On the Date of the Clouds of Aristophanes. It is well known, that the comedy of Aristophanes, called the Clouds, was altered by the author from a former comedy, which bore the same name, and which is now lost. The first edition of the Clouds was represented in the first year of the eighty-ninth Olympiad, Isarchus being Archon. On that occasion, the first prize was gained by Cratinus, the second by Amipsias, and the third by Aristophanes. As each of the ten tribes, into which the citizens of Athens were divided, chose a competitor for the three prizes of Comedy in each contest, seven poets out of ten obtained no prize at all. Aristophanes, however, appears to have been much less gratified by the preference which he obtained over seven of his rivals, than mortified by being compelled to yield the first and second prizes to Cratinus and Amipsias. Of Cratinus, in particular, he had spoken with the utmost contempt, in the Knights (vv. 523-533. ed. Kuster.), which were acted the preceding year, as of a superannuated drunkard, who was intitled to respect merely on account of his former merit. In the Wasps, which were acted the year after the first edition of the Clouds, Aristophanes complains very bitterly of the ill success of that play. (vv. 1010-1045.) In those days, there was no permanent theatre at Athens, and tragedies and comedies were acted only twice a year, at the feasts of Bacchus. It was usual for those poets, who obtained no prize at all, or a prize inferior to their expectation, to alter and correct their plays, and to produce them again on the stage on a subsequent occasion, when they frequently met with a better reception than at first. Aristophanes adopted this practice with respect to the Clouds, the second edition, or are of which play, has descended to modern times. We learn from the author of the Argument, that this second attempt was so far from proving successful, that the poet did not obtain any one of the three prizes. According to the same author, the second Clouds were represented one year after the first, in the magistracy of Amynias. This assertion of the writer of the Argument has occasioned much perplexity to the learned men, who have endeavoured to ascertain the date of each of the plays of Aristophanes. In the second Clouds (v. 550.) Cleon is spoken of as dead, who is well known to have been killed at the battle of Amphipolis, in the magistracy of Alcæus, who was the next Archon after Amynias. The Maricas of Eupolis is mentioned in the same passage. The Maricas of Eupolis, as we are informed by the Scholiast on the authority of Callimachus, in a passage which I shall hereafter have occasion to produce, was acted two years (rgiT Ta) after the first Clouds, and of course one year after the date assigned to the second. In order to solve this difficulty, Samuel Petit supposes that there were three editions of the Clouds, and that the edition, which has been preserved, is the third. This hypothesis is embraced by Corsini (Fast. Att. 1. p. 240.) I apprehend that an easier solution of the difficulty may be given. In all probability, Aristotle, Callimachus, and Eratosthenes, who endeavoured to settle the chronology of the Attic stage, had no means in general of ascertaining the year in which each piece was represented, except the consultation of the Adarnaxía, or public register in which the names of the victors were recorded. There is no reason to suppose, that any mention was made in the 4da0nahías of the unsuccessful competitors. So that, except from internal evidence, it must have been impossible to ascertain the exact date of more than three-tenths of the plays which were acted. As the second Clouds of Aristophanes were unsuccessful, the date which is affixed to them seems not to be derived from the Register, but to be founded entirely on the supposition, that a poet, the first edition of whose play is condemned by the judges, will take the earliest opportunity of producing it again in an improved state. But this supposition appears to me to be very erroneous. Modern writers for the stage generally give the public time to forget their unsuccessful pieces, before they venture to reproduce them with alterations and improvements. It may be presumed that ancient poets were equally discreet. In one instance, indeed, we know that an interval of twenty years was suffered to elapse between the first and second editions of a Greek comedy. I allude to the Plutus of Aristophanes, which was acted in the fourth year of the ninety-seventh Olympiad, and which is the 4x of a former play bearing the same name, which was acted in the fourth year of the ninety-second Olympiad. See the Scholiast on vv. 173. 