182–4; cf. also Gomme, A. W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides iii 703 ffGoogle Scholar.

²⁶ Lang, op. cit. 179.

²⁷ Or else that there was a similar delay in Athens between the arrival there of the conspirators and the ‘first assembly’: Lang, op. cit. 181, rightly rejects this suggestion, and in her ‘summary timetable’, p. 183, allows the conspirators about a fortnight in Athens before the assembly—though Thuc. 53.1, which says nothing about any delay at all, might be taken to imply that Peisandros addressed the assembly the first time it met after his arrival.

²⁸ Lang, op. cit. 181–3.

²⁹ As Lang herself points out (op. cit. 178), ‘that the treaty belongs very soon after 29 March is made likely by Thucydides' statement that it was still winter when the treaty was made’. The need to accommodate the 80 days of Thuc. 44.4 does not require us to delay the treaty until 10 April or so, for the timetable is flexible at two points: (1) its starting point is not, as usually stated, the winter solstice, but the sailing of a fleet under Antisthenes about the time of the winter solstice (Thuc. 39.1); (2) ‘eighty days’ may be a round figure covering anything from 75 upwards. In the 56-day timetable given below between an early ‘first assembly’ and a March 30th treaty, the departure of the Peloponnesian fleet from Rhodes comes around day 47, say 21 March; 75 days back from this by inclusive reckoning brings us to 6 January, which would be quite consistent with Antisthenes' fleet having left the Peloponnese a week, or even less than a week, before the solstice on December 24th.

³⁰ Thuc. 44.4; 55.1; 55.3.

³¹ The latest date proposed for the assembly (and surely the latest possible, if time is to be allowed for the events of Thuc. 56–60) is mid-March, still nearly a month before the City Dionysia.

³² Rogers, ed., Thesmophoriazusae p. xxxi f.

³³ The naval movements cf Thuc. 39–42, beginning ‘about the winter solstice’, run without a break until the battle; they can hardly be taken (and so far as I know never have been taken, except by Rogers who seems to proceed by impressionism rather than calculation) to cover more than about 20 days, if that.

³⁴ A scholion on the line seems to point the same way, stating that Charminos for by 410 Phrynichos was dead. But since Phrynichos was deprived of his office by the ‘first assembly’, possibly before the Lenaia and certainly before the City Dionysia of 411 (Thuc. 54.3), the scholiast's rather vague phraseology should not be pressed.

³⁵ Cf. Thuc. 69.4–70.1, esp.

³⁶ E.g. O. Müller and Wilamowitz 344.

³⁷ Corruption might be expected to proceed, if at all, from ϕήσεις to the more obvious ϕήσει, not vice versa.

³⁸ Except that since the sources of our scholia evidently knew the date of the play, it is odd, if the date is 410, that they did not think of explaining the passage by reference to the dispersal of the boule by the Four Hundred (Wilamowitz 344). But argument from silence is particularly dangerous when dealing with the scholia in cod. R of Aristophanes, which are known to have been drastically abridged.

³⁹ E.g. Schmid 205 n. 1.

⁴⁰ Lang, op. cit. 181 n. 6, giving χειμών here the same ‘elastic’ meaning which, following Meritt, she assigns to it in Thucydides.

⁴¹ At this date the morning setting occurred about 5 November: Bickerman, E. J., Chronology of the Ancient World 143Google Scholar.

⁴² Schmid 204 f.; Russo 259 (who, however, regards both plays as Dionysian).

⁴³ Helen and Andromeda had been produced the previous year, Palamedes in 415, all at the City Dionysia, for the evidence strongly suggests that Euripides never produced at the Lenaia: see Russo 290–94 and T. B. L. Webster, The Tragedies of Euripides, ch. 1. Palamedes is guaranteed as Dionysian by the didascalic notice preserved by Aelian Var. Hist. ii 8, which states that it was part of a tetralogy.

⁴⁴ Russo 298 f., holding that Lys., though produced along with Th. at the City Dionysia, was ‘progettata’ and presumably partly written before Th. was begun.

⁴⁵ Wasps 1029–47; cf. D. M. MacDowelľs notes on 1029, 1038, 1044.

⁴⁶ Rogers, ed., Thesmophoriazusae p. xxxiv.

⁴⁷ Thuc. 1.3; Diod. xii 75; Bekkeri Anecd. i 298.

⁴⁸ And constitutional reform, if we accept (as I would not) the harmonisation of Thucydides and the Athenaion Politeia proposed by Lang, , ‘The Revolution of the 400’, AJPh 69 (1948) 272–89Google Scholar (not to be confused with the 1967 paper cited in note 23).

⁴⁹ The Athenian Boule 185 f.

