Note 766 — Chapter LIV · TRUCE FOR ONE YEAR.—RENEWAL OF WAR AND BATTLE OF AMPHIPOLIS.—PEACE OF NIKIAS. (continued 2)

See the Arguments prefixed to these three plays; and Acharn. 475, Equit. 881.

It is not known whether the first comedy, entitled The Clouds (represented in the earlier part of B.C. 423, a year after the Knights, and a year before the Wasps), appeared at the Lenæan festival of January, or at the urban Dionysia in March. It was unsuccessful, and the poet partially altered it with the view to a second representation. If it be true that this second representation took place during the year immediately following (B.C. 422: see Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, ad ann. 422), it must have been at the urban Dionysia in March, just at the time when the truce for one year was coming to a close; for the Wasps was represented in that year at the Lenæan festival, and the same poet would hardly be likely to bring out two plays. The inference which Ranke draws from Nubes 310, that it was represented at the Dionysia, is not, however, very conclusive (Ranke, Commentat. de Aristoph. Vitâ, p. ccxxi, prefixed to his edition of the Plutus).