Note 767 — Chapter LIV · TRUCE FOR ONE YEAR.—RENEWAL OF WAR AND BATTLE OF AMPHIPOLIS.—PEACE OF NIKIAS. (continued 2)

See the obscure passage, Vespæ, 1285, seqq.; Aristoph. Vita Anonymi, p. xiii, ed. Bekker; Demosthen. cont. Meid. p. 532.

It appears that Aristophanês was of Æginetan parentage (Acharn. 629); so that the γραφὴ ξενίας (indictment for undue assumption of the rights of an Athenian citizen) was founded upon a real fact. Between the time of the conquest of Ægina by Athens, and the expulsion of the native inhabitants in the first year of the Peloponnesian war (an interval of about twenty years), probably no inconsiderable number of Æginetans became intermingled or intermarried with Athenian citizens. Especially men of poetical talent in the subject-cities would find it their interest to repair to Athens: Ion came from Chios, and Achæus from Eretria; both tragic composers.

The comic author Eupolis seems also to have directed some taunts against the foreign origin of Aristophanês, if Meineke is correct in his interpretation of a passage (Historia Comicor. Græc. i, p. 111).