⁵⁰ Cf. the law referred to by Dem. xxiv 29: It is not quite clear which festival the law relates to, but there is no reason to believe that the same principles did not hold for all festivals. The sacrilege committed in Th., of course, was most emphatically

⁵¹ Rhodes, , The Athenian Boule 180Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ An exception is H. van Daele, who in his introduction to Th. in the Budé Aristophanes (p. 11, n. 1) remarked upon the improbability that a ‘pièce à thèse politique’ should have been produced at the City Dionysia ‘en pleine période ďeffervescences, de suspicions et de violences’. The historians tend to be more perceptive on the matter.

⁵⁶ Peisandros concerted tactics with the hetaireiai before leaving Athens, making arrangements ‘to avoid further delay’ ( Thuc. 54.4); and the next we hear of events at Athens (65.2) is the assassination of Androkles which marked the start of the reign of terror. It has thus been generally and rightly assumed that this occurred not long after Peisandros' departure; and even Lang, (AJPh 88 (1967) 181)Google Scholar, who places the ‘first assembly’ later than anyone else, says that by the City Dionysia ‘politics were (had to be?) studiously avoided in favour of literary escapism’—and that though she mistakenly places the Dionysia in March instead of April. For a possible objection based on Th. 356 ff., see the Appendix.

⁵⁷ This is admitted by Gelzer (1467.67–1468.2). Dr P. J. Rhodes has suggested that Aristophanes' silence might be explicable if in 410 ‘feelings [were] so strong that Ar. thought it better to play safe’; but for one thing this does not account for the fact that even about less sensitive events (such as naval victories) the silence is deafening, and for another, if Th. was produced in 410, far from ‘playing safe’ Aristophanes attacks the oligarchic coup and the leading democrat Kleophon in the same breath (805–9). (Rhodes argues in effect that that passage could have been added shortly before production, when tensions had eased; the plausibility of this suggestion must be judged in the light of the other evidence, positive and negative, presented in this paper.)

⁵⁸ Busolt puts the breakdown of the negotiations before the end of February, and Peisandros' arrival in Athens in late May; we cannot tell how long it was before he left Samos, but that does not matter to the point I am making—whether in Samos or going round the islands, the oligarchs were in no hurry. Lang, , AJPh 88 (1967) 179Google Scholar, has Peisandros leaving Samos in the second week of April and reaching Athens in the last week of May.

⁵⁹ This is Lang's view in both her 1948 and 1967 articles. In the latter, in reply to the criticisms of Hignett, C., A History of the Athenian Constitution 364Google Scholar, she points out (p. 179) that ‘even if news of the third treaty between Sparta and Tissaphernes had reached Athens before Peisander's return the deception could still have been carried out, since it must have been as clear to onlookers as it was to the signers that Spartan-Persian treaties at this time had little real effect and had constantly to be replaced. Until news came of strong Persian support to the Spartans Peisander and his colleagues could even claim that Tissaphernes had made the third treaty in order to keep the Spartans quiet and unsuspicious while he waited for the Athenians to achieve the degree of oligarchy he had set as the price of his help’. And such strong Persian support was never given either before or during the ascendancy of the Four Hundred.

⁶⁰ From this last reference Dover, K. J., Aristophanic Comedy 170Google Scholar, thinks he can infer that Lys. is more likely to have been produced at the Lenaia, for in that case ‘the reference to barbarian enemies is one about which the Athenians could feel selfrighteous’; an idea which is found in the scholion on the passage. But such a reference, gratifying to Athens and a reproach against Sparta, is exactly what is not wanted in the context. The body of Lysistrata's speech is composed of three well-marked sections, divided by comments (mostly irrelevant) from her addressees: (a) criticism of Athenians and Spartans κοινῇ (1129) for waging a Greek civil war (1128–35); (b) criticism of Spartans for forgetting how they were once ‘saved’ by Kimon (1137–1146); (c) criticism of Athenians for forgetting how Sparta helped them to overthrow Hippias (1149–56). The line about barbarian enemies comes in (a), and it would destroy the carefully maintained balance of the scene if at this point Lysistrata were to make a one-sided jibe at the Spartans; it must be a thrust at a spot where both sides are vulnerable. By itself, therefore, this passage does not provide the mileage Dover wants from it. Incidentally, although the passage proves that at least some Athenians were hoping to enlist Persia as an ally, it does not prove that the play is later than the ‘first assembly’; for such hopes must already have existed before that assembly, seeing that nobody, when challenged by Peisandros, claimed to have any hope of αωτηρία except by persuading the King to change sides (Thuc. 53.2–3).

⁶¹ de Ste Croix, G. E. M., The Origins of the Peloponnesian War 358Google Scholar.

⁶² Just as ten years previously in Peace (possibility of joint Athenian-Spartan hegemony, 1082; danger of Persian domination if war continues, 108, 406 ff.).

⁶³ Hypothesis I to Lys., sub finem.

⁶⁴ Knights 792–809 (Kleon prolonging war to divert attention from his own crimes), 1388–95 (Demos presented with σπονδαί τριακοντούτιδϵς); Frogs 1531–3 (if Athens acts sensibly she can save herself from suffering and battle).