179. That the true date of the second Clouds was unknown, might easily have been collected from the words of the Scholiast on v. 549. ἐπεὶ οὐ φέρονται αἱ διδασκαλίαι τῶν δύο Νεφελῶν. Read, τῶν β ́ Νεφελῶν, that is to say, τῶν δευτέρων Νεφελῶν. The Scholiast communicates the following information in his note on v. 552. Ερατοσθένης δέ φησι, Καλλίμαχον ἐγκαλεῖν ταῖς Διδασκαλίαις, ὅτι φέρουσιν ὕστερον τρίτῳ ἔτει τὸν Μαρικῶν τῶν Νεφελῶν, σαφῶς ἐνταῦθα εἰρημένου, ὅτι πρότερον καθεῖται. λανθάνει δ ̓ αὐτὸν, φησίν, ὅτι ἐν μὲν ταῖς διδαχθείσαις οὐδὲν τοιοῦτον εἴρηκεν. ἐν δὲ ταῖς ὕστερον διασκευασθείσαις εἰ λέγεται, οὐδὲν ἄτοπον. αἱ διδασκαλίαι δὲ δῆλον ὅτι τὰς διδαχθείσας φέρουσι. If the Scholiast has given a faithful representation of the words of Eratosthenes, it is evident that Eratosthenes believed that the second Clouds had never been acted at all. It does not seem probable to me, that Aristophanes would take the trouble of altering a play, of the merit of which he entertained so high an opinion, without trying whether a second set of Kpital did not possess a little more taste than those, who assigned the last prize to the play in its original form. We have seen that Eratosthenes distinguished the two editions of the Clouds by the names of rais didaxleloais, those which were acted, and ταῖς ὕστερον διασκευασθείσαις, those which were afterwards altered. The learned Henry Dodwell, in his Annales Thucydidei, (pp. 161, 162.) has entirely mistaken the 'meaning of these appellations. Instead of perceiving that they relate to the comedy of the Clouds, he applies them to the Adarnaxia, or Register, as if there had been two sorts of Registers, the Διδασκαλίαι διδαχθεῖσαι and the Διδασκαλίαι διασκευασθεῖσαι. He pursues this blunder through a whole quarto page, and distinguishes the contents of the two sets of Registers as accurately as if he had seen them. That learned man possessed in an eminent degree the talent of constructing fair and spacious edifices with the slightest and scantiest materials. We are informed by the author of the Argument, that the prin cipal difference between the first and second editions of the Clouds, consisted in the Parabasis (vv. 411-437.), the dialogue between the Δίκαιος Λόγος and the "Αδικος Λόγος (νν. 886-1102.), and the last scene, in which Strepsiades sets fire to the school of Socrates. All these passages were added in the second edition. I am not aware that the first edition of the Clouds is ever quoted by name, except once by Athenæus. (p. 171. C.) The⚫ five verses which are produced by Athenæus, may be found in that edition of the Clouds which we now possess (vv. 1198-1202.) Brunck has referred to the first edition two fragments, which are said to be taken from the Clouds, and which do not occur in the second edition. It may be reasonably suspected, however, that the ancient authors who have preserved these two fragments, have attributed them to a wrong play. Such mistakes are extremely common in the quotations both of the ancients and the moderns. Bentley, for instance, in his Exedíaopa de Metris Terentianis, quotes the first verse of the Hecuba of Euripides, as the first verse of the Orestes. The following verse of the Clouds is produced by Photius v. Πάρνης : Πάρνης Εἰς τὴν Πάρνηθ ̓ ὀργισθεῖσαι φροῦδαι κατὰ τὸν Λυκαβηττόν. This verse, which is produced by Photius to prove that Пpvns is feminine, and which does not occur in the present edition of the Clouds, may probably be attributed to the first edition on internal evidence. Photius, or rather the author of the Comic Lexicon, from whom Photius has borrowed the best part of his Vocabulary, might have found an example of Пápvns in the feminine gender, in the play which now remains (v. 322.): 138 On the Date of the Clouds of Aristophanes. Βλέπε νῦν δευρὶ πρὸς τὴν Πάρνηθ'. ἤδη γὰρ ὁρῶ κατιούσας The second Clouds are twice quoted by Athenæus (pp. 229. B. 345. F.) The distinctness of these quotations, as well as his quotation from the first Clouds, render it probable that both editions were preserved in his