ARISTOPHANES, a celebrated comic poet of Athens. He was contemporary with Plato, Socrates, and Euripides; and most of his plays were written during the Peloponnesian war. His imagination was warm and lively, and his genius particularly turned to raillery. He had also great spirit and resolution, and was a declared enemy to the war party, and to all the numerous reformers in politics and religion. The Athenians suffered themselves in his time to be governed by men who had no other views than to make themselves masters of the commonwealth. Aristophanes exposed the designs of these men with great wit and severity upon the stage. Cleon was the first whom he attacked, in his comedy of the Knights, performed in B.C. 425; and as there was not one of the comedians who would venture to personate a man of his great authority, Aristophanes played the character himself, and with so much success, that the Athenians obliged Cleon to pay a fine of five talents, which were given to the poet. He described the affairs of the Athe-
nians in so exact a manner that his comedies may be regarded as a nearly faithful picture of his time. For this reason, when Dionysius king of Syracuse desired to learn the state and language of Athens, Plato sent him the comedies of Aristophanes. He wrote above 50 comedies, but there are only 11 extant which are perfect: these are, Plutus, the Clouds, the Frogs, the Knights, the Acharnians, the Wasps, Peace, the Birds, the Ecclesiastus or Female Orators, the Thesmophoriazus or Priestesses of Demeter, and Lysistrata. The Clouds, which he wrote in ridicule of Socrates, is the most celebrated of all his comedies. Having conceived some aversion to the poet Euripides, Aristophanes satirizes him in several of his plays, particularly in his Frogs and his Thesmophoriazus. He wrote his Peace in the 10th year of the Peloponnesian war, when a treaty of 50 years was concluded between the Athenians and the Lacedæmonians, though it continued but seven years. The Acharnians was written with a view to set forth the blessings of peace, and to dissuade the people from intrusting the safety of the commonwealth to such generals as Lamachus. Soon after, B.C. 415, he represented his Birds, by which he pictured to the Athenians the deplorable condition of their state and their political situation. The Wasps was written after the loss in Sicily, which the Athenians suffered from the misconduct of Chares. He wrote the Lysistrata when all Greece was involved in war; in which comedy the women are introduced debating upon the affairs of the commonwealth, when they come to a resolution not to go to bed with their husbands till a peace should be concluded. His Plutus, and other comedies of that kind, were written after the magistrates had given orders that no person should be exposed by name upon the stage. He invented a peculiar kind of verse, which was called by his name, and is mentioned by Cicero in his Brutus; and Suidas says that he also was the inventor of the tetrameter and octameter verse.
Aristophanes was greatly admired among the ancients, especially for the true Attic elegance of his style. The time of his death is unknown; but it is certain that he was living after the expulsion of the tyrants by Thrasylbulus, whom he mentions in his Plutus and other comedies.
There have been many editions of the works of Aristophanes. The editio princeps, printed by Aldus at Venice in 1498, in folio, is a rare and beautiful volume. The best edition is that of Brunck, printed at Strasburg in 1781-3, in 4 vols. 8vo, and reprinted at Oxford in 1810. Nicodemus Frischin, a German, famous for his classical knowledge in the sixteenth century, translated Plutus, the Clouds, the Frogs, the Knights, and the Acharnians, into Latin verse. Quintus Septimius Florens rendered into Latin verse the Wasps, the Peace, and Lysistrata; but his translation is full of obsolete words and phrases. Madame Dacier published at Paris, in 1692, a French version of Plutus and of the Clouds, with critical notes, and an examination of them according to the rules of the theatre. Theobald likewise translated these two comedies into English, and published them with remarks. Cumberland gave a translation of the Clouds in his Observer, accompanied with an able view of the life and genius of the author. A translation of the greater part of Aristophanes, with introductions of considerable length, has been published by Mr. Mitchell, in 2 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1820-22.
ARISTOPHANES of Byzantium, the founder of the Alexandrian Critical School, who is said to have invented the system of Greek accents and method of punctuation. He was the master of Aristarchus the grammarian. He flourished in the reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes, about 200 years B.C., and was the author of several exegetical and grammatical works which are lost.