⁶⁵ Wasps 464 ff., 473 ff. (mention of Brasidas), 488 ff. (mention of Hippias 502); Birds 1074 f.; Lys. 616 ff. (Hippias 619, Spartans 629). Cf. also Knights 447 ff. (‘Your grandfather was a bodyguard to Hippias' wife’).

⁶⁶ As by Gelzer 1468.37 ff. Dover, , Aristophanic Comedy 171 f.Google Scholar, supposes that when Aristophanes says tyranny he means oligarchy; but the singular at Th. 339 confirms what we would expect from a consideration of Aristophanes' references to tyranny in other plays—that he means the rule of one man such as Hippias. No doubt democratic politicians were eager to misrepresent oligarchic movements as plots to establish a tyranny; the hatred of tyranny in popular consciousness was far stronger, and besides, plotting tyranny was a legal crime and advocating oligarchy probably was not (cf. note 82). But Aristophanes had for years, right up to Lysistrata, laughed at the politicians for doing precisely this; are we to suppose he now does it himself?

^66a Individually each passage can be explained away (338 f. as part of the standard curse, 1143 f. as, in Rogers' words, ‘a mere ordinary democratic compliment’); but why two of them, and why is this attitude to tyranny taken only in this play? The metrical incongruity of 1143 f. with its context is also relevant: ‘only the bacchiac line, the cry to Athena, arrests the quick [prosodiac] movement and strikes a note of sudden gravity’ (Dale, A. M., The Lyric Metres of Greek Drama ²166 f.)Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ MSS, with slight variations, which must be wrong; no emendation is convincing, and the translation is highly tentative.

⁶⁸ Thuc. 54.2.

⁶⁹ Thuc. 65.2; the murder was surely before the Dionysia, cf. note 56.

⁷⁰ G. E. M. de Ste Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War, Appendix XXIX.

⁷¹ Soph., Ant. 737Google Scholar.

⁷² Knights 1098 f., where Demos entrusts himself to the Sausage-seller, γερονταγωγεĩν κἀναπαιδεύειν πάλιν; Birds 125 f.Google Scholar, where the speaker may be Peisetairos rather than Euelpides (cf. Marzullo, B. in Philologus 114 (1970) 181 ff.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷³ I do not wish to be understood as taking up any position on the details of this proposal.

⁷⁴ I do not know whether it is also relevant that the play is set at a festival of Demeter and Kore, the very deities whom Alkibiades had offended by his profanation of the Mysteries; probably not, since the comic opportunities offered by a secret women's festival are a sufficient explanation for this—indeed these opportunities were so tempting that Aristophanes later wrote another Thesmophoriazusae.

⁷⁵ On the last point cf. Frogs 718 ff., and on the whole subject de Ste Croix, loc. cit.

⁷⁸ Frogs 1432.

⁷⁷ By Professor Andrewes (personal communication), to whom I again express my thanks.

⁷⁸ Cf. LSJ s.v.

⁷⁹ Dover, , Aristophanic Comedy 170 f.Google Scholar, who tries by a rather strained interpretation to apply the clause to the oligarchs.

⁸⁰ See Schreiner, J., De corpore iuris Atheniensium (Diss. Bonn 1913) 16Google Scholar; Ostwald, M., Nomos and the Beginnings of Athenian Democracy 2Google Scholar; Rhodes, P. J., The Athenian Boule 49Google Scholar.

⁸¹ One may compare the use of μεταστρέϕειν and ἀντιστρέϕειν in similar senses, e.g. Ar. Ach. 537, Arist. An. Pr. 59b4 (cf. sense 5 of ἀντιστρέϕειν in W. D. Ross's note on ib. 25a6).

⁸² It seems likely that until the summer of 410 the only Athenian law for the protection of the constitution was the law against tyranny cited by Arist., Ath. Pol. xvi 10Google Scholar; the decree of Demophantos (Andok. i 96–8; first prytany of 410/09) broadened the terms of the old law to include any kind of and increased the penalty from to death, when events had shown that this was necessary. See Ostwald, M., ‘The Athenian Legislation against Tyranny and Subversion’, TAPhA 86 (1955) 103–28Google Scholar. This view is confirmed by the curious fact that in Aristophanes the expressions and (with their cognates) are in ‘complementary distribution’, the former occurring only before the decree of Demophantos (except for Pl. 124 and fr. 357, which relate to Zeus and to the mythical Thoas), the latter only thereafter (Ec. 453, Pl. 948). If Athens made an offence in some of the allied states, that proves nothing about the legal position in Athens itself. Nor does the suspension of the at the Kolonos assembly (Thuc. 67.2) prove that constitutional changes in an oligarchic sense were contrary to law; a did not need to be justified in order to be effective at least in delaying the implementation of the proposal impugned until its legality had been judicially confirmed, and delay would be fatal once the true nature of the oligarchs' scheme was known (on this cf. Hignett, , A History of the Athenian Constitution 276, 359–60)Google Scholar.