time. As the time when the second Clouds were acted cannot be determined, and as the difference between the first and second editions appears to have consisted chiefly in additions made to the second edition, I advise those persons who read the plays of Aristophanes in chronological order, as they ought to be read, to read the Clouds immediately after the Acharnians and the Knights, and immediately before the Wasps. This would be the proper place of the first Clouds, if they had descended to our days. I hope that a future editor of Aristophanes will arrange all the plays in the order in which they were written, instead of retaining the order of the original manuscript, in which the last play is placed at the beginning. When I stated, at the beginning of this paper, that each of the ten tribes, into which the citizens of Athens were divided, chose a competitor for the three prizes of Comedy, I must be understood to speak only of the prosperous days of Athens. Towards the conclusion of the Peloponnesian war, it was found that private as well as public wealth was so much diminished, that each tribe could no longer supply the proper number of opulent citizens, as tragic and comic Xonyol at each of the feasts of Bacchus. Accordingly, in the magistracy of Callias, about one year before the fatal battle of Alys Пoral, the number of competitors was reduced from ten to five, and the expense of each Chorus was divided between two Xognyol, instead of being borne entirely by one, as had hitherto been the practice. For this information we are indebted to the Scholiast on Aristophanes (Ran. 406.), in a passage which has been neglected by the writers on Attic chronology. This reduction of the number of competitors appears to have been accompanied by some alteration in the number of the prizes and the form of the Adarnaxia or Register. In the arguments of most of the earlier plays of Aristophanes, the names of the poets to whom the three prizes were awarded, are, inserted, without any mention of the unsuccessful competitors. In the argument of the Plutus, which was acted seventeen years after the magistracy of Callias, all the five competitors are named, without any mention of the prizes. The only other play of Aristophanes, which was written after the diminution of the number of the competitors, is the 'Exxλnoiálovrai, from the conclusion of which (vv. 1146-1154.) it appears that at least one prize was still retained. P. E. L. ANNAEVS SENECA A M. ANTONIO. MVRETO CORRECTVS. ET. NOTIS AD MATTHAEVM. CONTARELLVM M. ANTONIVS MVRETVS, cujus morte incredibilem sane plagam acceperunt studia litterarum : qui erat acerrimo judicio in deligendis scriptoribus, qui erant legendi; ac studio, in assidue peruolutandis iis, quos semel delegerat : L. Annaeum Senecam tanti faciebat, vt eum no modo vt sapientissimum, quod omnes fatentur, verumetiam vt disertissimum, quod negant nonnulli, laudaret auctorem. Ab hoc enim ille non tantum praecepta viuendi, sed etiam ornamenta eloquendi peti posse dicebat. Nimirum ejus orationem pressam quidem esse ac subtilem, sed concinnam, ac splendidam, plenissimamque gravitatis: sententias enim ipsas ita frequentes, ut aequent prope numerum verborum; verba autem ita inter sese apta et cohaerentia, ut nullum movere loco possis, substituendi alterius gratia, quin corrumpatur; nullum tollere, quin concidat oratio. Ex quo, idem profitebatur, ab ejus se lectione meliorem quidem semper, et ad humana despicienda paratiorem ; sed tamen ornatiorem etiam, et ad dicendum, scribendumque instructiorem discedere. Hinc saepe illum in manibus habebat, sedulo euoluebat, et cupiebat, eumdem vt fructum ex eo perciperent homines eruditi, quam emendatissimum ipsorum in manus pervenire. Multas enim insedisse intelligebat in Seneca maculas, et librariorum incuria, et temporum longinquitate; multa subesse menda, ut ad perfecte eum intelligendum, et illae eluendae, et haec corrigenda esse viderentur. Et noverat sane aliquot Scholia in Senecam non ex Editione Romana, Mureto mortuo, per Franciscum Bencium curata, quam in ipsa Italia rariorem esse, testis est Checcotius in Praefat. p. 192. sed ex Parisina a. 1607. sumsimus. Romanae si facultas nobis fuisset, non neglexissemus ejusdem Bencii Praefationem addere; quae quin scite docteque scripta sit, dubitare non sinit reliqua hominis elegantia. D. R. PRÆF. ad Muret. XXI-14. |