Note 528 — Chapter LXVII · THE DRAMA. — RHETORIC AND DIALECTICS. — THE SOPHISTS.

The view which I am here combating, is very general among the German writers; in proof of which, I may point to three of the ablest recent critics on the old comedy, Bergk, Meineke, and Ranke; all most useful writers for the understanding of Aristophanês.

Respecting Kratinus, Bergk observes: “Erat enim Cratinus, pariter atque ceteri principes antiquæ comœdiæ, vir egregie moratus, idemque antiqui moris tenax.... Cum Cratinus quasi divinitus videret ex hac libertate mox tanquam ex stirpe aliquâ nimiam licentiam existere et nasci, statim his initiis graviter adversatus est, videturque Cimonem tanquam exemplum boni et honesti civis proposuisse,” etc.

“Nam Cratinus cum esset magno ingenio et eximiâ morum gravitate, ægerrime tulit rem publicam præceps in perniciem ruere: omnem igitur operam atque omne studium eo contulit, ut imagine ipsius vitæ ante oculos positâ omnes et res divinæ et humanæ emendarentur, hominumque animi ad honestatem colendam incenderentur. Hoc sibi primus et proposuit Cratinus, et propositum strenue persecutus est. Sed si ipsam Veritatem, cujus imago oculis obversabatur, oculis subjecisset, verendum erat ne tædio obrueret eos qui spectarent, nihilque prorsus eorum, quæ summo studio persequebatur, obtineret. Quare eximiâ quâdam arte pulchram effigiem hilaremque formam finxit, ita tamen ut ad veritatem sublimemque ejus speciem referret omnia: sic cum ludicris miscet seria, ut et vulgus haberet quî delectaretur; et qui plus ingenio valerent, ipsam veritatem, quæ ex omnibus fabularum partibus perluceret, mente et cogitatione comprehenderent.” ... “Jam vero Cratinum in fabulis componendis id unice spectavisse quod esset verum, ne veteres quidem latuit.... Aristophanes autem idem et secutus semper est et sæpe professus.” (Bergk, De Reliquiis Comœd. Antiq. pp. 1, 10, 20, 233, etc.)

The criticism of Ranke (Commentatio de Vitâ Aristophanis, pp. ccxli, cccxiv, cccxlii, ccclxix, ccclxxiii, cdxxxiv, etc.) adopts the same strain of eulogy as to the lofty and virtuous purposes of Aristophanês. Compare also the eulogy bestowed by Meineke on the monitorial value of the old comedy (Historia Comic. Græc. pp. 39, 50, 165, etc.), and similar praises by Westermann; Geschichte der Beredsamkeit in Griechenland und Rom. sect. 36.

In one of the arguments prefixed to the “Pax” of Aristophanês, the author is so full of the conception of these poets as public instructors or advisers, that he tells us, absurdly enough, they were for that reason called διδάσκαλοι: οὐδὲν γὰρ συμβούλων διέφερον· ὅθεν αὐτοὺς καὶ διδασκάλους ὠνόμαζον· ὅτι πάντα τὰ πρόσφορα διὰ δραμάτων αὐτοὺς ἐδίδασκον (p. 244, ed. Bekk.).

This is the early judgment of Horace (Serm. i, 4, 1): his later opinion on the Fescennina licentia, which was the same in spirit as the old Grecian comedy, is much more judicious (Epistol. ii, 1, 145): compare Art. Poetic. 224. To assume that the persons derided or vilified by these comic authors must always have deserved what was said of them, is indeed a striking evidence of the value of the maxim: “Fortiter calumniare; semper aliquid restat.” Without doubt, their indiscriminate libel sometimes wounded a suitable subject; in what proportion of cases, we have no means of determining: but the perusal of Aristophanês tends to justify the epithets which Lucian puts into the mouth of Dialogus respecting Aristophanês and Eupolis—not to favor the opinions of the authors whom I have cited above (Lucian, Jov. Accus. vol. ii, p. 832). He calls Eupolis and Aristophanês δεινοὺς ἄνδρας ἐπικερτομῆσαι τὰ σεμνὰ καὶ χλευάσαι τὰ καλῶς ἔχοντα.

When we notice what Aristophanês himself says respecting the other comic poets, his predecessors and contemporaries, we shall find it far from countenancing the exalted censorial function which Bergk and others ascribe to them (see the Parabasis in the Nubes, 530, seq., and in the Pax, 723). It seems especially preposterous to conceive Kratinus in that character; of whom what we chiefly know, is his habit of drunkenness, and the downright, unadorned vituperation in which he indulged: see the Fragments and story of his last play, Πυτίνη (in Meineke, vol. ii, p. 116; also Meineke, vol. i, p. 48, seq.).

Meineke copies (p. 46) from Suidas a statement (v. Ἐπείου δειλότερος) to the effect that Kratinus was ταξίαρχος τῆς Οἰνηΐδος φυλῆς. He construes this as a real fact: but there can hardly be a doubt that it is only a joke made by his contemporary comedians upon his fondness for wine; and not one of the worst among the many such jests which seem to have been then current. Runkel also, another editor of the Fragments of Kratinus (Cratini Fragment., Leips. 1827, p. 2, M. M. Runkel), construes this ταξίαρχος τῆς Οἰνηΐδος φυλῆς, as if it were a serious function; though he tells us about the general character of Kratinus: “De vitâ ipsâ et moribus pæne nihil dicere possumus: hoc solum constat, Cratinum poculis et puerorum amori valde deditum fuisse.”

Great numbers of Aristophanic jests have been transcribed as serious matter-of-fact, and have found their way into Grecian history. Whoever follows chapter vii of K. F. Hermann’s Griechische Staats-Alterthümer, containing the Innere Geschichte of the Athenian democracy, will see the most sweeping assertions made against the democratical institutions, on the authority of passages of Aristophanês: the same is the case with several of the other most learned German manuals of Grecian affairs.